If there is a place to measure growing Republican desperation over
maintaining control in the U.S. Senate, it is surely Tennessee. The
state was supposed to be a Republican sweep, but Democrat Harold Ford
Jr. is unexpectedly running neck and neck with Republican Bob Corker
and stands a fair chance of becoming the first black Southerners have
popularly elected to the U.S. Senate. Indeed, Tennessee hasn't seen
so much national political attention since President Bush beat Vice
President Al Gore in his home state. Bush has come calling twice,
helping Corker raise $2.1 million, as have U.S. Senators Lamar Alexander
and Bill Frist, while former senators Fred Thompson and Howard Baker
have thrown their support behind Corker even as former President Bill
Clinton and Barack Obama have stumped for Ford.
Polls which weeks ago showed Corker with a double-digit lead over
Ford now have Ford drawing even: a Wall Street Journal/Zogby poll
released Thursday shows Corker leading 49.4% to Ford's 42%, but
with a 3.3% margin of error, statistically that leaves the race too
close to call.
How a junior Congressman with little name recognition in Tennessee
beyond his native Memphis has managed to force the state's thoroughly entrenched Republicans into a panicked sweat is a testament to Republican overconfidence and Ford's charisma. Political observers say Republicans and even some Democrats were all too certain that no amount of support from national Democrats could convince conservative Tennesseans to send a young black candidate from a family tainted by political corruption to the Senate. Against all political wisdom and warnings that he was throwing money away, Ford, who had no primary opponents, launched his campaign in April, even while Corker and the other Republican primary candidates launched ugly attacks against each other.
While they alienated voters, Ford hit the airwaves with one ad after
another, presenting himself as a conservative, middle-of-the-road
Democrat who supports posting the Ten Commandments in public
buildings, opposes same-sex marriage, and reminding Tennesseans that
during his tenure in Congress he supported $5.5 trillion in federal
tax cuts. Thanks to a personal charisma reminiscent of Bill Clinton's and a marathon schedule that includes visiting the most remote
areas in the state, Ford inoculated himself against charges that he
was an unwelcome, out-of-touch liberal from Memphis.
Still, Republicans have done their best to paint Ford as a
Washington-reared insider dependent on out-of-state campaign
contributions while subtly reminding voters of Ford's family
history: while in Congress his father, Harold Ford Sr., was indicted on
federal bank fraud charges (he was ultimately acquitted); that uncle
John Ford was forced last year to resign his state senate seat after
being indicted on federal bribery charges for which he now awaits
trial; and that aunt Ophelia Ford was ousted from her state senate
seat because of voting irregularities.
And as the race has heated up, the issue of race itself has become an ugly part of the campaign. Over the last few weeks, Republicans have aired three questionable ads against Ford, the latest so blatant that Corker condemned it and asked WHIN radio in Gallatin, Tennessee, to stop airing it. In the first 24 seconds, the one-minute ad attacking Ford and his father, and paid for by Tennesseans for Truth, uses the word "black" six times and accuses Ford of favoring African-American issues above others. "His daddy handed him his seat in Congress and his seat in the Congressional Black Caucus, an all-black group of congressmen who represent the interests of black people above all others," the narrator says. Station manager Jack Williams says he pulled the spot hours before Corker's staff contacted him and that it aired just once.
While the ad was not sanctioned by the Republican Party, it came on
the heels of two that were: an RNC television commercial that
concludes with a backlit figure of Ford striding into a dark hallway
and towards the screen in a manner reminiscent of Willie Horton, and a
fund-raising mailer designed by the state Republican Party bearing
black-and-white photos of Ford that make him look much darker-skinned
than he is and uses phrases including "purports," "pretends," and
"passes himself off as" all terms once used for light-skinned
blacks who pretended to be white.
State Republican party Chairman Bob Davis has called the allegations
of racism ludicrous, but whether the photos were intentionally
darkened does not matter, says Robert Parham, executive director of
the Baptist Center for Ethics. "The only
plausible reason to use such a picture is to play the race card in
an effort to frighten and fire up white voters in a key senatorial
race," Parham wrote in an editorial on the Center's website. "Whether they acted with malice or moral callousness doesn't really
matter, the end result is race as a wedge issue."
For his part, Ford is trying to ignore the mudslinging, making just
one comment about the racial undertones in the Republican ads when he told the Chattanooga Times-Free Press that the television ad "injects a little race into this thing, the way they have me pictured." He also refuses to discuss his family. Neither criticizing or defending them, Ford says only that he loves them but is not responsible for their flaws.
Ford's open appeal to Republicans, which relies largely on
conservative discontent with the Washington status quo, appears to be working. Conservative East Tennessee columnist Frank Cagle endorses sending Ford to the Senate as a way of holding Republicans responsible for their shortcomings and broken promises.