[Rhodes22-list] Hey Wally! Tennessee Senate Race

[Brad Haslett]

Wally,

We knew it would get interesting and it is.  Here is an article from this
week's Time magazine about Jr's brother.  The Dems candidate for Jr's old
House seat is too white and too Jewish for the local blacks, so Jr's high
school dropout brother is running against him as an independent.  The Ford
family is never dull.  Let's see if his uncle pulls out is 'nine' and starts
popping caps.  I still lean toward to Jr., God knows you don't get to pick
your family.

Brad


  Monday, Sep. 25, 2006
*Campaign 2006: Politics Are a Family Matter in Tennessee
Harold Ford Jr., the Democrat hopeful in a pivotal Senate race, has just one
problem: his brother Jake, who wants to fill his old seat in Congress
*By JACKSON BAKER/MEMPHIS

A couple of mainstream polls have begun to show that Democrat Harold Ford
Jr. <http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1223381,00.html> is
topping Republican Bob Corker in Tennessee's pivotal U.S. Senate race, but
Ford may have a little problem on his hands in home-base Memphis: his
younger brother Jake — who's running for big brother's old 9th Congressional
district seat. Jake is running as an independent against the Democratic
nominee with the blessing of the family patriarch and onetime local party
boss, Harold Ford Sr.

State Senator Steve Cohen won last month's winner-take-all Democratic
primary to fill Ford's seat, with 31% overall, in a field that included a
dozen black candidates. A respected, sometimes pugnacious legislator, Cohen
is probably the Tennessee General Assembly's best-known liberal. The Midtown
Memphis district he has represented for a quarter century contains a
generous number of blacks. Indeed, Cohen carried several predominantly black
precincts and two local black mayors, Willie Herenton of Memphis and A.C.
Wharton of Shelby County, enthusiastically endorsed him two weeks ago in an
elaborate downtown ceremony.

But Cohen was, and continues to be, too white and too Jewish for a number of
black ministers and other African-American activists who made an abortive
effort during the primary to arrange for a consensus black candidate.
Activists are fearful that as the Rev. La Simba Gray put it, "for the first
time in 32 years, African Americans will be without representation in the
U.S. Congress from West Tennessee."

Rep. Ford himself has said he'll stay neutral regarding Cohen and his
brother Jake. But the rest of the family is splitting over the race. Joe
Ford Jr., an entertainment lawyer who finished third in the congressional
primary — and is first cousin to both Jake Ford and Harold Ford Jr.— has
endorsed Cohen. But Harold Sr., a former congressman, has gone all-out for
son Jake, especially since longtime rival Herenton put down young Ford as
unqualified (he dropped out of high school) and accused the Fords of seeking
"a monopoly on all elected positions in this state and this county." Jake,
if elected as an independent, has promised to caucus with House Democrats.

Harold Sr., now a blue-ribbon consultant dividing time between Florida and
Memphis, is energetically working his former support base in inner-city
Memphis for his sons. Meanwhile, the Black Ministers Association and the
other erstwhile African-American consensus seekers, including a handful of
Democratic activists, have also endorsed Jake. Then there's Mark White, a
young white businessman and the Republican candidate, who would ordinarily
stand to get no more than 30% in a heavily black district. But the split
among Democrats may give him a better-than-usual shot — unless Republican
moderates get worried about a reawakened Ford dynasty and go for Cohen.

Rhetoric has been heated. Thaddeus Matthews, a politically independent
African American whose widely read local blog is part scandal sheet, part
political tip-sheet, early in the campaign dismissed "Joke Ford" as an
un-credentialed political novice and high-school dropout who lacked his
congressman brother's finesse and did odd jobs for his father. That has also
been the perspective of an influential corps of liberal white bloggers who
pooled their efforts on Cohen's behalf during the primary.

The bloggers see themselves as representatives of Democratic Party
progressives who long ago soured on Harold Ford Jr.'s ever-more-conservative
rhetoric and voting record. Ford's strategy has been to woo
middle-of-the-road and conservative voters in Middle and East Tennessee
while holding on to party-line Democrats and the solid bloc of black voters
in home-town Memphis. But a resumption of the once-raging Ford-Herenton
civil war could cost him, and so could simmering discontent among Democrats
over his neutrality in the race to replace him in Congress. The venerable
Nashville Tennessean, historically the voice of the state's Democratic
establishment, felt obliged recently to editorialize against the
racial-consensus rhetoric backing Jake Ford as "too blatant to ignore."
College Democrats at the University of Memphis publicly groused last week at
what they saw as collusion between the Harold Ford Jr. and Jake Ford
campaigns.

The political history of Rep. Ford's extended family is interesting, to say
the least?and could be a factor. Aunt Ophelia's state Senate seat was
recently voided because of a voting scandal last year. Uncle John was forced
out of the self-same Senate seat after being indicted on several counts of
bribery and extortion.

On the other hand, the younger Ford brother, an Unknown Quantity if there
ever was one, has surprised everyone with two consecutive strong showings —
in a radio interview and in a health-care debate last week where he put in
an well-prepped performance. Jake Ford and the Republican White appeared but
Cohen, being feted at a local fund-raiser by celeb Cybill Shepherd, skipped
the event. As blogger Matthews headlined in his latest post: "Jake Ford May
Not Be A Joke After All."