Not Totally a Red State

Frogponder asked if we knew where our governor was yesterday. I mentioned a bit about our governor Phil Bredesen and his wife Andrea Conte. I found a site that has a brief biography about him with questions about his opinion about the appointment of Roland Burris, the election of President Obama, Sarah Palin and other topics I think you'll appreciate. Read it to get a better feeling about TN since he might be the last Democrat we have for governor for a while after the next election. I hope not and wish the legislature would change as well as our two Senators. HERE is the article. I like his answers!


This is part of his bio from there:

Phil Bredesen took office as Tennessee's 48th governor on Jan. 18, 2003. In November 2006, he was reelected in a landslide victory, reportedly becoming the first governor in over a century to win all 95 counties in Tennessee.

Before serving as Tennessee's governor, Bredesen served as mayor of Nashville from 1991 to 1999.

Prior to entering public service, Bredesen worked in the health care industry. Between research trips to the public library, he drafted a business plan at his kitchen table that led to the creation in 1980 of HealthAmerica Corp., a Nashville-based health care management company that eventually grew to more than 6,000 employees and was traded on the New York Stock Exchange. The company was sold in 1986.

Phil Bredesen was born on Nov. 21,1943.

He grew up in rural Shortsville, N.Y., and earned a bachelor's degree in physics from Harvard University. He and his wife, Andrea Conte, moved to Nashville in 1975. Bredesen is an avid hunter and outdoorsman, a licensed pilot and enjoys painting as a hobby. Bredesen and Conte have one son, Ben.

Andrea Conte was born in Great Barrington, Massachusetts. She trained as a nurse at Mercy Hospital in Springfield, MA, receiving her RN in 1961 and subsequently her bachelor’s degree in nursing from the University of Washington in Seattle in 1968. After moving to Nashville, she attended night classes at the University of Tennessee downtown campus (now Tennessee State University Avon Williams campus) and received an M.B.A degree in 1983.

Andrea Conte and Philip Bredesen were married in Wheatley, Oxfordshire, England on November 22, 1974; Bredesen was working in the United Kingdom at the time. She has retained her own name. Following their marriage, Ms. Conte obtained a job with Hospital Corporation of America in Nashville, TN, and the couple moved to Tennessee in 1975. They have one son, Benjamin (b. 1980).

On December 7, 1988 she was kidnapped and injured in the parking lot of her retail shop in Nashville She fought, and was able to escape the kidnapper’s car as it drove on the road. The kidnapper was not identified or captured immediately. The following year he killed a woman in a Nashville park and was captured fleeing. Under questioning he admitted to the Conte kidnapping as well. Following her experience, Ms. Conte founded a non-profit organization, You Have the Power, to assist victims in dealing with the criminal justice system and to advocate for victim's rights.