Harold Ford for Senate? NFW!

UPDATED WITH MORE ECONOMIC ROYALIST GOODIES

Since this diary was posted Harold Ford has published an op-ed piece in the Times, and he does nothing but solidify his image as purely a Evan Bayh-type Republican masquerading as a Democrat.

Among his policy prescriptions: slash capital gains and dividend tax rates; slash corporate tax rates; and enact "sensible" health care reform, such as capitulating to insurance companies on malpractice liability.

Who the hell needs this? Not our party, that's for sure.

And I say that even though we went to the same law school.

We've covered Harold Ford here before, or, to be specific, we've discussed the vile racist tactics the Republicans used against him when he was running for Senate in 2006. Truly disgusting, but in no way surprising for the heirs to Nixon's Southern Strategy.

This does not, though, imply any endorsement of Ford's positions. Once again he's considering running for Senate, from New York this time, and we can be happy that he doesn't seem to be getting any traction.

Former Rep. Harold Ford Jr., D-Tenn., has been getting a lot of press lately, ever since he began publicly mulling a Senate bid in New York, where he now lives. But that attention hasn't yet translated into solid poll numbers -- according to a Marist poll released Friday, in a Democratic primary matchup, incumbent Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand has a lead over Ford that stretches into the double-digits.

The results, which show 43 percent of New York Democrats saying they would vote for Gillibrand in the primary and just 24 percent reporting that they would cast their ballot for Ford, don't suggest that a Gillibrand victory is inevitable, though. The primary isn't for another eight months and fully one third of New York Democrats remain undecided.

Of course Gillibrand was a Blue Dog when she was in the House, which means we wouldn't ordinarily be supporting her for anything. Still, a look at the latest extensive interview of Harold Ford in the Times shows some serious problems with him.

On taxes:

As it relates to big issues: I think there ought to be a huge-tax cut bill for business people, not only in New York but across the country.

I think immediately, we need to lower the corporate tax rate from 35 to 25 percent. We need to make clear that dividends and capital-gains taxes not go up — we do not want to see decisions made that are rash.

On abortion rights:

A. If my daughter, my 15-year-old daughter, is taken to the hospital, to get an abortion, I would hope as a minor, I would know it. If she can’t get into a movie to see an R or NC-17 movie, at 15, I would hope that I would know if she was going to the doctor to have this kind of procedure performed. Not to give you my answer. But if I said yea or nay. I support my family. But I would want to know that. So that is why I voted in favor of parental consent.

Q. Partial-birth abortion. You have objections to it?

A. I do.


Essentially no discussion of foreign policy in the whole interview. Still, there is nothing there that makes him look like anything but a conservative DINO. It's hard to see why it would be a good thing for him to get in. I'm glad to see that Chuck Schumer is working to try to keep Ford out of the race.

Harold Ford for Senate, Take Two

Harold Ford has created a web page for his nascent Senate run, including a page where you can sign a petition urging him to run.

Forty-five signatures so far, but I'm guessing that not all of them are sincere:

Gordon Gecko, 15, 14

Donald Corleone, Out of State

Holden McGroyn, New York's 14th district

Gen. Jack D. Ripper (Ret.), Out of State

George W Bush, Out of State

Nottah Chanse, New York's 14th district

Harold Isfullofshit, 8, 14

So maybe you want to sign, either for yourself or one of your alter egos? I noticed that Dick Hertz hasn't signed yet.

Late update: the count is down to 36 signatures, so they've clearly weeded the list, but I notice that Dick Hertz has made an appearance.

Why doesn't he just make it official?

The reprehensible Harold Ford once again comes down on the side of Republicans today. He has an op-ed piece in the Wall Street Journal about jobs, or allegedly about jobs, and he takes the opportunity to parrot the Republican myth that regulations are the obstacle to job creation.

Former U.S. Senator Blanche Lincoln has argued forcefully in favor of an independent review process for proposed regulations. If the costs outweigh the benefits, they shoulhttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifd be eliminated. In the meantime, a moratorium on new regulations that don't immediately protect public safety is a reasonable step that could be taken until our economy gets back on its feet.

I don't know why Ford doesn't just make it official and stop pretending to be a Democrat.

Random Thoughts

They might not each be worth their own diary, but I didn't want to ignore them.

1. One big difference between Obama and Bush:

Bush lies, Obama tells the truth. Say what you like about Obama's war plans (and most of us around here disagree with them), but at least Obama put the costs in the budget instead of trying to pretend they aren't part of the deficit.

2. More good news for Evan Bayh wannabe Harold Ford.

Picks up the coveted Karl Rove endorsement.

3. Economy drives booze sales downmarket.

According to one conoisseur, "we've switched from Bud Light to a lesser brand."

Rational Resistance wonders: Is that even possible?

You knew it was coming

After the Harold Ford campaign two years ago, and, for that matter, forty years of Republican tactics, we knew that the racist attacks on Obama were on the way. Arguably we've seen them already in the commercials juxtaposing Obama with young white women like Paris Hilton.

Still, you have to figure that they weren't planning on being this blatant about it. This comment by a Deep South Republican inadvertently reveals what they really think about the idea of having a black president:

Georgia Republican Rep. Lynn Westmoreland used the racially-tinged term "uppity" to describe Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama Thursday.

Westmoreland was discussing vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin's speech with reporters outside the House chamber and was asked to compare her with Michelle Obama.

"Just from what little I’ve seen of her and Mr. Obama, Sen. Obama, they're a member of an elitist-class individual that thinks that they're uppity," Westmoreland said.

Asked to clarify that he used the word “uppity,” Westmoreland said, “Uppity, yeah.”

You know what word usually comes next.

Random thoughts on the election

We obviously have a lot to celebrate this year, both in Vermont and nationally, and we should. We should also take this opportunity to learn from what happened, and to try to figure out what to do next time. I have several thoughts about this and I'm sure I'll have more. Still, here's a start:

1. The Fifty State Strategy worked. It was just a few months ago that I was asking whether the Fifty State Strategy was nuts, and now here we are, winning Senate and House seats all across the country. It certainly appears that Howard Dean was right in arguing that we should be building the Party and contesting elections all over the country.

But . . .

2. The Fifty State Strategy worked. Look around at the winners, and we can just take the last two who were declared, Jon Tester and Jim Webb as examples, and we see that a lot of the new Democratic Senators and Representatives are not the kind of Democrats that we here identify with. The D's will organize both houses of Congress, and get all the committee chairs, but liberal Democrats won't necessarily be happy with everything they do. Among other things, this will mean we need to keep the pressure on them. It also means, of course, that the wingers who keep claiming that the Democratic Party has been completely taken over by bomb-throwers whose politics run from Howard Dean to Fidel Castro have always been either lying or self-deluded.

3. Rove isn't as smart as everyone claims. Sure, the wingers were all over the place in the last few weeks before the election, proclaiming their confidence that the R's were going to hold the House and the Senate. That was clearly just spin, and there is no way that they actually believed it. On the other hand, they didn't fire Rummy until the day after the election. This seems like pretty good evidence to me that they either thought they were going to win, or they thought they had a good shot at it. If they thought they were going to lose they would have had to figure that firing Rumsfeld might help, and yet they didn't do it.

4. John Odum was right about what it would take to defeat Douglas. The problem was partly that the Parker campaign didn't do it, but partly that there was't enough time. Douglas has held statewide office all but two years since 1980, which means he had many years to give people the impression that he was a reasonable, moderate guy. Maybe that used to be the truth, but the new Douglas, Douglas 2.0--gubernatorial model, is entirely different. He is not either moderate or well-intentioned, and his competence appears limited to campaigning. If you talk to almost anyone who works in state government, at any level, they can tell you how his appointments have weakened the administrative agencies and have often been at odds with the mission of the agencies themselves. We have two years to get the truth out, but it's not going to happen if we wait until 2008.

5. Moveon.org is great, and needs to get even better. Moveon members made literally millions of calls across the country to mobilize support for Democratic candidates. This is a tremendous grass roots resource, and we need to strengthen ties between the Democratic Party and Moveon.org. They clearly had the message that we've always needed that you can't stop campaigning until it's over: on Tuesday night, probably after midnight, I logged on and they were having me call Alaska to get supporters. I thought this was just great.

On the other hand, they seemed to be a bit lacking in the LOS research. Even on Tuesday the scripts I was getting for calls were persuasive scripts, whereas here in Vermont we were doing purely GOTV calls to known supporters. It's hard to believe we were going to change anyone's mind on their way out the door to vote, so the last day push should have been all GOTV. Maybe that's one of the next steps.

6. Racism still works. If you ever have trouble remembering how low the Republicans can go, remember what they did to Harold Ford.Iknow that Hillary Clinton's people are terrified of Barack Obama because they think the South will stop the bleeding on Super Tuesday if she loses Iowa and New Hampshire, but the continued willingness of the Republican Party to make vicious racist attacks when it suits their purposes should be a cautionary note against overconfidence.

I'm sure there's more, but that's what's right at the top of my head.

Good work, everybody!