Mr. Fordice's image while governor was that of a loud, gruff, and domineering politician who was successful in pushing for spending restraints, tougher sentencing laws, and more prisons.
"Frankly I don't miss being inside politics," Mr. Fordice said in 2001. "It has often been called an ugly, dirty game, and in many ways it is."
Despite controversies over his comments on race and his private life, the silver-haired grandfather only seemed to grow more popular with conservative Mississippians even though his agenda of tax cuts, school choice, and term limits stalled in the Democrat-controlled Legislature.
"His frank, outspoken, and unwavering style made him a respected figure with his political opponents and a beloved governor by Mississippians across the state," said Governor Haley Barbour, a fellow Republican.
Mr. Fordice's most raucous debates were over racial issues.
Just a few days after his swearing in, he threatened to call out the National Guard if the state was ordered to spend more money on its three historically black colleges.
In 1994, black lawmakers, angered by Mr. Fordice's push for term limits, walked out on his state of the state address. Two years later, he tried to push the Senate to confirm four white men to the board overseeing the state's higher-education system. After a court battle and two rejections by the state Senate, Mr. Fordice backed down and made four new picks including a black man.
But he argued racial issues were overshadowed by economic ones. "Mississippi doesn't do race anymore," he said in his 1996 inaugural speech after winning a second term.
"The 1960s are over. . . . We will acknowledge our history, but we will not let it determine our future. The only race that we're concerned with is the race for more jobs, for better schools, for safer neighborhoods, and the race for lower taxes," he said.
His private life made headlines several times. In 1993, he revealed that he was having "irreconcilable differences" with his wife of 40 years, Pat. Three years later, Mr. Fordice was seriously injured while driving back from his native Memphis, where restaurant employees had seen him drinking wine with a woman believed to be Ann G. Creson. He later divorced Pat Fordice, married Creson, and divorced again.
