across the aisle. he was friendly with president reagan, who of course is a republican. he was known to go golfing with dan quayle. meanwhile, his fellow democrats, they all loved him. they chose to elevate him into leadership by the end of just his second term in the senate, he was the number three democrat in the whole senate. everybody liked him, got along with everybody, al the pal. in 1991, when president george bush nominated clarence thomas to the supreme court, this democratic senator from illinois, alan dixon, he made a personal promise to president bush that he would vote yes. that he would vote for that supreme court nominee. it s interesting. senator dixon didn t make that promise public at the time. years later he would explain that when the nomination was initially made, he had made that promise to the president, but his constituents didn t know that at the time. and it probably wouldn t have been an issue. what ultimately made it a problem is that al dixon had made that
he was a democrat, but he was a moderate, go along to get along. al the pal. he very happily made friends across the aisle. he was friendly with president reagan, who of course is a republican. he was known to go golfing with dan quayle. meanwhile, his fellow democrats, they all loved him. they chose to elevate him into leadership. by the end of just his second term in the senate, he was the number three democrat in the whole senate. everybody liked him, got along with everybody, al the pal. in 1991, when president george bush nominated clarence thomas to the supreme court, this democratic senator from illinois, alan dixon, he made a personal promise to president bush that he would vote yes. that he would vote for that supreme court nominee. it s interesting. senator dixon didn t make that promise public at the time. years later he would explain that when the nomination was initially made, he had made that promise to the president, but his constituents didn t know that at the time. and
then he moved up and ran to be a state senator. again he won and was re-elected and re-elected and re-elected again. he served a whole bunch of terms in the senate. he moved up again and won for state pressure treasurer. and then he moved up again and won the race for secretary of state. this guy was totally unbeatable. by the time he was running for re-election as secretary of state, he did something that no other statewide elected official had ever done before in the history of that state. he won all 102 counties in the state of illinois in that race. nobody had ever done that before in any statewide race. but he was al the pal. who could be against him? he was the consensus choice. no matter what he was running for, for decades from these little municipal posts all the way up through everything in state government, he was totally absolutely unbeatable. and in a sort of methodical way, as he was working his way up to higher and higher office, it ultimately became sort of inevitable
know he was a senator without google. that was alan dixon. he was like not a household name, not a recognizable figure. and part that of is because he wasn t controversial at all. he was go along to get along. he was a centrist. he was a moderate. he was sort of low profile. the other senator from illinois was liberal, wore a bow tie, he was instantly recognizable. paul simon was the one from illinois who ran for president. al the pal, the other senator from illinois, he was never going to run for president. but he was everybody s friend. he was considered also to be a senator who really delivered for his constituents back home in illinois. when it came time for al the pal to run for reelection as a u.s. senator, there was no question, he got reelected in a landslide. he won by more than 30 points. and that wasn t because he was some democratic party icon, he wasn t. he was a democrat, but he was a moderate, go along to get along. he very happily made friends
history of that state. he won all 102 counties in the state of illinois in that race. nobody had ever done that before in any statewide race. but he was al the pal. who could be against him? he was the consensus choice. no matter what he was running for, for decades from these little municipal posts all the way up through everything in state government, he was totally absolutely unbeatable. and in a sort of methodical way, as he was working his way up to higher and higher office, it ultimately became sort of inevitable that he would end up being a u.s. senator from illinois. in the united states senate, alan dixon was still al the pal, but he was not a really high-profile senator. you know how there are all those little sidebar stories today about the timing of the brett kavanaugh vote this weekend might be upended because senator steve daines of montana has his daughter s wedding to go to? with every story there is a picture of steve daines, but literally that picture could be