If Ford was a white guy, none of you would be complaining. You might conclude that the voters viewed his family's political machine, with repeated corruption charges, as a big liability. Or that maybe a young , single player was not who they wanted to send to Washington. Or that he was simply too liberal for his state. Why must it always be about race? Why is any young smart black democrat an automatic presidential contender? And why did Steele, who is at least as appealing a candidate as Obama and Ford, lose to a political hack like Ben Cardin? Why no tears for him?
Liberal? Ford is about as conservative a Dem as you'll find. I agree, Steele got screwed in his loss. That too, was about race.
In some peoples minds that's the ONLY reason that he could lose for, if he's a democrat. Democrats are the only ones who can experience "LEGITIMATE" racism. The Steele loss was closer to what you imply IMHO. In the eyes of many he deserves to lose because he left the folks. The underlying logic being how dare he try to make headway with that other party.
Ford's father, former Congressman Harold Ford Sr., was indicted and acquitted on bank fraud charges; his Uncle Emmett was convicted of insurance fraud; his Aunt Ophelia got mixed up in a voting-fraud scandal and was removed from the state Senate, though she was not implicated; and his Uncle John, a former state senator, is set to go on trial just before the election this fall in a federal corruption case. Not exactly an inspiring family tree. Of course if Ford ran in Illinois all that would be a positive......
Bull. George Allen ran a pretty desperate (pathetic) campaign too. And Steele did too. I am not saying that the Dems haven't pulled some dirty tricks in the past. But they won yesterday because they stuck to the issues that mattered. That Ford only lost by 3 to me seems that race is becoming less and less an issue. That is good thing, for sure.
Democrats have the media to run their campaigns for them. The Washington Post was obssessed over Allen's ridiculous macaca remark and devoted several front page stories to it and "rememberances" from 30 years ago by some pathetic losers. Chris Matthews took it upon himself to campaign daily for Ford on his show. He was shaking with outrage over the "call me" commercial. No sense o fhumor I guess. I agree that Allen ran a terrible campaign and basically retired himself from politics if he can't rescue this race. I thought Steele ran a great campaign. His ads were witty and effective. I thought Cardin's ads were heavy handed. I was with some well-connected Dems from maryland over the weekend and they fully expected to lose both the Senate and Governorship races. I guess the Bush factor was just too mcuh to overcome.
Two things went against Ford: 1) He is black and in Tennessee 2) The name Corker carries an unspoken yet binding association among the crackers in Tennessee, you know, the kind of cracker that makes sheep nervous.