My first job out of college was as an extremely low-level staffer to U.S. Sen. Sam Nunn, the longtime Democratic senator from Perry.

It wasn’t nearly as glamorous as I’d imagined being a Senate aide would be, nor as lucrative. (I made $17,000 per year.) But Nunn had a reputation as a thoughtful policymaker and a global statesman, and I was proud to work for him, partially because of the phrase I heard repeatedly in those years: “I’m a Sam Nunn Democrat.”

Being a Sam Nunn Democrat meant the person calling to ask for help renewing a passport or the one introducing themselves at a fire station fish fry may or may not have been a Democrat, but they liked Nunn so much they supported him, no matter his party affiliation or theirs. It was also Nunn’s path to repeated reelection, including a lik

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