Wendell Hampton Ford (September 8, 1924 – January 22, 2015) was an American politician from the
Commonwealth of
Kentucky. He served for twenty-four years in the
U.S. Senate and was the
53rd Governor of Kentucky. He was the first person to be successively elected
lieutenant governor, governor and United States senator in Kentucky history. The
Senate Democratic whip from 1991 to 1999, he was considered the leader of the state's Democratic Party from his election to governor in 1971 until his retirement from the Senate in 1999. At the time of his retirement, he was the longest-serving senator in Kentucky's history, a mark which was then surpassed by
Mitch McConnell in 2009.