I object: Bring Back "The Ranger"!

[Occhidiangela]

Was a nod to two things:

1. An Ohio SSBN not built
2. CT is the home of the Nuclear Submarine fleet, in Groton/New London area. :) That schoolhouse is just down the road from Mystic Seaport, home of some nice old Whalers and a tourist trap, and is home to the USS Nautilus, the first ever SSN.

As for Carter, that is the sort of stuff I was ranting about. A good man, still breathing, getting a ship named after him. That he is a worthy candidate is certainly true: in the top of his class at Annapolis, 8 years active service, one of the early selections to Rickover's Nuclear Navy, Governor of Georgia, President of the US, Nobel Peace Prize, all around good human being. He is a noteworthy American by any measurement.

John Stennis: Congressman. A "Navy supporter." Pascagoula, Mississippi, is a significant Naval yard.

Senate Years of Service: 1947-1989
Party: Democrat 
STENNIS, John Cornelius, a Senator from Mississippi; born near De Kalb, Kemper County, Miss., August 3, 1901; attended the county schools; graduated, Mississippi State College 1923; graduated, University of Virginia Law School 1928; admitted to the bar in 1928 and commenced practice in De Kalb, Miss.; member, State house of representatives 1928-1932; district prosecuting attorney 1932-1937; circuit judge 1937-1947; elected as a Democrat to the United States Senate on November 4, 1947, to fill the vacancy caused by the death of Theodore G. Bilbo and served from November 5, 1947, to January 3, 1953; reelected in 1952, 1958, 1964, 1970, 1976, and again in 1982 for the term ending January 3, 1989; not a candidate for reelection in 1988; President pro tempore of the Senate during the One-hundredth Congress; chairman, Select Committee on Standards and Conduct (Eighty-ninth through Ninety-third Congresses), Committee on Armed Services (Ninety-first through Ninety-sixth Congresses), Committee on Appropriations (One Hundredth Congress); was a resident of Starkville, Mississippi, and later, Madison, Mississippi, until his death in Jackson, April 23, 1995; interment in Pinecrest Cemetery, DeKalb, Mississippi.

Carl Vinson: From Georgia.  Fifty years in Congress.
Carl Vinson: Who's He?
During his unparalleled tenure of fifty plus years, he also completed a record breaking twenty-nine years as Chairman of the House Naval Affairs and Armed Services Committee.   In that position, Congressman Vinson forged and moved through Congress the landmark Vinson-Trammel Act which provided authority for the eventual construction of ninety-two major warships, the birth of the two ocean Navy. From Capitol Hill, he also guided the establishment of a separate air academy {US Air Force Academy} and the launching of the Navy's first nuclear powered submarine.

Vinson was the first man, in 1982, to be honored by watching a capital ship bearing his name be launched. There was much debate even then over the precedent.

IMO, Franklin is a better choice, as would be Monroe or Jefferson.

I'd vote against Jefferson, though, since he was a bit of a nautical novice. He figured that gun rafts (one or two cannons per) were enough to protect Washington from the British fleet. In 1812-1815 his tom fool ideas on that score were shown to be rubbish. Lucky for him, the Frigates were already under construction and were available for his use versus the Barbary states, among others.