The Rich Rise of Lamar Alexander.

The article focuses on the presidential candidate Lamar Alexander, the toughest potential Republican opponent of the U.S. President Bill Clinton. The two ex-governors are both masters of the Permanent Campaign. Alexander's greatest screw-up as governor was the prison crisis of 1985. During his campaign, he had appealed to the law-and-order vote with a scheme called "Class X," which essentially lengthened the amount of mandatory time served for a wide variety of felonies. When he implemented this gimmick as governor, Alexander failed to provide any money to accommodate the increased prison population.