Harold Ford on George W. Bush: "I love my President" Ann Coulter on Ford: "one of my favorite dems" [View All]

Freedom Rider: Harold Ford Returns
by BAR editor and senior columnist Margaret Kimberley
January 12, 2010

Harold Ford’s political ambitions were detoured only temporarily, making the beautiful dream of a Ford-free political world all too brief. He refuses to disappear, like the proverbial bad penny. The former congressman and now chairman of the corporate backed Democratic Leadership Council has expressed his intention to challenge New York Senator Kirsten Gillibrand in November.

Ford moved to New York after his losing Tennessee Senate campaign in 2006, taking the position of every failed politician, executive at an investment bank. Whether at Merrill Lynch or the DLC, Ford has been concentrating on what he does best, currying favor with wealthy political donors. In New York he has struck gold, quite literally, with the likes of billionaire mayor Michael Bloomberg, who has indicated he would be supportive of a Ford run against the sitting senator. In a Wall Street Journal op-ed, Ford co-authored a column touting the dreadful Obama administration education “reform” policy with two more billionaires, Louis Gerstner and Eli Broad.

Ford’s absence from elective office may have dimmed memories of the dangers he poses to black America and to the Democratic party. Ford made a name for himself as one of the most conservative Democrats in Congress during a ten year career representing his Memphis, Tennessee district. Conservative icon Ann Coulter called him “one of my favorite Democrats.” During that time, Ford never passed up a chance to gain the favor of heavy hitter donors, or of reporters easily impressed by an obvious light weight because his sucking up extended to them as well.

Ford’s defeat in the 2006 Senate race was good news for black politics and for the Democratic party. There are already too many Democrats in name only who cannot be trusted to support the most fundamental policies that were traditionally the mainstay of the party. If Ford had won, the corporate effort to crush progressive politics by destroying black political aspirations would have succeeded. The nullification of black political demands would have been accelerated, making an already dismal situation exponentially worse.

Ford campaigned for the Senate on an anti-abortion platform, and he also voted for “fast track” free trade agreements, the authorization of the use of force in Iraq, the disastrous bankruptcy bill, and for a constitutional amendment banning same sex marriage. When George W. Bush tried and failed to put Social Security in the hands of the bankster class, he counted on Harold Ford as one of his allies in the cause that would have destroyed the only safety net that black working people have.

Luckily, acceptable campaign rhetoric in Tennessee won’t translate very well in New York, and Ford may be hoisted on his own petard of opportunism. New Yorkers will not want to support a right wing, pro-life, anti-gay marriage candidate who famously said of George W. Bush, “I love my president. I love him personally.”

Read the full commentary at:

http://www.blackagendareport.com/?q=content/freedom-rider-harold-ford-returns