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Bob Corker

American politician

Correspondence, annotated notebooks and portrait silhouettes prepared for research
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Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionSep 1, 2026
Entity authorityQ331719 ↗
Source-derived summary

Robert Phillips Corker Jr. (born August 24, 1952) is an American businessman and politician who served as a United States senator from Tennessee from 2007 to 2019. A member of the Republican Party, he served as Chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee from 2015 to 2019.

In 1978, Corker founded a construction company, which he sold in 1990. This increased his net worth to $45 million. He ran in the 1994 United States Senate election in Tennessee but was defeated in the Republican primary by Bill Frist. In 1995, Corker was appointed by Governor Don Sundquist to be Commissioner of Finance and Administration for the State of Tennessee, following David Manning; he was succeeded by John Ferguson in 1996. He later acquired two of the largest real estate companies in Chattanooga, Tennessee, before being elected the 71st mayor of Chattanooga in March 2001; he served one term, until 2005.

Corker announced his candidacy for the 2006 United States Senate election in Tennessee after Frist announced his retirement. Corker narrowly defeated Democratic U.S. Representative Harold Ford Jr.

Editorial summary

This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Bob Corker” as american politician. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.

Editorial reviewA useful biographical orientation record, particularly for establishing names, roles and a first chronology. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1952, 2007, 2019, 2015—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1952-08-24. The account is most persuasive where Corker, American and politician can be independently traced.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The subject matters to the people & ideas register because the source frames it as american politician. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.

Evidence profile

Biographical claims are most persuasive when dates, appointments and relationships can be traced to records created close to the events described. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 1, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q331719. VIAF identifies the subject as 9876147270490135700000. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1952, 2007, 2019 and 2015.

Critical limits

Later biographies can compress uncertainty and repeat inherited reputations, so apparently settled claims may still require comparison. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Read biographical claims against dates, named institutions and the cited references. Distinguish a subject’s later reputation from evidence produced during their lifetime.

Best used for
  • Establishing names and roles
  • Building a first chronology
  • Locating cited institutions
Verify next

Personal papers, civil or court records, institutional files and the scholarship cited by the source.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Bob Corker”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Bob Corker primary sources, Bob Corker archive and Corker research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Bob Corker”?
  2. Which primary records establish identity, chronology and institutional ties?
  3. How has the subject’s reputation changed across later accounts?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Bob Corker” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.