SubscribeAP Lavishes Praise On Corrupt Ford Family Scion
The Associated Press once again displays its fervor for clean honest government with this hommage to the latest product of one of the most corrupt families in the history of the country:
Rep. Harold Ford Jr., D-Tenn., campaigns in Franklin, Tenn., on June 17, 2006. Ford is running for the U.S. Senate seat being vacated by Republican Bill Frist.
Ford Jr. carries party’s hopes in Tenn.
By BETH RUCKER, Associated Press Writer
Democrat Harold Ford Jr. loves to tell the story about his unscheduled campaign stop at the Little Rebel Drive-In in Jackson, where Confederate flag bumper stickers are standard in the parking lot.
A row of curious faces turned to stare as the black lawmaker from Memphis entered the restaurant. Ford talked about politics and his campaign for the Senate, and he found the customers warming to him. They even let him affix campaign stickers to their cars and the restaurant’s refrigerator.
"The people were very receptive and very supportive," said the 36-year-old congressman. "I’ve been back there since. It really just speaks to the idea of the campaign of talking to everyone everywhere."
Private school-polished, charismatic and defiantly conservative on the Iraq war, gay marriage and other issues, Ford is the Democratic hope to win the open Senate seat being vacated by Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist and make inroads for a party on the outs in the South.
But Ford faces a number of obstacles, starting with the obvious: No black man has been elected to the Senate from a Southern state since Reconstruction. For that matter, only five blacks have been elected to the Senate.
"Race is always a factor when people vote," said Michael Grillot, 50, a businessman from Franklin. "Whether you’re black or white, it always is a factor."
Tennessee has a smaller black population (about 17 percent) than other Southern states, putting a greater emphasis on Ford’s need to appeal to white voters. Even before he formally declared his candidacy, Ford spent plenty of time in eastern Tennessee, an area with few minorities.
"The black population in that part of the state is so small that you can’t say it’s a problem because no one’s really tried," said Christian Grose, an assistant professor of political science at Vanderbilt University.
Tennessee hasn’t elected a Democratic senator in 16 years. Western Tennessee and the predominantly black city of Memphis — Ford’s base — traditionally vote Democratic while the mountains of eastern Tennessee are Republican.
Securing the support of the swing voters in middle Tennessee will be critical, but that region, like the rest of the South, trends to the political right. Democrat Al Gore failed to carry his home state in the 2000 presidential election.
Mary A. Lewis, 60, a Memphis homemaker, said Ford represents a new breed of leadership.
"He’s come up in a different time and will do different things," Lewis said. "The older heads need to sit down and let the younger ones take over."
But James Wolfe, 35, who lives in Memphis but leans Republican, said Ford is a far cry from conservative.
"It seems like he lets his dad tell him what to do," said Wolfe, referring to Harold Ford Sr., who served in the House for 22 years.
In Tennessee, President Bush’s approval ratings are down, and the governor is a Democrat, Phil Bredesen, who won a closely contested race in 2002. Bill Clinton carried the state in 1992 and 1996.
The younger Ford, who was first elected to Congress in 1996 at the age of 26, seems to have learned a lesson from Bredesen and Clinton: Accentuate the conservative.
He speaks well of Bush and backed the president’s capital gains tax cuts. Ford has supported constitutional amendments protecting school prayer and banning gay marriage; the latter will be on the state ballot in November.
"It’s a longer shot for Democrats in the South," said Merle Black, a political science professor at Emory University in Atlanta. "Ford’s doing what a Democrat needs to be doing in order to be competitive."
Ford comes from a powerful Memphis political family, with eight members who have served as state lawmakers, local politicians or in Congress. His father has 11 siblings, and Ford has said he has 91 first cousins.
But the family has been touched by scandal.
His father was tried and acquitted on federal bank fraud charges in 1993. His uncle, Emmitt, resigned from the state House in 1981 after a conviction on insurance fraud. Another uncle, John, resigned from the state Senate last year after being charged with taking $55,000 in bribes. He has pleaded not guilty, and his trial is set for October, within weeks of the election.
Ford Jr. confronts his family’s reputation head-on during campaign stops, telling critics to "shut up" and asking voters to consider his record instead of his family’s problems.
"When you figure out the recipe to pick a family, call me," he said at a recent Democratic Party event. "Otherwise, let us run for the Senate. When you have nothing else to talk about, you talk about those issues."
Edward Gilbert, a food services worker in Knoxville, said Ford’s family woes won’t be an issue in how he votes. "You don’t hear very much about it anymore," he said.
Republicans will settle on a candidate in the Aug. 3 primary, with the three top candidates embroiled in a fierce fight. Ford faces no major opposition in securing his party’s nod.
Bob Corker, the former Chattanooga mayor and state finance commissioner, is seen as the Republican front-runner with nearly $5.5 million in campaign cash, more than his two major opponents, former Reps. Ed Bryant and Van Hilleary, combined. But Bryant and Hilleary have strong support among conservatives, and no one is willing to concede.
Ford, who has raised $5.7 million for the campaign, talks to voters about growing up in a family that required two things of him: going to church and campaigning for his political family members.
But, man, those Republicans are corrupt!
Related Articles:
10 Responses to “AP Lavishes Praise On Corrupt Ford Family Scion”
Leave a Reply
You must be registered and logged in to post a comment.
August 6th, 2006 at 1:11 pm
If you go for visuals, you can further educate yourself on
the Ford family of West Tennessee at:
http://lexus130.tripod.com/fordnomore.html
August 6th, 2006 at 1:20 pm
I love how the MSM always point to race as the deciding factor in a political contest. As if to say “If you don’t vote Ford, you’re not voting for him because he’s black”. This is the same logic that will make Hillary our next president, except it will be “you’re a sexist pig if you won’t vote Hillary” or “you think she can’t do it because she’s a woman”.
And that part about “touched” by scandal is rich. Wonder if they used the term “touched” by scandal with Duke Cunningham or Tom Delay. Of course not, they’re republicans. You know, the enemy.
August 6th, 2006 at 1:34 pm
July 6th, 2006 at 6:57 pm
“The whole gang is so crooked, that when they’re buried, they’ll have to be twisted into the ground like a corkscrew. ”
And this wont be a problem as most of the family are embalmers at the N.J. Ford Funeral Home within the ninth congressional district. The family is in all levels of government and the criminal court system. The family funeral home is where much of the family identifies as their home residence to conform to residency rules for the various local and state offices that they have been elected to by voters who blindly follow the “Ford Family Ballot” which most recently had vote solicitations with the name Ford for more than 50% of those listed. And Nephew [to Harold, Sr.] Joe Ford, Jr. [son of Joe Ford, Sr, a county commissioner] lost the primary for Harold, Jr. congressional seat and Harold Ford, Sr. helped this along so that son and brother of Harold Ford, Jr., Jake Ford [brother of Harold, Jr] could run in the general election for the Tennessee Ninth Congressional District as an independent. The Fords, therefore, abandoned the Democrat party to run against a non-family democrat to try and keep Fords in all levels of government which puts a mighty sword in the hands of family head Harold Ford, Sr., who operates out of Fisher Island [near Miami] and the Hamptons. Memphis, the voters in the Democrat party mean nothing to the Fords except when the greedy bunch need votes.
Hope you can figure all of the above out. The Tennessee voters that keep the Fords in office sure can’t.
How better can you get to know someone than spending the night with them? Talk to the dead, register the dead, and whisper the word Ford in their ears. When the hearses transport people [dead and alive] to the pools at no charge, you find many half alive and dead voters casting a vote for the Fords. It pays to sleep over in a funeral home if you need votes.
August 6th, 2006 at 1:39 pm
They are black kennedy’s or clintons. nuf said.
August 30th, 2006 at 6:53 pm
Harold Ford, Sr., the seventeenth highest paid lobbyist in the country with his sleazy family on both elective boards in Memphis and Shelby County, his brother under indictment for fraud . . .big time. His sister running for John’s senate seat at the state level, Prince Harold, Jr. a congressman running for senate and his “horribly unqualified” brother Jake [Joke]running for Junior’s old seat in Congress. On and on, but look somewhere else about this corrupt family. Joke should be ashamed to put his profile on his WWW site. This looser has accomplished nothing his life time.
What kind of shady crap is it for a previously indicted congressman, Harold Ford, Sr. with all these relatives in high office and all from a family that has served a high percent of jail time, either now, or soon.
Anyway find out more at: [because the news media wont touch this family in their bias.]
http://lexus130.tripod.com/fordnomore.html
October 7th, 2006 at 7:23 am
Harold Ford’s lies catching up with him, stating you are a lawyer when you are not is a crime in any state of the USA.
http://www.tfponline.com/Quick.....%3DAr00903
Ford called self a lawyer but did not pass bar exam
By Michael Davis Staff Writer
‘Democratic U.S. Senate hopeful Harold Ford Jr. referred to himself as a lawyer earlier this week, but the congressman has not passed the bar exam.
Michael Powell, senior adviser to the Ford campaign, said U.S. Rep. Ford took the Tennessee bar exam in February 1997 and failed. He said that was the only time Rep. Ford has taken the test.
Rep. Ford, of Memphis, got his law degree from the University of Michigan Law School in 1996, according to his congressional Web site.
He said Tuesday during a meeting with Chattanooga Times Free Press editors and reporters that Republican opponent Bob Corker has said the next senator should be a businessman and not a lawyer.
“I told Senator (Lamar) Alexander, I said, ‘I won’t hold it against you if I’m elected, and there’s two lawyers in the delegation who try their hardest to work through the issues,” Rep. Ford said.
Corker campaign spokesman Todd Womack said, “If Congressman Ford will stretch the truth about his own resume, what else will he stretch the truth about?” Mr. Powell said it is his understanding that Rep. Ford was joking when he made reference to being a lawyer during Tuesday’s meeting.
“He has never held himself out as a lawyer,” Mr. Powell said.
He said President Bush has referred to Rep. Ford as a lawyer.
“I think it makes sense to send somebody up to Washington who’s not a lawyer,” President Bush said at a Nashville fundraiser in late August, according to a transcript. “Nothing wrong with lawyers, we got a lot of them up there.”
Mr. Powell said the GOP is finding “petty” things to talk about.
“We’re a month out from the election, and the Republicans and Mr. Corker still are not talking about the issues,” he said.
E-mail Michael Davis at michaeld@timesfreepress.com‘
October 7th, 2006 at 11:16 am
“Democratic U.S. Senate hopeful Harold Ford Jr. referred to himself as a lawyer earlier this week, but the congressman has not passed the bar exam.” - above.
Did he say he was a lawyer or a liar? Southern accents can be misunderstood sometimes. I’m a southerner, I know.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but I thought if someone graduated from law school they are a “law school graduate”, not a lawyer.
And in this age of instant information available on the internet, why would this stupid and sleazy racist lie about “being a lawyer”. You could look it up so easily.
Corker campaign spokesman Todd Womack said, “If Congressman Ford will stretch the truth about his own resume, what else will he stretch the truth about?” - same article.
Lying is listed as a job skill on Democrats’ resumes.
October 7th, 2006 at 11:21 am
The only Fords who are not in jail are the ones who just got out or are about to go in.
They are a very sleazy bunch of Grifters.
October 7th, 2006 at 7:13 pm
CSPAN did a piece on candidate “Harold Ford” yesterday, he was described as “religious” with some examples of Ford invoking the name of God and JC at his rallies, “conservative” with examples of Ford attending state fairs and rodeos and talking to good’ol boys, and the most outrageous statement by Ford when asked if he would support George W. Bush by one of these good’ol boys was “I like George Bush,” them almost inaudible “I like George Bush, but he hasn’t been honest about everything”…
The Bulimia society got another donation of used food.
October 27th, 2006 at 2:02 pm
Throughout the blogs you will find a few supporters of the Ford
family. What you find different about those supporters is the
content of their posts. Usually vulgar and without specifics.
Early voting is now going on. Senior Ford, the high flying lobbyist
who by his son, Harold, Jr.’s own admission talks to him by phone
as much as ten times per day, is now in Memphis coordinating
the race of his son, Jake, a high school drop out as an independent
candidate for son, Harold’s old seat in congress and for son Harold, Jr.
run for the Senate.
Senior is shooting for a family member at every level of government,
Memphis, city; Memphis, county; Tennessee, state; and both houses
of congress. The entire family is dependent on this highly paid lobbyist and get
out the vote expert. By buss and van voters in Memphis are now being
driven to an early voting location across the street from a Ford election
headquarters. It all smells of voter and financial fraud.