page_title: Happy Chandler
section_title: Later life
hierarchical_section_title: Happy Chandler / Later life
caption_attribution_description: English: Portrait of Kentucky Senator and Governor Wendell H. Ford
context_page_description: Albert Benjamin "Happy" Chandler Sr. was an American politician from Kentucky. He represented Kentucky in the U.S. Senate and served as its 44th and 49th governor. Aside from his political positions, he also served as the second Commissioner of Baseball from 1945 to 1951 and was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1982. His grandson, Ben Chandler, later served as congressman for Kentucky's Sixth District.
  A multi-sport athlete during his college days at Transylvania College, Chandler briefly considered a career in professional baseball before deciding to pursue a law degree. After graduation, he entered politics and was elected as a Democrat to the Kentucky Senate in 1928. Two years later, he was elected lieutenant governor, serving under Governor Ruby Laffoon. Chandler and Laffoon disagreed on the issue of instituting a state sales tax and when Chandler, the presiding officer in the state senate, worked to block the legislation, Laffoon's allies in the General Assembly stripped him of many of his statutory powers. The tax then passed by a narrow margin.
context_section_description: In 1957, Chandler was one of ten inaugural members of the Kentucky Sports Hall of Fame. A vestryman at St. John's Church in Versailles, he was awarded the Bishop's Medal of the Episcopal Church in 1959. The same year, he received the Cross of Military Service from the United Daughters of the Confederacy. He served as a trustee of the Ty Cobb Foundation and Transylvania University. At the 1960 Democratic National Convention, he again sought the party's presidential nomination, as he considered that the front-runner, John F. Kennedy, was "a nice young fellow ... (but) too young for the nomination." Chandler proposed for him to be the presidential nominee, with Kennedy as the nominee for vice-president, but the convention chose Kennedy for president instead.
  On January 3, 1962, Chandler opened a campaign headquarters in Frankfort, announcing his bid for an unprecedented third term as governor with the slogan "ABC [Albert Benjamin Chandler] in '63". His opponent in the primary was Edward T. "Ned" Breathitt Jr., the choice of outgoing Governor Bert Combs. Chandler reverted to his familiar campaign themes, charging the Combs administration with wasting state funds in the construction of a floral clock at the state capitol and denouncing Combs for re-instituting the state sales tax. However, he found it very difficult to adapt to campaigning via television, an increasingly important medium, and his attacks mostly fell flat.
  Breathitt enraged Chandler by charging that when Chandler was a senator, he had voted in favor of declaring World War II, but soon afterward, he had resigned his commission as a reserve army captain. According to Chandler's version of events, after he voted in favor of the war declaration, he called US Secretary of War Henry Stimson and asked to be put on active duty. Chandler said that Stimson told him he would rather have a senator than a captain, and then Chandler resigned his commission. Chandler's explanation did not stop Breathitt from repeating the charge often on the campaign trail.
  Chandler lost to Breathitt in the primary by more than 60,000 votes, but his running mate, Harry Lee Waterfield, won the nomination for lieutenant governor. Journalist John Ed Pearce believed that the loss marked the demise of the Chandler wing of the Democratic Party in Kentucky, but Chandler himself remained somewhat influential.
  In 1965, Chandler was named to the University of Kentucky Hall of Distinguished Alumni and became commissioner of the Continental Football League (COFL). Chandler resigned from his COFL position in 1966 after league trustees supported a proposal to allow players from the major professional American football leagues, which he had been told would not happen. He served as Democratic National Committeeman from Kentucky. Becoming somewhat of a perennial candidate, he unsuccessfully ran for governor in 1967 and 1971. After his loss in the 1967 Democratic primary, he endorsed Republican Louie B. Nunn. After his election, Nunn appointed Chandler to the first of his three terms on the University of Kentucky's board of trustees.
  In 1968, Chandler was given serious consideration as the vice-presidential running mate of Alabama's former governor, George Wallace, in the latter's American Independent Party bid for president. Wallace instead turned to Air Force General Curtis LeMay. The ticket lost to Richard M. Nixon and Spiro T. Agnew. Chandler said that he and Wallace had been unable to come to an agreement on their positions on racial matters.
  In 1971, Chandler again entered the gubernatorial race, now as an independent, but he garnered only 39,493 votes, compared to 470,720 for eventual Democratic victor Wendell H. Ford, and 412,653 for Republican challenger Tom Emberton. Ford's successor, Julian Carroll, again appointed Chandler to the University of Kentucky's board of trustees.
  The Major League Baseball Veterans Committee chose Chandler for induction into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1982. In 1987, filmmaker Robby Henson profiled Chandler in a 30-minute documentary entitled Roads Home: The Life and Tim
caption: Wendell Ford defeated Chandler for governor in 1971.
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