Ole Frank

"How long, oh how long, America?" cried Tennessee's Democratic Governor Frank Clement, most eminent alumnus of Mrs. Dockie Shipp Weems's School of Expression in Nashville, in his corn-filled keynote speech to the 1956 Democratic National Convention. For Frank Clement's political future, it soon began to appear that how long would not be very: Clement left the governor's mansion in 1959, practiced law in Nashville and receded into an unwonted silence.

But last week it became clear that Tennessee would hear more from Clement -lots more. At age 42, he made a political comeback by beating two other men in a primary, which virtually assures him the governorship in November. He Won the way he always has -with words. Clement loves words -particularly the first person singular. In one 30-minute campaign speech he mentioned himself exactly 213 times. In the same vein, he recalled to a Centerville audience that "I came down here as a boy and cut a right of way 20 feet wide and dug holes six and eight feet deep and set poles and strung wire. I'll guarantee you that within the last 24 hours half the people in this audience have turned on electricity that Frank Clement put in your homes." Where he had once made hay as a boy wonder (he was first elected Governor in 1952 at 32), he now preached maturity. Orating to the accompaniment of hillbilly music, he portrayed himself as "Ole Frank," a "country boy," and allowed as how he would make a better chief executive than ever, because he was "ten years older, ten years more mature, and, I hope, ten years wiser."

His opponents tried to tag him with his friendship with Billie Sol Estes. Billie Sol and Clement, both named among the Junior Chamber of Commerce's "Outstanding Young Men" of 1953, became pretty good buddies: Clement named Billie Sol an honorary colonel on the Governor's staff; Billie Sol cut Clement in on a couple of financial deals. But that didn't seem to matter. The people of Tennessee apparently just love to hear Frank Clement talk. And so does he.

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