Sen. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., will address the Republican National Convention on Wednesday about American positivity and “honoring our heroes.”
She said she has examples of people helping after tornadoes earlier this year and during the COVID-19 pandemic, of law enforcement and emergency room nurses and of everyday people.
“We’ve got some good examples of groups and people who have just given extraordinary efforts,” Blackburn said to The Associated Press. “Tennessee is the Volunteer State and people show up to help.”
Blackburn, 68, has made a point of stressing she isn’t in politics because of her gender, but the historic significance of becoming Tennessee’s first female senator in November 2018 after previously serving eight terms in the House wasn’t lost on her.
Her campaign highlighted her moves to break the glass ceiling: She was the first woman hired by a major Nashville-based marketing and publishing company that sells educational materials — and the only Republican woman in the Tennessee Senate in 1998.
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Blackburn during her long career has led from the tenets of her state.
Earlier this week, in an opinion piece for Fox News, the senator said the Republican convention is a time to show conservatives' strengths and values.
“The left’s obsession with centralized power, and absolute compliance with its edicts, doesn’t translate in the minds of everyday Americans who lean first on their faith in God, and not on a pile of meaningless regulations," Blackburn wrote. "Our beliefs don’t change with the times, or the culture. Instead, they are our foundation. Radical efforts to suddenly and at times violently upend the founding principles of limited government and individual freedom clash with these ideals, and the people remain deeply suspicious of the true intent behind emergency plays to expand state power. Can you blame them? For months now, Democrats have subjected the country to vague platitudes in hopes that the American people wouldn’t ask too many questions about what it would take to achieve those promised ends. But Tennesseans, and all Americans, know by now that past is prologue.”
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Blackburn became known to young Americans over a feud with pop star Taylor Swift.
Swift, who launched her country music career in Nashville, has long criticized Blackburn's voting record, writing on her personal Instagram page in 2018 that the then-GOP congresswoman "appalls and terrifies me."
Earlier this year, Swift took another swipe at Blackburn in her documentary “Miss Americana,” attacking her stances on women's and LGBTQ issues.
Blackburn publicly invited the artist to join her for a conversation about "improving the lives of Tennesseans" on the latest episode of Fox Nation's "No Interruption."
"My door is always open to individuals that want to have a conversation about, 'How do you improve the lives of Tennesseans, how do you improve the lives of Americans?'" Blackburn said.