I used to like him (as well as Evan Bayh) when I was in full fledged wingnut mode.
That should pretty much seal the deal.
Reader Interactions
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Come for the politics, stay for the snark.
You’re just a puppy masquerading as an old coot.
They think we are photo bombing their nice little lives.
RIP Zandar. We are still here fighting the stupid, now in your honor.
Never entrust democracy to any process that requires Republicans to act in good faith.
Accountability, motherfuckers.
Thanks to your bullshit, we are now under siege.
Conservatism: there are some people the law protects but does not bind and others who the law binds but does not protect.
Do not shrug your shoulders and accept the normalization of untruths.
Too often we hand the biggest microphones to the cynics and the critics who delight in declaring failure.
It may be funny to you motherfucker, but it’s not funny to me.
Every reporter and pundit should have to declare if they ever vacationed with a billionaire.
Only Democrats have agency, apparently.
They’re not red states to be hated; they are voter suppression states to be fixed.
In my day, never was longer.
There are a lot more evil idiots than evil geniuses.
So many bastards, so little time.
Just because you believe it, that doesn’t make it true.
An unpunished coup is a training exercise.
In after Baud. Damn.
Republicans can’t even be trusted with their own money.
‘Museums aren’t America’s attic for its racist shit.’
Republicans don’t want a speaker to lead them; they want a hostage.
Everyone is in a bubble, but some bubbles model reality far better than others!
A last alliance of elves and men. also pet photos.
burnspbesq
Let him have at it, I say. I think Gillibrand will mop the floor with him.
General Winfield Stuck
Tool
asiangrrlMN
I think that’s a good litmus test, Cole. Whom else of the Dems did you like when you were batshitcrazy?
The Main Gauche of Mild Reason
Nothing will endear Gillibrand to “teh left” more than running against Harold Ford.
It’s so perfect for her I almost wonder if Ford’s purposely trying to do her a favor.
beltane
I am not one to call every conservative Democrat out there a DINO, but Harold Ford really is a DINO. In fact, he is significantly to the right of the pre-9/11 Rudy Giuliani. I want to know who is promoting him and why.
John Cole
@asiangrrlMN: I liked Evan Bayh.
Jim
@The Main Gauche of Mild Reason:
I had the same thought. How frackin’ dumb must Bloomberg and Ratner be to send an anti-choice, homophobic DLCer into a Democratic primary in NY? James Wolcott has a good post on Ford, too.
@asiangrrlMN:
I’m gonna put ten bucks on Dianne Feinstein.
asiangrrlMN
@John Cole: How about Lieberman? Or is he too much of a dick even for you? And, Nelson?
Glocksman
@Jim:
It depends on where John stood on the culture wars at the time.
As for myself (much the same as John, I used to be a right winger) at the time I considered DiFi to be public enemy #1 with her counterpart Boxer being a close #2.
Today I don’t rate her that high, but I still dislike her intensely.
fraught
He’s just not really smart. He’s full of troublesome inconsistencies; he reeks of ambition; you can see his attention wander even when he knows the camera is on. I see no upside at all to having him as a senator, unless one considers this only from a racial viewpoint. And why would anyone do that?
Jim Once
OT – even though John’s post and the comments here are making me giggle in a way I rarely do – I LOVE that ad for My Gun Spot: Social Networking for Gun Owners. I’m sure it’s already been covered on another thread, but whenever I read the ad, I see this geeky kind of guy ringing a doorbell, carrying some big ass high powered rifle; the door is opened by a gal with an AK – 47, and they immediately fall into each others (excuse the expression) arms with harsh cries of desire.
jeffreyw
@asiangrrlMN:
Dammit, hold still for a minute.
General Winfield Stuck
OT
Whew!! Kentucky beats Georgia b-ball, stays undefeated, and Ashley Judd is still z babe. Go Cats!!
Jim
Funny, I used to be a DLC-ish Dem, and I liked her. I sat next to a guy from SF on a plane a couple years ago, and he said the only thing he didn’t like about it was he knew his votes were wasted. Then he said, “Well, Feinstein’s not too bad, but I can’t stand that Boxer.”
Jim Once
PS – I was once paid sixty dollars NOT to participate in a survey exploring Evan Bayh’s chance at running for POTUS.
Mike Kay
Ford is Anti-Choice.
Ford wants to overturn Roe v. Wade.
Even Giulliani and Rick Lazio are pro choice.
When this gets out, Harold won’t get more than 12% of the vote.
kuvasz
The epitome of black political bougie.
beltane
@John Cole: This must be like me voting for Jim Jeffords. It was the only time I’ve ever voted for a Republican in a non-local race. It just shoes you Jeffords wasn’t much of a Republican.
Mike Kay
@Jim Once:
He actually ran, but he quickly dropped out in Dec 2006.
beltane
@Mike Kay: If it ended up being a contest between Ford and Susan Molinari, Molinari would be the more liberal choice. Sounds like a bunch of Manhattan rich people are worried that Gillibrand isn’t the total Wall Street tool they were hoping for.
Mike Kay
@Mike Kay:
Ironically, when I think about it, Ford is to the right of Michael Steele.
In that interview with GQ, Steele revealed that he’s pro choice and sympathetic to gays.
John Cole
I was never a culture warrior. My position on drugs (legalize the shit and tax it and provide treatment with the revenue), the death penalty (state should not have that kind of power), abortion (I’ll never have one), and other stuff has never changed. I have gotten much more liberal on gay rights- before I thought civil unions were a good compromise. Now I think gay marriage is the only right policy to support.
I never really liked Lieberman per se, I just use to make hay about how the Democrats couldn’t be big enough to have him. But then again, I was also repeating ZOMBIE LIES about Casey, abortion, and the DNC.
RSR
I like your brand of introspection, John.
Mike Kay
@beltane:
She’s one of three members of the NY delegation to vote against TARP. That’s probably why they hate her.
Glocksman
@Jim:
My wingerism was based on more on social issues (guns and abortion) than it was on the economic ones of the Club for
HairGrowth types.As such, I just couldn’t stand DiFi or Boxer, but DiFi seemed worse.
Today while I still despise DiFi, I merely disagree with Boxer’s stance on guns while agreeing with her on other issues.
asiangrrlMN
@jeffreyw: Are you talking to me? I can’t help but hop all over the place. Heh. Those look super-yummy.
Jim
@beltane:
That seems to be the consensus. Bloomberg thinks Gillibrand should be in the Nelson-Lieberman caucus blocking HCR, so he’s boosting Ford. A few other magnates and moneyed people are in on it. Ford was on the R’s side in the Terri Schiavo fiasco to boot.
Is Susan Molinari the leading R? God, this could be fun. I wish we had a bit more spirited Dem in the race, Nadler or Louise Slaughter, just cause that would make the debates et al more fun to watch
RSR
@Jim:
Had to go check Wolcott on the reference. Dougj gets a shoutout:
http://www.vanityfair.com/online/wolcott/2010/01/dougj-directs-us-to-a.html
General Winfield Stuck
@John Cole: You weren’t a wingnut, just a very confused liberal. sounds like to me. Prolly too many Dead concerts. Or not enough.
Mike Kay
I have no idea why the firebaggers dislike Gillibrand. After all, Howard Dean had a 100% NRA rating and was endorsed by the NRA each time he ran for Governor.
beltane
@Jim: There is talk of Molinari entering the race, but she is not, as of yet, the leading contender. I do believe she would mop the floor with Harold Ford if it ever came to that.
Nellcote
@Glocksman:
Just curious, if you know, why are the cons so hysterical about gun control/issues? Is it the force of the NRA? It seems to me the dems haven’t said one word about guns for a couple of years and the goopers are just making stuff up.
geg6
Gillibrand will wipe the floor with this tool. New Yorkers voting for a Schiavo-voting, gay hating, anti-choice, stupider than dirt asshole like this? I simply can’t see it. It will make me happy when he goes down in ignominious defeat. And slapping Bloomberg in the face will just be the bonus.
Mike Kay
@General Winfield Stuck:
Nah, people like Colin Powell, Jim Webb, General Jones, Anthony Zinni have all moved to the Obama side of the spectrum.
Nellcote
@Jim:
The dem bench is shallow across the country. I think that’s a huge problem. I wish Jane Hamsher would run for something, just to get a reality check, though she would be a hoot in congress.
Mike Kay
@Nellcote:
There has been an underground e-mail campaign pushing falsehoods.
For the life of me, I don’t understand why anyone believes ANY email chain letter.
Remember the ones saying Obama was a secret muslim, and anti-Semite — unfortunately, there were seniors in Florida who bought into them. It took a concerned effort by the obama campaign, using people like Ed Koch, to debunk the smears.
MattR
@Jim:
Wow. Bloomberg is anti-HCR? I had not heard his position but I always assumed he would be in favor. I am quite surprised.
Bobby Yamaha
A good litmus test that would exclude Ford immediately is the Morning Joke test where anyone who is held in high enough regard to have a semi-permanent seat at the table with “Hannity” Scarborough and “Paris Hilton” Brzezinski is automatically suspect.
As far as DiFi, she’s tickled to death that Brennen and Napolitano wouldn’t answer the question “Why do they hate us?”, and that’s most of what I need to know.
demkat620
@RSR:
A friend of mine is one of those NY Gays and they are beyond angry. If he tried to run on anything close to the views he has expressed in the past, ugly won’t be the word for it.
eemom
I still want to know how this buffoon ended up in NY.
New Yorker
I know, I know, I’ve been ranting, but one more point:
To me, Ford deciding to run for Senate in NY is an insult to the intelligence of every New York Democrat. It says, “ha ha, you idiots are so tied to your party identity that you’d vote for Idi Amin if he had a ‘D’ next to his name.”
Go the hell away, Harold.
Mike Kay
@eemom:
He’s part of the DLC. The DLC got him a job with the now defunct Merrill Lynch. He went on to marry the daughter of the CEO of Morgan Stanley. So even after Merrill folded, he stayed on at his wife’s digs.
He’s a kept-man. I’d like to see he’s prenup – HA!
It’s pretty funny how long-long-long-time bachelor Harold sold out and married money, just like McCain.
http://www.newyorksocialdiary.com/i/partypictures/12_12_07/AlvinAiley/Harold-Ford-and-his-fianc.jpg
Jim
I think the parallel is McCain picking Palin, thinking he’d get all of HRClinton’s voters, cause you know how girls are. I think Bloomberg et al think they have an automatic winner, ’cause all the blacks will vote for ‘one of their own’.
eemom
@Mike Kay:
thanks. Just as loathsome as I could have hoped.
OTOH, I guess he’s a half-cut up on the loathsome scale from McCain, who wasn’t a bachelor when HE married money, and had to ditch his first wife and kids who waited for him all through Vietnam b4 legally hooking up with the future Mrs. Eleven Houses.
Glocksman
@Mike Kay:
That, and the fear that the DiFi’s (“turn ’em in, Mr and Mrs America) of the party are just waiting in the wings.
The Repubs have become very skilled over the decades in using cultural issues to convince natural Democratic constituencies to vote Republican.
Of course the tone deaf Democrats who insist that Indiana and Iowa should have gun laws like NYC didn’t help matters any when it came to NRA members.
asiangrrlMN
@demkat620: al Gayda! Love me some Margaret Cho. (Start about 4:45 in). “They started al Gayda training camp…where they offered Pilates….”
Cat Lady
@RSR:
So does commenter mcc. Everyone sit up straight and comb your hair, Wolcott lurks here.
Mike Kay
@Glocksman:
Oh, that’s right. I forgot about DiFi and the weapons ban.
But you know why she got involved — the massacre that occurred in San Francisco in 1993.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/101_California_Street_shootings
I don’t mean to be cynical, but when wealthy contributors get mowed down, Congress acts.
Mike Kay
@Cat Lady:
Waves to James Wolcott
Hi Jim, welcome to the pragmatic center-left.
rikyrah
Skeptical Brotha has come out of semi-retirement to post on Ford.
This is the post that first drew me to Skeptical Brotha:
Obama vs. Ford
“The dark side of the Force offers unimaginable power.
The dark side is stronger than the light.
The Weak deserve their fate.”-Tenets of Sith Philosophy
…………………………………..
http://skepticalbrotha.wordpress.com/2006/10/13/obama-vs-ford/
rikyrah
Skeptical Brotha’s new post on Ford:
Harold Ford Jr: Rotten Apple
http://skepticalbrotha.wordpress.com/2010/01/07/harold-ford-jr-rotten-apple/
mai naem
Forget all this Harold Ford blue dog crap. HIs f**&ing wife wears fur. I’ve seen two pics of her so far wearing fur. Seriously, who the f&*k needs to wear fur nowadays?
RSR
@Cat Lady: Indeed, although I’m don’t think this is the first Balloon Juice reference from Walcott. Still, that leap from the hills of WV to the Upper West Side is pretty cool!
I wonder if Wolcott read/referenced BJ in the old wingnut days?
mai naem
Also, I think this Harold Ford Senate run has something to do with Roger Stone. I would bet some money on it. He donated to Sharpton in the 04 Dem primary when Sharpton went after Dean. And he was involved with Spitzer’s fall. He likes creating mischief with NY Dems.
kommrade reproductive vigor
A ringing anti-endorsement if I ever heard one.
Lesley
Tunch! Tunch! Tunch! Tunch! Tunch! Tunch! Tunch! Tunch! Tunch! Tunch! Tunch! Tunch! Tunch! Tunch! Tunch! Tunch! Tunch! Tunch! Tunch! Tunch! Tunch! Tunch! Tunch! Tunch! Tunch! Tunch! Tunch! Tunch! Tunch! Tunch! Tunch! Tunch! Tunch! Tunch! Tunch! Tunch!
can you tell I need a fix?
Also, Lily. Though Lily is not as amusing as Tunch.
Sly
Ford won’t happen.
The NY party establishment cleared the way for Clinton to run in 2000, which allowed her to sew up the nomination and kick Lazio’s ass. It upset a number of Democrats who supported people like Nita Lowly and resented the whole carpetbagger thing, but in the end they came out for Hillary.
The party bosses, for better or worse, run the show in this state. Even if they didn’t, the Democratic Party rank and file of NY would probably pick Giuliani in a primary over Harold Ford. Ford attacking the NY establishment is probably the worst strategy he could employ.
And given Bloomberg’s eroding support in NYC (he put over 300 times more TV ads out than Thompson, and spent 20 times the money in general, and only won reelection by 5 points), cozying up to him is probably the second worst.
Napoleon
If Ford announces 2 seconds later I give $500 to his opponent. I absolutely hate that guy. He really is a DINO and even was behind running another black DINO against that white Jewish guy (Cohen?) who is a Congressman from the Memphis area. He is a cancer on the Dem party.
JGabriel
@eemom:
Someone at Merrill Lynch gave him job.
.
Chuck Butcher
Well, he is Morning Hoe’s favorite Democrat…
That in itselft should say enough.
Zach
Here’s Harold Ford and Martin O’Malley’s prescient plea to govern from the center and not do anything remotely progressive… written in August 2007, a year before the candidate who didn’t microtarget the center picked up the Democrat nomination before going on to win the Presidency by the largest margin in decades along with huge Congressional pickups for his party. All on the back of a very progressive message compared to DC common wisdom anyway. I really hope Bloomberg, a centrist on ideas rather than polling, doesn’t have anything to do with Ford.
Also, Ford was the only Dem in a close Senate race to lose in 2006. Everyone other Dem gained 4 or 5 points in the last few months while Ford fell by that much because he couldn’t respond to that lame playboy attack ad.
Zach
BTW the Dems managing to pickup a majority without a Ford win (which was considered impossible a few weeks before the election) was the best possible outcome. I’m sure he’d be in the gang of sticks in the mud on HCR and cap-and-trade if he were in the Senate today… there’d be enough DLC Dems in the Senate (Bayh, Ford, McCaskill*, Lieberman) to form an annoyingly potent alliance.
** In her defense, her bark’s worse than her bite on this stuff. She’s a reliable vote when the chips are down, but her Twitter feed is nauseating.
Lex
@General Winfield Stuck:
Being a near-lifelong North Carolina resident, I hate Kentucky basketball with the fiery passion of a thousand white-hot suns. That said, General, I think you and I can agree that Ashley Judd hasn’t been in nearly enough movies lately.
fraught
I’d say Wolcott does more than lurk here. OK, which of you guys is jonesing for Veronika Part?
General Winfield Stuck
@Lex:
Yes. we can agree on that, more movies, great UK fan and a spectacular set of lungs fer sure. And, did you know that Duke got beat today? I like to be helpful and keep folks informed:-)
Jim
@Zach:
Sometimes she’s great–she’s one of the best Dems on TeeVee when she’s thinking clearly–but sometimes, she makes me nuts. She’ll have to do something big to make me forgive (I don’t forget) her stupid comments about getting rid of the “silly stuff” in the Stimulus. I think she wants a run at the White House, in which case she’s gonna need the support of us “silly” people.
DougL (frmrly: Conservatively Liberal)
@Chuck Butcher:
He used to be Don Imus’ pet Democrat until he turned his back on Don when he got into trouble at MSNBC over his Rutgers womens BB comment. I wonder if Don will go after him if he decides to run in NY, he sure was pissed off at Ford since his appearances on Imus were little more than mutual scrotal tongue-bathing between him and Don.
mai naem
I don’t understand why the Wall Streeters would be supporting Ford. I thought Gillibrand was a former Wall Streeter herself. I wanna say GS but maybe it was JPMorgan???
PurpleGirl
mai naem: Gillibrand voted against TARP. So even though she has a background with Wall Street, she’s not viewed as subservient to them now. Ford not only worked for Merrill Lynch for a while, he married the daughter of its last CEO. (See above comments for this information.)
wasabi gasp
Harold Ford is the only guy in America who likes lime green Jello and cottage cheese.
It ain’t much, but it’s something.
burnspbesq
@Lex:
That may be the only thing on which Tarheels and Dookies are in near agreement. Although it’s probably more accurate to describe our attitude toward UK as bemused disdain. We save our hatred for y’all.
BTW, who sez crime is down in Atlanta? We got mugged in broad daylight on Saturday.
asiangrrlMN
@burnspbesq: You probably won’t see this, but are you all right? Is everyone in ‘we’ all right?
And, Ashley Judd IS fine. I can heartily agree on that.
Glocksman
@asiangrrlMN:
You have to quit teasing me. :)
Like most guys, I find the idea of two women kissing to be..er..interesting.
All kidding aside, the other Judd daughter could credibly pass for a whale these days.
Which is sad because back in the day, this then horny 20 year old had some really vivid mother/daughter fantasies WRT the Judds. :)
KevinNYC
John, what made you stop being a wingnut? Can Anybody point me to those posts?
Adam Holland
He may be the most anti-labor of any dem, which is saying something…
Ella in NM
@beltane:
My sense of this guy is that HE is the one promoting himself. As to why, well, because he feels entitled to hold high office.
Little Dreamer
@Mike Kay:
It hasn’t worked, a bunch of crazy frightwingers still buy into that stupid shit.
Also, you forgot the mention that guns are mentioned in the Constitution, the right to a well armed militia (not a bunch of crazy backwoods volunteers) is apparently the only part of the Constitution that Republicans have actually read and still only partially understand.
Little Dreamer
@eemom:
Same way Hillary did, he moved there?
What I don’t understand is why people are not more upset about this district shopping that’s been going on recently, and why is it always people from the deep south (Ford: Tennessee/HRC: Arkansas) moving into the north?
Little Dreamer
@KevinNYC:
Terri Schiavo, about April of 2005, look em up.