As the Tennessee progressive blogosphere continues to look at Harold Ford Jr. with a bit of disdain and incredulous wonder, Aunt. B. over at Pith points out some of the reasons why everyone is looking at New York going “Really?”
She writes:
But this attitude of having to run on “God, guns, and gays” seems to be conventional wisdom among Tennessee Democrats as well. Never mind that it’s not working.
Ford was the king of taking wedge issues and running the hell out of them. He was the one that brought up all those conservative talking points repeatedly while he was running for the Senate. If you go back to October of 2006 on any political blog here in the state of Tennessee, we questioned Ford on this constantly. The Memphis boys constantly held his feet to the fire. And they should have.
Now he’s become bonafide? Now he’s giving the talking points of the Democratic party’s mission statement? Where was this guy four years ago? Sometimes I can’t help but wonder if the best thing that democrats in this state could do is completely reject the wedge factor. It’s not helping with real issues like, oh I don’t know, job creation, economic development and budget shortfalls in the state.
Weapons of mass distraction thy name is Harold Ford Jr.
It’s all a minor blip, honestly, except there is a lesson here. And it is simple. Ford created these wedge issues because he didn’t understand his own state party and he set a race up on what he thought was going on, not what was going on.
I said earlier this week that I’m glad that he’s backing down on controversial issues that are just designed to create a diversion, but we could have used that guy in 2006.
