 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 . 
