John Ashcroft - Political Career

Political Career

In 1972, Ashcroft ran for a Congressional seat in southwest Missouri in the Republican primary election, narrowly losing to Gene Taylor. After the primary, Missouri Governor Kit Bond appointed Ashcroft to the office of State Auditor, which Bond had vacated when he became Governor.

In 1974, Ashcroft was narrowly defeated for election to that post by Jackson County County Executive George W. Lehr, who argued that Ashcroft, who is not an accountant, was not qualified to be the State Auditor. Missouri Attorney General John Danforth, who was then in his second term, hired Ashcroft as an Assistant Attorney General. During his tenure there, Ashcroft shared an office with future U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas. (In 2001, Thomas administered Ashcroft's oath of office as U.S. Attorney General.)

In 1976, Danforth was elected to the U.S. Senate, and Ashcroft was elected to replace him as State Attorney General. In 1980, Ashcroft was re-elected with 64.5 percent of the vote and winning 96 of Missouri's 114 counties.

Read more about this topic:  John Ashcroft

Famous quotes containing the words political career, political and/or career:

    It is my settled opinion, after some years as a political correspondent, that no one is attracted to a political career in the first place unless he is socially or emotionally crippled.
    Auberon Waugh (b. 1939)

    I would wish that the women of our country could embrace ... [the responsibilities] of citizenship as peculiarly their own. If they could apply their higher sense of service and responsibility, their freshness of enthusiasm, their capacity for organization to this problem, it would become, as it should become, an issue of profound patriotism. The whole plane of political life would be lifted.
    Herbert Hoover (1874–1964)

    I’ve been in the twilight of my career longer than most people have had their career.
    Martina Navratilova (b. 1956)