Man of the Year, 1999 Periodically, at the end of a calendar year, the Flyer will designate someone who, for better or for worse, has most significantly influenced the news of that year in our circulation area of Memphis and Shelby County. Governor Don Sundquist, an erstwhile Memphian whose actions in our state capital have enormous impact on the lives and fortunes of Memphians, Shelby Countians, and all Tennesseans, for that matter, is our Man of the Year for 1999. He was a slam dunk for the honor. “For better or for worse,” we said. Rarely has a public figure symbolized — both in his person and in his actions — the battle between our better and our worse angels so clearly as has the Don Sundquist of 1999. We use that phrasing pointedly. The Don Sundquist of pre-1999 was a different creature altogether from the one who now occupies the Governor’s Mansion and seems preoccupied with the fortunes of his fellow Tennesseans to a degree that has been rare among the state’s chief executives. We always found our governor likeable — even sensible. His “Families First” welfare reform program, with its “tough love” incentives for getting indigent Tennesseans off the public rolls, was less stringent toward its target population than most such state programs and provided more transitional supports. Moreover, it seems to have worked to some measurable degree. But this was still Don Sundquist the caretaker conservative, the Republican Party cadre who worked his way to the top of state government through longstanding loyalty to political protocol and the party line, the former advertising executive who stayed carefully within — perhaps even a step or two behind — the developing political consensus. That Don Sundquist is no more. We don’t know what happened to transform the lamb of last year into the lion of this one — the champion of tax reform and the defender of TennCare — but we welcome the change. And we are not among those who criticize the governor for not having sought a mandate in the 1998 reelection campaign for the far-reaching tax changes he now champions. A two-to-one winner over his Democratic opponent, without having signaled much in the way of intent, Sundquist can fairly be said to have earned a mandate to do as he thought best. And what he thinks best is to raise Tennessee above the water line of mediocrity, to keep it from sinking into dead last among the 50 states in such vital areas as education and health care. If that means making a clean break with his party’s traditions and his personal and political allies, his response has been clear: So be it. We have seen Governor Sundquist snubbed and vilified by those who thought they had him in their pocket. We have seen him persevere in his quest for tax reform — upping the ante, even — as legislative Republicans deserted him and as most Democrats squeamishly withheld their support. Even today, it would be an easy, even an honorable, thing for Sundquist to retreat from his income tax proposals, to throw up his hands and say, “Well, I tried.” Instead, he indicates that he will persevere, refusing to back further raises in the state’s already monstrously regressive sales tax and insisting on eliminating that portion of the sales tax which applies to grocery food. In the wake of Mayor Willie Herenton’s successful defiance of the 1997 “toy towns” bill, we likened him to Winston Churchill. Sundquist reminds us more of that improbable rebel George Washington, huddling in some desolate Valley Forge of the spirit as he tries to figure out how to get his menaced minions from Here to There. His cause is ours, and we say: Soldier on!