The Big Show: Harold Ford Jr. and Bob Corker and the Race for Senate

The following article is an excerpt from our October issue. For more political coverage by the leading conservative magazine in West Tennessee, subscribe now.

By Jonathan Lindberg

In Sumner County, in the heart of rural Tennessee, Harold Ford Jr. has rolled up his shirt-sleeves and is making his stump-speech. The Sumner County Democrats are having a summer picnic, though the atmosphere feels more like a revival service. Wooden benches and slow-moving fans. A corded microphone with which Ford struggles. “It is 2006,” he yells, over the noise from the crowd, “still, we buy more gas and pay more for it than we did five years ago. And they (Republicans) want two more years? Give-me-a-break.”

The group breaks in with enthusiastic applause, whistles and even a few amen’s. Ford, looking unusually casual in jeans and an open-collared shirt, is on a roll. He moves from gas prices to the Middle East, building momentum as the noise from the crowd grows. He is working them now, talking about giving-farmers-a-chance, about creating an environment where kids from rural towns can grow up to be scientists and doctors and engineers. Not the kind of speech you would hear, say in downtown Nashville, but to this crowd, it plays well.

“I come from this big old family in Memphis; you may have read about them on occasion.” He smiles and waits for the laughter. “My parents told me over, and over, and over again, you can be whatever you want to be. They made us go to church. They made us do our homework. You know, I just believe that any kid can do well, if they are just given the chance. Rich kids are not the only kids that can do well in this country.”

It is the last line that draws the applause.

If the race for Senate in Tennessee is to be the deciding factor for control of the U.S. Senate after November, than voters like these in Sumner County, rural Middle and West Tennessee, will be the deciding voices as to who will fill that seat, Democrat Harold Ford Jr. or Republican Bob Corker.

For Bob Corker, the former Mayor of Chattanooga, the race for U.S. Senate has been in full-swing since early May, a time when he was still registering single digits in primary polls across the state. That was the month that the Corker campaign began its media blitz, starting with the much-talked about commercial that had Corker, who carries the one-of-the-most distinctive Tennessee drawls of any state-wide candidate in recent years, sitting beside his mother, glancing through the old family album. The everyman-effect was overwhelming.

Corker, who resides in Chattanooga, touts his humble origins, having started his own construction company in 1978 with only $8,000 in pocket. Over the next fifteen years, the construction business would make him a multimillionaire, not only giving him unlimited contacts among wealthy business owners throughout Tennessee, but also giving him a clear advantage in media buying power in 2006, which ultimately decided the primary race.

Jeff Vanness, Senior Policy Advisor to the Ed Bryant campaign, put it to me like this, “Bob Corker was able to sit down and write one check to his campaign, for more money than Ed was able to raise during his entire two years on the trail.” This, in a tone still lingering with frustration. More than any stance on any single policy issue, this is what decided the primary race.

Bryant and Van Hilleary, both former Congressmen, spent the better part of the last year working over the same crowd of conservatives, seeking out campaign contributions and votes with the same message, trying to convince a crowd that still supported President Bush that Bob Corker was no conservative. It worked to a degree, until the television commercials appeared. In a matter of thirty days, Corker outspent his opponents four-to-one, and was able to push himself back to the right and into the lead, painting himself as a true red-state-conservative, pro-life and pro-President-Bush.

The other candidates saw it coming, but there was nothing they could do to stop it.

On election night, August 3, the once three-way race quickly became two, as Hilleary conceded, in odd fashion, before the polls had even closed. Not long after, Bryant faded, conceding the hard-fought battle to Corker.

What should have been a headline though turned into an aside. While Corker was celebrating in Chattanooga, Harold Ford Jr., who had run mostly unopposed, showed up at a victory rally in Nashville, alongside the icon of the Democratic Party, former-President Bill Clinton. The pair captured the ten-o’clock news and stole the thunder from the Republicans.

This event marked the beginning of the Ford campaign in-full-speed. It also introduced Corker to what his East Tennessee friend, Congressman Zach Wamp (R-TN) calls, the ‘quasi-celebrity-status’ of Harold Ford Jr.

In late February, Ford kicked off his run for the Senate here in Memphis, alongside another star in the Democratic Party, Senator Barack Obama (D-IL). In the lobby of the Holiday Inn at the University of Memphis, a group of three-hundred-or-so Ford supporters and curious onlookers gathered together, waiting for Ford to come through the revolving doors. The lobby was filled with bodies and signs, leaving only a small path toward an escalator which led up to the Grand Ballroom, where eight-hundred more Ford supporters awaited his arrival.

It might have been late February, but the mood felt more like October. Ford arrived forty-five minutes late, however the moment he walked through the doors, there were cheers and screams, the kind you might associate with teenagers at a rock concert. Ford was flanked by Senator Obama and Shelby County Mayor A.C. Wharton. The marching band from a local high school began to play outside and the three began to work the crowd, slowly.

It took Ford and Obama twenty minutes to reach the top of the escalator. They were followed by chants of, “Junior, Junior!” Ahead came the song Let’s Get it Started, by the Black Eyed Peas. To this, Ford and Obama entered the Grand Ballroom, loud and filled to over-capacity.
It was only February, but the star power that would follow this campaign was already apparent.
Ford has had the unique luxury of running a national campaign for a state-wide race. He has held major fundraisers in Washington D.C., New York City, and Los Angeles, raising a bulk of his money out-of-state. The free publicity Ford receives on any given week can at times seem overwhelming. Both Time and USA Today have devoted full-length articles to his campaign. He is a frequent guest on MSNBC and CNBC, along with radio shows across the state. The cameras of C-SPAN, which are always rolling, have aired campaign stops in East Tennessee. Corker, no doubt tired of the free exposure his opponent receives, has acquired a standard response, “My opponent sure knows how to talk, doesn’t he?”

But the question is, will national publicity translate into Tennessee votes? Matt Kuhn, Chairman of the Democratic Party for Shelby County, put it to me like this. “National media won’t mean a thing come the last four weeks of the election. The question then is, does a campaign have enough money left to run an effective media blitz throughout the state? You have to win voters from all sides, from Starbucks to Hardees.”

So far, Corker has remained somewhat immune to the national exposure of his opponent, remaining slightly ahead in most polls. Those following the Corker campaign in Shelby County still believe this race is his to lose. “There is no doubt, Bob Corker is a charismatic politician,” Tennessee State Representative Tre Hargett told me over lunch. “Bob has done a great job of reaching out to conservative voters who did not necessarily support him during the primaries.”
In fact, Van Hilleary has campaigned for Corker in the crucial counties of Middle Tennessee, where Hilleary still has some support and where Corker badly needs votes to win. What is odd though, at least to this writer, is the obvious silence from Ed Bryant, the conservative voice for West Tennessee, who swung hard at Corker during the primaries.

Over the past month, Bryant has sent out fundraising letters for both Jim Bryson for Governor and State Senator David Fowler, who is heading up the Family Action Council of Tennessee in efforts to push through the Marriage Amendment Act on the November ballot.

I asked Jeff Vanness about this implied silence from Bryant. Vanness seemed somewhat dismissive. “Look, Ed took the stage with Bob the day after the election and pledged his support. He has appeared with Bob since then. Ed has done whatever Bob has asked him to do.” Which apparently is not that much.

Campaigns like this, with no incumbent, are often about style, and less about substance. The brilliance of the Corker campaign has been its ability to transform a multimillionaire businessman into an everyman-in-jeans. It has also been successful in depicting Ford as Washington insider, a label that seems to resonate at a point when Washington politicians are attracting the same approval ratings as Vanilla Coke.

On an appearance on Hardball with Chris Matthews (MSNBC), Ford, providing a rare stumble over a complicated sentence, apologized to Matthews for his “country ways.” Even to the political outsider watching Ford, who appeared from Los Angeles following a campaign fundraiser, it was a rare moment that did not ring true.

On the broader issue of substance, namely that of Iraq, the one issue that has defined close elections in other Senate races across the country (Connecticut, Pennsylvania, Missouri, and Virginia), both candidates have made little noise.

Ford, who voted in Congress to authorize the use of force, has resisted the calls of his fellow Democrats for a timetable or an immediate withdrawal from Iraq. During his appearance on Hardball, Ford even defended the President, saying, “In fairness to President Bush, it is doubtful had the President known (about the faulty intelligence), he would have brought the resolution for the use of force.” Such moderate compassion, for a President extremely unpopular among those on the left, has angered many voters on the left, hoping for a candidate that will strongly oppose the policies of President Bush.

Corker on the other hand, has an even tighter rope to walk. President Bush has already visited Tennessee twice on his behalf. On his most recent trip to Memphis, the President raised a million dollars for the Corker campaign. Corker, dependent upon Republican support, both here in Tennessee and in Washington, has given his full support to the war. “I cannot imagine what Iraq would look like if we left.”

In a climate of rising death tolls and plummeting public approval, full support for an unpopular war has dismantled similar races in other states.

On September 15, the NashvillePost.com printed a revealing story concerning a conference call that supposedly took place between the Republican National Headquarters in Washington D.C. and representatives from the Tennessee State Republican Party and the Bob Corker campaign. According to the article, the representatives from Tennessee were “bluntly told by those in Washington that the effort being put forth (in Tennessee) was unacceptable and would not be tolerated.”

The following week, The New York Times ran a front page splash declaring that the once-secure Tennessee could be lost to the Democrats, the result of the aggressive campaign being run by U.S. Representative Harold Ford Jr.

The race, no doubt, has become close. Depending on the poll you read, and the day you read it, Corker or Ford might be ahead by any number of points. Close, but by no means decided.

The very fact that the once-secure race has become close is a testament to the drive that has fueled the Ford campaign over the past two months. One state Republican leader, speaking on the condition of anonymity, confided to me that the Corker campaign was caught off guard by Ford and his barrage of positive campaign commercials. He believed the momentum had shifted, at least for now, to the other side.

Still, all that means very little until November and Election Day. The month of October holds three major debates in three major media markets across Tennessee, as well as thirty days of television ads.

In the month of October, style and substance will collide, and a two-year race that is for now, too-close-to-call, will be decided. And we will be watching.