It will destroy any hope he had of peeling off moderate to conservative white voters of either party. He has made several trips to Iraq and made very positive comments each time, though he always backtracked a few days later after getting a counseling session from his masters leadership. He has, however, been reaching out. That's over now.
His motivation is simple, he desperately needs money. His base in inner city Memphis just doesn't have the funds to give him and the Tennessee Democrat party is in a bad way. They are fighting to keep control of the state legislature as well as trying to keep a bunch of their members out of jail from a bribery sting operation called "Tennessee Waltz." That little Abscam like sting even netted Harold's uncle John, not only accepting a bribe on tape but also threatening to murder the undercover agent if he testified against him. In the general election that may not only cause Harold Jr. to lose the Senate seat, it might end his political ambitions altogether.
Harold Ford needs the big bucks from outside sources such as MoveOn.ORG, Hollywood and New York. The price for that has been to start to parrot their positions. He had a rude awakening a few months ago when he was scheduled to go to a big fund raiser in San Francisco but his vote for the defense of marriage act a few years ago caused the dim activists there to turn their backs on him and he canceled. The same is happening when he appeals to the big dim donors elsewhere. Therefore he has to stick to the (hard left) party line.
He'll win Memphis and probably the yellow dog Democrat vote in the rest of the state, concentrated in Nashville, but he'll lose big elsewhere. He'll probably end up losing with the same kind of percentages Al Gore had in 2000. He'll only get that close because of the nasty race between Van Hilleary, Bryant and Corker. Corker is the Republican establishment's candidate, with the biggest bank accont but the least name recognition. The current conventional wisdom is that Van Hilleary and Bryant will split the conservative vote in the primary allowing Corker to take the nomination. Corker was mayor of Chatanooga for the last few years, in far east Tennessee and Ford is the current congressman from Memphis, in far west Tennessee.
I actually think Harold Jr. is a really good congressman. He does the primary job, looking after his constituents, better than most any congressman I've ever come across. He has successfully intervened on several occassions that I'm personally aware of on behalf of folks in his district having trouble with various parts of the federal government, such as the VA or IRS. He's even taken it upon himself to intervene to help someone from the district next to his who was in trouble in Cancun (guy got hit by a taxi while riding a bike, got both legs broken and the local officials were threatening to jail him if he didn't pay them a big bribe to get out of the hospital). I might disagree with every vote that he casts (though he's all over the map on things like Iraq and gay marriage) but he does the job well.
I'd love to have him go back to Congress and take Nancy Pelosi's leadership position when the dims lose this November (he challenged her when she originally ran and actually did pretty well). I guess he's not running for his House seat this time so that would need to take another two years, so that's out. A fall back is to have him replace crazy Willy Herenton as Mayor of Memphis in the 2007 election and build up an in state rep. A good challenge would be copying the successful merging of city and county government the way the current governor, Phil Bredesen, did when he was mayor of Nashville. That would serve as a stepping stone to replace Bredesen in 8 or 12 years then give him a base to run for President in 2024 or so (he'll only be 54 then).
I really appreciate your downhome take on Harold Ford, Jr. He really is smart. Smart and slick. Very clever how he avoids public appearances with the Black Caucus, very charming and persuasive when he's on Imus. Why, he could convince anyone of anything. He's one of the best "on the other hand" politicians I've seen. I mean, after listening to him discuss foreign policy, you'd be oh so impressed all right, but you wouldn't be able to remember which side of the issue he was on.
And the Elect Ford machine is up and running, appealing to those east Tennessee voters, by driving a lap at a NASCAR track, and even put out the rumor he might get engaged after the election.
Evidently Kudlow had some hopes for Ford.
Great insight you have!I too believe that Jr. will only win in Memphis.People like Brazile don't know how conserative Tennessee really is.
Brilliant post and insight here Phsstpok.