Thad Cochran

William Thad Cochran ( born December 7, 1937 in Pontotoc, Pontotoc County, Mississippi ) is an American politician and U.S. Senator for the state of Mississippi. The Republican was chairman of the Appropriations Committee, and thus one of the most powerful men in the Senate. He is currently the spokesman ( Ranking Member) of the Republicans on this committee.

Life

Cochran is the child of school director William Holmes Cochran and Emma Grace Cochran the teacher. In 1946 his family moved in Hinds County, where the state capital is Jackson. Cochran still lives in Jackson. He was Eagle Scout and attended the Byram High School in Jackson. He completed his bachelor's degree in 1959 from the University of Mississippi in the fields of study psychology and political science. After two years in the U.S. Navy, he attended the Faculty of Law, University of Mississippi, where he graduated in 1965. After that, he worked for seven years as a lawyer. Cochran had early engaged in politics: First, for the Democrats, but in the late 1960s he moved to the Republicans. In 1968, he led the election campaign of Richard Nixon in the state.

Policy

House of Representatives

When Congressman Charles H. Griffin decided in 1972 not to stand, Cochran conquered around his election district to Jackson and beat just his Democratic opponent Ellis Bodron. Cochran benefited from the success of the Republicans in the election; in the concurrent presidential election won Nixon 49 of the 50 states and won 70 % of the vote in Mississippi. Cochran moved in with Trent Lott, a House of Representatives. They were thus only the second and third Republican who represented the state since the Reconstruction era in the House of Representatives. In 1974 he succeeded his re-election despite the generally Republican misery after the Watergate scandal had come to light. In 1976 he won the next election with a larger lead.

Senate

In 1978 there was the chance for Cochran to move into the Senate: The chairman of the Judiciary Committee, James Eastland, a vocal advocate of racial segregation, no longer went to the election. Cochran won against Charles W. Pickering in the primaries by. In the elections weakened the candidacy of Charles Evers, mayor of Fayette and brother of the murdered civil rights activist Medgar Evers, the Democrats enough that Cochran was able to prevail. Thus he became the first Republican since the Reconstruction era to have won a statewide election in Mississippi. In the 1984 election he won easily against the then governor of Mississippi, William Winter. In the 1990 election, he also had no opposition candidates and six years later he also won, this time with more than 70 % of the vote. In 2002, he again had no rival candidates of the major parties, who raced against him; In 2008 he was victorious with 61.4 percent of the vote to Democrat Erik R. Fleming.

Compared with its predecessor democratic Eastland and the 1988 nachgefolgten in the Senate Lott Cochran has a comparatively inconspicuous election statistics. It is also less in the public eye than this, has within the Senate and within Mississippi but significant impact. In 2006 he was elected by Time Magazine as one of the ten best senators.

Cochran was chairman of the Senate Republican Caucus from 1991 to 1996 and led the Board of Agriculture 2003 to 2005. Between 2005 and 2007 he was chairman of the powerful Committee on Appropriations. In addition, he is also a member of the Agriculture Committee and the Committee on Rules and Administration and therefore ex officio of the Joint Committee on the Library.

As one of only four Republican senators he agreed to the appointment of Chuck Hagel as the new U.S. Secretary of Defense in February 2013.