Gillibrand throws one high and inside at the “Yankee” fan:
“If Harold Ford wants to move from Tennessee and run in New York, he is welcome to do so and I welcome an honest comparison of our records and our work for New York. I will take a back seat to no one when it comes to fighting for New York.
“His record of being anti-choice, anti-marriage equality, and now opposed to President Obama’s health care legislation may be right for Tennessee, but I don’t believe New Yorkers will stand for a senator that says they will oppose President Obama, just like the insurance companies want.
Read the whole statement. Good on her.
Kris
I don’t understand this-Harold has no base. It’s not like a bunch of black folks-key in dem primary-are shouting from the rooftops to run.
HAROLD HAS NO BASE. How many times does this have to be said?
General Winfield Stuck
That was a beaning
Balconesfault
Hey, if the Insurance Industry can fully own a few Senators, why not Wall Street?
Calvin Jones and the 13th Apostle
@Kris: Do you think he cares? He’s being push into this by the big money boys. How he was ever thought of as an up and coming pol is beyond me. I’d go all Dubya on him(‘Bring it on!!”). The one thing I hope this isn’t is a foil to cover for Gillibrand. As long as it’s not, as the poster boy for the DLC, I hope he implodes. He’ll get exposed for the fraud and phony he is.
Ailuridae
Even the well-heeled WASPs from upstate know how to fight.
@Kris: Harold thinks he has a base in African-Americans because he thinks African American’s are too dumb to realize that his opposition to HCR is horribly detrimental to them. This Harold Ford is pretty openly contemptuous of poor people generally and poor black people specifically.
Lev
Ford is totally delusional. He hasn’t had to earn anything he’s worked for, and almost every time he’s tried to go for something bigger (House leadership, Senate, even a spot in Obama’s cabinet), he’s walked away empty-handed and embarrassed. Ezra Klein might be onto something when he says Ford must be perpetrating a joke.
This could be good, though, because Ford’s self-proclaimed maverick conservatism will probably scare the hell out of the Democratic establishment in the state, and put them all on Gillibrand’s side for good.
Calvin Jones and the 13th Apostle
@Balconesfault: Wall Street already does. One just said he’s quitting. Another is getting ready to replace that one as the Banking Committee chair. And they aren’t the only two.
Napoleon
@Kris:
Ford has a base and its Bloomberg and Steve Ratner. All the evidence is that Bloomberg must have told Gillibrand to oppose HCR and she in so many words must have told Bloomberg to stuff it. Bloomberg and Ratner and their buddies are just appalled that NY has a Senator that is not totally in the pocket of big money (and Shumer is to a large degree) so they convinced the guy who has been drawing the big pay check from big money that it was time to earn his pay. He is going to run because they told him he has to run.
Lev
@Ailuridae: Yeah, because blacks just vote for other blacks. I guess that’s why David Paterson has sky-high approval ratings among black voters.
Oh, wait, he doesn’t…
geg6
Well, looks like she’s no Martha Coakley. Good girl, with the warning shot.
calipygian
She can’t work in that whole million dollar no-show job that Harold Ford got from the Bank of America in there somehow?
Mike Kay
@Kris:
Kris, Harold is alot like Palin, he has no self awareness, and has simply skated in life through connections and good looks. He’s as tone deft as anyone how has had everything handed to him (like inheriting his daddy’s congressional seat).
The Grand Panjandrum
This is just warming up a bit. New York is one tough place to play politics and Ford is about to find out just how tough that neighborhood is. Wait until he starts getting asked if he received one of those bankster bonuses the rest of the Wall Street criminals got.
HRA
I am a New Yorker. As I said in another thread, I have been watching Harold Ford on MSNBC for a long time. What I have seen is an inarticulate man who speaks words without a concise meaning to his stance and/or his beliefs. Even Molinari makes more sense and I certainly do not support her. We are fine with the senators we now have in place.
BTW, Tripi endorses Ford on his blog.
I will not vote for Paterson. They really do have to have a Democrat primary for governor.
Midnight Marauder
@Kris:
I don’t think you are hanging out around the right rooftops, friendo.
Anne Laurie
@Kris:
The Republicans (Robber Baron division) paying Ford to stand in front of the cameras figure money trumps everything, as long as you’re willing to spend enough of it. Problem (one of their problems) is that they want a puppet candidate who’s not just another white man in a suit, but they’re not comfortable with not-white men who look like they might be… challenging, so their range of choice is quite limited. It’d be easier for them to find a female candidate acceptable to the prejudices of their base — Betsy McCaughey, for example — but the conventional wisdom, aka tokenism, insists that there can only be one woman (any color) and/or one black man in any given competition, because apparently low-information voters can’t tell us apart.
calipygian
Holy Shit! Joe Trippi DOES support Ford:
AND he’s pimping an op-ed Ford wrote at the New York Post.
(Here is the Post’s front page today, BTW)
SGEW
@calipygian:
He voted to repeal habeas corpus. That’s all I’ve got to say about that.
John
According to Wiki, Gillibrand is Catholic and her maiden name was “Rutnik.” That doesn’t seem terribly WASPy.
calipygian
@SGEW: Block quote fail. The
should have been a block quote of what Tippi is pushing.
Kris
@Mike Kay:
Harold ain’t fine. Al B. Sure is a fine yella negro. Harold ain’t no Al B. Sure.
JGabriel
Kris:
Only a liberal racist would say cab drivers, helicopter pilots, and CEO’s aren’t a base!
(/snark)
.
SGEW
@calipygian: Oop. Sorry. Carry on.
robertdsc
Good for her.
mcc
Tiny, mostly-offtopic observation: A few weeks back I saw someone observe that a good early indicator of whether the health care bill is going to be an electoral winner or not is whether the Democrats campaign on it. I’ll note that in two separate races, Gillibrand and Coakley, we’re seeing the Democrat campaigning strongly on the health care bill now, with the bill itself at least a week away from passage.
mcc
Holy crap. Dude knows how to pick ’em… :(
Texas Dem
Ageed. I’ve been watching Ford on the chat shows and, like you, have been thoroughly unimpressed. He’s a dud, and rarely has anything interesting to say. So what makes this idiot think he has a chance in a Dem primary? Is this breathtaking arrogance or just self-delusion? Or is he just trying to increase his name recognition for TV? I just don’t get it.
Texas Dem
Another question: I seem to recall from his Senate run a few years ago that Ford flunked the bar exam, and that, although a law school graduate, he’s not licensed. Anyone know whether that’s true?
JGabriel
@Texas Dem:
In this case, I’m not sure there’s an actual distinction there.
.
CalD
I hadn’t heard about the Healthcare legislation part before. Is that true?
danimal
My observation:
It looks like he’s not in it to win it. He’s in it to split/demoralize the D vote.
Instead of getting angry, we should get tactical. I hope to God someone is drawing up plans to split the R vote this cycle. Can you spell T-E-A P-A-R-T-Y?? I knew you could.
Personally, I’m perfectly fine with getting a lot of D’s elected while the R’s complain that conservatives are actually in the majority.
Bell Curve
I mean, do we really want a carpetbagger from the south taking Hillary Clinton’s senate seat?
Kris
@Texas Dem:
That is absolutely true. He is NOT a licensed attorney.
CalD
All right I guess I’m done with this guy. I was initially kind of bristling over the fact that his house voting record was being cherry-picked and distorted — and it has been. I also remember him as a pretty excellent senate candidate who damned near pulled off a fairly major upset and before that, a polished spokesman for Kerry’s presidential campaign.
But I hadn’t seen much of Ford since 2006 since I’m sworn off cable news, so I’m left wondering what the hell happened to him in the mean time. Some if the quotes attributed to him in the last few days are completely surreal. I’m very much of the opinion that anyone who thinks sports questions are somehow relevant to political discourse deserves whatever they get, but that was still a very odd interchange. But the healthcare thing was out of bounds (I tracked down the quote) and he sounds like he’s channeling Marie Antoinette with that helicopter stuff. So WTF? Is this supposed to be a joke?
Chuchundra
Our little girl is all growed up.
**sniff**
asiangrrlMN
Harold Ford is purty. That is all he really needs to be. Honey, women have gotten by on their looks for ages. So, don’t feel bad if you can’t be a big important senator from NY. You can’t have it all.
Perry Como
Ford is more of a douchebagger than a carpetbagger.
rikyrah
I am so glad to see so many seeing the Dark Sith for who he is.
Bulworth
@General Winfield Stuck:
True dat. And Amen.
Soul On Ice
Michael Steele laughs at Harold Ford’s delusion
sacman701
Ford seems to think that the way to win the Democratic primary is to talk like Ben Nelson. I could see that maybe working in Missouri or Ohio or Virginia or Florida, but in New York?