Graham has a different theory about Hollings's success. "He's tough as nails, and he would fight back unapologetically," Graham says. "And he always delivered for the state as an appropriator, so even if people disagreed with his stands, they figured he was a value-added product. "
Plus, people just like the old curmudgeon, Graham says. "He's the only guy I know who can call his opponent a G-D skunk and at the end of the campaign have the opponent say, 'I really liked that guy.' That pretty much sums it up."
A List, Not a Legacy
Hollings hates this whole farewell thing. It makes him cranky. Well, crankier.
He didn't want any farewell parties, his staffers say, but he reluctantly agreed to a "Tribute Gala" on Sept. 14 in Washington because it raised $2 million for his favorite charity, a Charleston research hospital called the Hollings Cancer Center.
At the gala, 600 people heard Tom Daschle (D-S.D.) call Hollings a "senator's senator" and Ted Stevens (R-Alaska) say, "I can't imagine a Senate without Fritz Hollings."
Hollings was moved -- so moved that his famous tart tongue failed to function and his speech was nothing but sweetness. But now, sitting in his office, he's grumbling about people asking about his legacy.
"Everybody keeps asking about legacies, and that's the disappointment," he says. "I hate to leave in the middle of a fight and we're still in a fight for fiscal responsibility on the budget. We still haven't gotten a good competitive trade policy. We haven't done anything about TV violence. We've got a cancer in politics -- campaign money. I've got a constitutional amendment to deal with it, but I haven't been able to pass that."
He keeps going with this roll call of unfinished business, then sums up: "So I got a long list of things I want to get done instead of talking about my legacy."
He loves the Senate, but he laments that senators are too busy raising campaign money to study the issues and engage in real debate.
"Now you don't have any debates," he says. "Everybody comes out with a little script. . . . The Republicans on the floor are on-message and we have Democrats on the floor on-message. And you all" -- the media -- "are just like lemmings, you just take the message, take the script. And nothing gets done."
The good thing about the Senate, he says, is that it compels you to keep learning. An avid reader, he touts books on his Senate Web site, from Jacques Cousteau's "The Ocean World" to Alexander Hamilton's "Report on Manufactures." And he pores through a half-dozen newspapers a day, something he never did when he was a trial lawyer back home.
"It's been an education up here," he says. "I've been enriched by it. I'm way better off than my colleagues back home. The lawyers there -- most of 'em are dead and the rest of 'em are lookin' for a new drink to drink and another golf course to play. And they don't have any idea what's going on. The best postgraduate course you can possibly have is to be a United States senator. You get a new issue across your desk every day. You got to listen to both sides and vote."
He looks up at the clock on the wall. He's been talking for well over an hour.
"That's enough," he says. "You've got plenty. Good God!"
