Senator Bill Spong from reelection defeat
in the Nixon landslide of 1972; might have been able to
engineer a Democratic ticket election in 1973, lining up party
successors as Governor in 1977 and beyond, thereby exchanging
Republican Governors for Democratic ones; and after a time in
the US Senate following his governorship, might have been the
Southerner leading national Democrats back to the White House
in 1992, instead of a flawed native son from Arkansas. Reynolds
would have been but 55 then.”
This is the second Center for Politics
Governor’s Project that has been dedicated to someone who
was at the time of the conference no longer living, and like
the last one for Governor John Nichols Dalton (1931-1986) there
were some light moments to go with the somber ones. There was
one story about Sarge Reynolds at a photo shoot with other
Democratic candidates. Reynolds was a petite man at five feet
four inches tall, and someone suggested a booster for him to
stand on in the shot. The late Judge Robert R. Merhige quipped,
“Tell him to stand on his wallet.”
In another incident, when he was on his
way to his seat in the Senate
erations as well. He was close in age to
many of the college students who at that time were very disillusioned
with the war in Viet Nam, and convinced them to turn their
frustration and irritation into political activism to make a
difference. He stunned older members of the Virginia political
establishment by achieving at such a young age what continued
to allude them.
The name of Sarge Reynolds has resonated
in each and every conference that has been sponsored by the
Center for Politics over the
last eight years. Founder Larry J. Sabato summed it up in an editorial in the Richmond Times-Dispatch, “Lieutenant Governor Reynolds, Virginia’s most recent statewide office holder to die during his term, would have been 68 years old now, had he not passed away at half that age—cruelly cut down by an inoperable brain tumor in his prime, a mere 34 years old at death. The heart aches still.
last eight years. Founder Larry J. Sabato summed it up in an editorial in the Richmond Times-Dispatch, “Lieutenant Governor Reynolds, Virginia’s most recent statewide office holder to die during his term, would have been 68 years old now, had he not passed away at half that age—cruelly cut down by an inoperable brain tumor in his prime, a mere 34 years old at death. The heart aches still.
“His battered party felt the pain more
intensely than any but his grief stricken family. Had he lived
and remained vigorous, Reynolds might have been able to save
one term Democratic US
