Lt. Gov. Ron Ramsey, who attended President Obama’s State of the Union address in Washington as the guest of Sen. Lamar Alexander, tells Andrea Zelinski that he walked out after 30 minutes — but, despite some joking to the contrary, it really wasn’t in protest.
“I’ll be right upfront with you. I stayed for the first 30 minutes of the State of the Union address. It was an experience, though. Because I was flying back last night to be here for session, and if we stayed until the end you were trapped for about an hour before they let you out in the gallery. So I left a little early,” he told the Nashville Post.
His take?
“That was fun, just the whole ceremony of it all. It was one of those once in a lifetime experiences,” said Ramsey who added he had never been to the State of the Union address.
But the visit also “reiterated to me why I have no desire to go up there,” he continued. “I think our founding fathers designed a system that’s embedded with gridlock and that’s not necessarily bad. I just think what we can accomplish on a state level is much more than they can. I’m extremely happy where I am.