At this time last year, if you would have told the Republicans that Harold Ford Jr. would be leading the U.S. Senate race one year later, none of them would have believed you.In fact, they would have probably laughed at you.
However, the tide has turned and Ford is now the frontfunner in the race to replace Bill Frist this November.
What once was thought as being a Republican lock is now in serious jeopardy of being won by a Democrat.
In the March 27 edition of Newsweek, the national publication takes a look at how Ford and his candidacy have the Republicans up in arms and resorting to desperate measures already.
Harold Ford Jr.'s bid for a Senate seat from Tennessee sounds like a long shot. First there's the party issue: The Democratic congressman is running in a state that George W. Bush carried by 14 points in 2004. Then there's the race issue: Ford wants to be the first black senator from the South since Reconstruction. And don't forget family: Ford's uncle and aunt, both veteran Tennessee pols, are fighting, respectively, charges of bribery and election fraud.
Given all that, you'd think Republicans would be breathing easy. Hardly. Earlier this month, the Republican Senatorial Campaign Committee unveiled fancyford.com, a Web site that documents Ford's supposedly lavish lifestyle. Drawing from FEC expenditure statements, the site portrays Ford as an international dilettante with a penchant for Armani suits, four-star hotels and day-spa pedicures. In precious fonts and soft pastels, the site tells viewers how to "party like Ford" and displays four buxom Playboy bunnies as a reminder that Ford attended the Playboy Super Bowl party in 2005.
It may seem like an odd complaint coming from Republicans, who know a thing or two about posh pads and parties themselves. But RSCC spokesman Dan Ronayne says the site reveals Ford as an out-of-touch elitist, "more D.C. than Tennessee." The very existence of the site also reveals something about the Republicans: they are so worried about Ford's candidacy they're going negative five months before the primary.
They have reason for concern. During five terms in the House, the 35-year-old Ford has established himself as one of the Democrats' most polished stars. Back home, he's gone out of his way to highlight differences with liberal party leaders, opposing partial-birth abortion and gay marriage. When asked by NEWSWEEK if he's a "Nancy Pelosi Democrat," Ford grows annoyed. "I ran against Nancy Pelosi," he says, recalling a 2002 bid for House minority leader.
Rather than dwell on his family's recent ethics trouble, he cites the Fords' venerable Tennessee political tradition, recalling a family that taught him he had "to go to church every Sunday." He's convinced that white voters can send a black man to the Senate and has brought Illinois's Barack Obama to Memphis to make the point.
Republicans, meanwhile, are scrambling to depict him as the second coming of Al Gore. (Like Gore, Ford followed his father to Congress and attended Washington's exclusive St. Albans School.) Ford declined to comment on fancyford.com ("I don't respond to trash"), but cites Sens. Estes Kefauver, Howard Baker and Fred Thompson as evidence of a great tradition of Tennesseeans with high profiles in Washington.
Ford has time to work on his counterattack. Republicans won't choose their nominee until August and three contenders are locked in a vicious intraparty fight. When crunch time comes, Ford will get help from friendly Southern Dems like John Edwards, former Virginia governor Mark Warner and his successor, Tim Kaine. Ford thinks he can win if he talks about his "Tennessee values" and "offer[s] something positive to the voters on the bread-and-butter issues." To be on the safe side, he might also try spending a couple of nights in a Holiday Inn.
