Dear Mr. Corker,When you continue to mislead voters in the general election, as you did in the primary, I will take the opportunity to point it out to the voters.
You say that you are the outsider in the Senate campaign against me, but the facts and the record suggest nothing could be further from the truth. You are worth $200 million and have given thousands of dollars to political candidates and raised hundreds of thousands more over the last 20 years. You have been running for the U.S. Senate since 1993 when you ran and lost to Bill Frist. You were Governor Don Sundquist's Finance Commissioner and you were Mayor of Chattanooga. Please don't insult the voters with such false and misleading information by continuing to say that you are an outsider.
The only outsider in this Senate campaign is the Tennessee voter. They are outside looking in on a failed Republican Party in Washington, D.C. - the group you want to join -- that has produced bigger government, a failed immigration and border policy, record gas prices, the highest debt in the nation's history, higher taxes on the middle and a stay-the-course approach in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Middle class Tennesseans can't stand this failed leadership any longer. They want change, not more of the same.
I am running for the Senate so their voices will be heard and their needs addressed. They want a new generation of leadership that will rise above partisanship, reach beyond failed ideology and put them first. Above all, they want a government that will work for them - not the other way around. That's why we owe the voters a real and honest debate about issues that matter most to them.
We are 70 days away from early voting in the general election and I'm again calling upon you to accept seven televised debates between now and the November 7th election. I have proposed seven debates in Memphis, Nashville, Chattanooga, Knoxville, Tri-Cites, Jackson and at Oak Ridge - and as many radio debates as we can possibly do.
Voters want and deserve these debates. The deserve to know how we would lower taxes on the middle class, what we would do to improve our national security interests in Iraq, Afghanistan, Iran and North Korea, how we would lower health care costs on families and small business and how we would make America more economically competitive.
Neither of us should spend the campaign hiding behind ads, polls, attacks or lies. We should go before the voters, take all their questions and answer them to the best of our ability.
With 70 days before early voting, I hope you will quickly agree to the seven televised debate proposal.
I urge you to immediately appoint someone from your campaign to begin working with my campaign to sort out the details around the debates. This discussion can and should begin immediately. There is no reason why our respective campaigns can't come to agreement by the end of the week on a plan for seven televised debates.
I look forward to hearing from you right away so that we can set these debates up as soon as possible.
Sincerely,
Harold Ford, Jr.
218 Days
Days of Congressional Inaction on Ethics
Above is the number of days that have passed since Jack Abramoff pleaded guilty to bribing Congressman.
It is also the number of days in which Congress has failed to pass an ethics reform bill that would limit private travel, ski and golf junkets, and would call for a full disclosure of expenses by lobbyists on members of Congress.
It is time for Congress to step up and pass an ethics reform bill that would do all of the above. In addition, it is time to end the pork barrel spending system as we know it and establish an independent ethics commission that would review ethics complaints against members of Congress.
I am proud Congressman Harold Ford Jr. is fighting for that reform!
Read Congressman Ford's call for reform of the House rules here!
