Ford Tough

Saturday morning I went out to catch Harold Ford, Jr., who came to the Boro to give an early morning (9 am) stump speech on the square. Or, it would have been "early" had he been on time. Since he wasn't, the crowd of 100-150 was treated to impromptu warm-up stumps of mixed quality from other local pols. What should we have expected? Rock stars never hit the stage on time.

At 9:50, the Ford caravan pulled up Main Street toward the square. Ford jumped out of the lead car, an SUV that he's featured in his TV ads blasting the Bush administration over high gas prices. Although this imagery might seem odd to the liberal conservationist conscience, the SUV is biodiesel-powered and runs off crops indigenous to West Tennessee, Ford's home region. So, while steering that big black phallus of surburban soccer-mom dreams, he rides guilt free. Quite a trick. The hope of Team Ford: a candidate who symbolizes American power without carnage, virility without waste, and infedelity (to the GOP) without remorse. He's not the love child of Bill Clinton and Jesse Jackson, he's a designer clone with DNA stripped from George Bush and Billy Dee Williams.

Dressed in worn jeans, boots, and a comfortable blue work-shirt, Ford strides confidently up the small hill, shaking our hands as he wades through the crowd and onto the steps of the courthouse. He had us at "Hello." Whatever you might say about Ford--too young, too calculating, too self-interested--he's a first rate stump speaker. I'd say he's the best I've ever seen, except that I've seen John Jay Hooker too. Of course, John Jay is also probably crazy, as my Tennessee expat readers know, but that's beside the point. Maybe forty years from now, after losing countless state races despite awesome talents, it will be Harold Ford drifting around Nashville, wearing a stovepipe hat and 19th-century barrister's collar, and distributing bumper stickers from the tricked-out SUV that has also become both his permanent residence and the only monument to his faded oratorical glories. These things are hard to predict.

Ford's speech is a masterpiece of silver-tongued parry and trust. He talks about a strong national defense and a vibrant economy. He evokes images of childhood religion and discipline. "I hear parents today say, 'I can't get my kids to go to church.' Is that an option!? Where I came from you didn't get the chance to say no." He talks about how he knew he had done something wrong when he noticed the lights off in his grandmother's living room, because it meant she had an alternative purpose in mind for the extention cords. This comes off as funny. If he were white, and he was talking about disciplining his own kids, now that would be creepy. Ford blasts the arrogance of Bob Corker and Bill Frist, politicians who brazenly claim to be anti-politician, rich guys who don't care about average workers and whether they get the services they need. There's a lot of populist red meat here, all wrapped in a very "conservative" set of values (a term he not surprisingly embraces, although this is a pretty liberal audience).

Although he attacks the GOP Congress with zeal, Ford is more circumspect about the other elephant in the room. He says that he'll "stand with the president when he's right and against him when he's wrong." That's a line for the newspaper reporters. I doubt there's anyone else in the crowd who could name something they though George W. had ever done right. Before listing a number of criticisms, Ford proudly says that he stood by Bush on Afghanistan and going into Iraq. Ned Lamont he is not. The assembled Dems cheer loudly anyway.

Ford builds his speech to a crescendo by explaining just how far he'll go to reach out to conservative white voters, the ones driving "pickup trucks with confederate flags," those made infamous by Howard Dean's quip. Going Dean one better, Ford tells the story of marching in Columbia's "Mule Day" parade ("They tried to get me to ride a mule, but I'd rather walk. They let the mules go first, and all us politicians have to follow behind."). Through brilliant parade planning, Ford gets to march right behind a group of outfitted confederates with flags waving high. So he wades right into their midst: "Hi, I'm Harold Ford, and I'm running for Senate." The first guy he approaches shakes his hand. "I know you, you're that boy who doesn't want to sell our ports to the Arabs. I've seen you ads." "That's right." "Well, I'm with you 100% on that. Keep fighting." The guy hands him a condeferate flag sticker.

As Ford tells his story, he gives us a knowing squint and tilt of the head. "I thought about that sticker for about a second. Then I said to him, 'You know I can't wear this. I respect what you mean by wearing it, but you've got to understand that it has a little different meaning to me, and I hope that you can respect that.' Right then, another guy a few rows back yells out, 'well you lost my vote right there!' But then a third man jumped in: 'Give him a break, He's just saying he's against slavery. Nothing wrong with that!' So I waded over to that man, and I shook his hand, and we took a picture, and he said 'I'll make sure I give you a fair hearing this fall.' So I said, 'That's all I can ask.'" Anyone who doesn't think race figures into this campaign is fooling themselves. But Ford, to his credit, isn't trying to hide from it. He's even making outreach to the "angry white man" a central theme. I don't know that he can pull it off, but, as he himself wants us to know, he's got the balls to stride into the belly of the beast armed only with his own wits. That, more than anything else, is what Democrats are looking for in this election. We don't care if it's bullshit or biodiesel. Just keep that big black car running all the way to Washington.