Welcome To The Big Apple, Harold Ford. Don’t Make Yourself Too Comfortable, Yet.

The abortion one is priceless….

I don’t think much more of Harold Ford than I do of Sarah Palin. I never understood why he was such a media darling. Well, maybe I do.

As our one time Swamper pourmecoffee tweeted – Harold Ford excited to be NY Sen. and represent people of Scranton. It isn’t? Well, Albany then. You know what he means.

Dear New Yorkers:
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You have every right to vote for any one you so choose. The decision is yours and yours only. I hope you choose wisely and are rewarded for your choice with a good hard working senator. Just please don’t make it be Harold Ford Jr., if you do, you will be sorry.
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Thx.

Entertainment value. Just like Reagan. Who’s ever really cared about anything else?

Now we need some one to run from Gillibrand’s left to run and we’ll have a real race.

Dear old Harold Ford, best known for seeking out Confederate flags to pose with, while wearing his camouflage cap.

Vote Harold Ford – the Negro Confederate Candidate!

OK,so maybe Harold Ford isn’t the strongest candidate for the Dems in Ne York…

http://www.political-buzz.com/

I thought this campaign was a bewildering act of arrogance and delusion, then I learned Harold has a book coming out. This is a much better way to build buzz than being alternate Liebercrat on Joe Scarborough’s little morning show.

I thought Ford had better ideas. Woops.

Then again, Josh Marshall reminds us of Ford’s challenge of Nancy Pelosi for minority leader, and there was his Carville-Begala backed run at Howard Dean for DNC chair after Dean had led the Dems to their most successful election in more than a decade. So maybe Occam’s Razor cuts toward arrogance and delusion.

Ford’s principles seem to be undergoing a remarkable transformation since he moved to the big city.

Drive One…where exactly?

I’m old as dirt to know that one
But seriously, if he’s going the Hillary route shouldn’t he know some basic facts about New York first?

“one of the measures you opposed would require a gun at home to be unloaded and disassembled. Why do that?”

This is priceless. At once it shows the absurdity and stupidity of the left. Folks have guns in their homes for protection. Having it unloaded and disassembled? If someone is breaking into your house what do you do? Call the journalist asking this question to bore the intruder to death while you re-assemble the gun?

Or this!

“You voted for legislation that would allow local enforcement agencies to investigate and arrest illegal immigrants. I am sure you are familiar with the debate around that bill, how it changes the relationship between cops and the people they are supposed to protect.”

Can you imagine the temerity of someone elected to uphold the laws of this country actually wanting to enforce the laws. The gall Ford has!

NYT all the fits they know to print

Harold Ford is on the Left?
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Here’s Ford on Torture (To Chris Mathews)
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Ford: You have to remember when this was occurring. This is 2002, 2003. The country was in a different place, in a different space. And if you were to say to me, as an American, put aside my partisanship, that we have an opportunity to gain information that would prevent the destruction of an American city, to prevent killings in American cities, and we have to use certain techniques, I’m one of those Americans that would have voted a certain way, Chris. And that polling said it might have been torture, but I’m not as outraged.
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http://hotair.com/archives/2009/05/12/video-harold-ford-says-i-would-have-voted-for-torture/
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From Harold Ford’s ad (shot From a church Pew): ” I voted for the PATRIOT Act, $5 trillion in defense, and against amnesty for illegals.”
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http://www.salon.com/news/politics/war_room/2010/01/06/ford_gillibrand/index.html
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I think you need to recheck Ford’s voting record.

Once a DLCer always a DLCer.

A very interesting piece, freeinpa. I mean, here we are, talking about how Harold Ford can’t even give a straight answer (or, apparently, give an answer that’s remotely close to the same subject as the original question) and you can’t help but question a “left” slant to the questioner’s questions. I mean, after all, Harold Ford is running for the Democratic candidacy so there’s absolutely no reason for democratic voters to want to know how Harold Ford feels about the “Liberal” issues. Nope, gotta question the questioner about why those questions were asked when they so obviously have a Republican answer that all Democrats will rally behind.

forgottenlord:

Yes one needs to question the questioner. From the tone and tenor of the questions, the interviewer was not interested in answer because the story was already written, the supporting retorts were all that was required.

The NYT does it with every candidate it does not like and that’s no surprise. I am not much of a Ford fan but I am hard pressed to recall a similar interview trying to pin Mrs. Clinton down on issues as she took a “listening tour”.

Or Senator Obama. The NYT was (is) too busy drooling.

Thanks for sticking a fork in that dumbass.

It amazes me to no end when abortion is made a key issue in weighing a politicians credibility, leanings etc. While I know most people take it for granted that abortion is a political issue, I disagree. A woman’s body should not be an issue for political hee hawing. I am conservative on some issues and liberal on others but on this one, I think it is absurd for people to legislate a woman’s body.

We do not regulate sex (cannot and should not) BUT thanks to the media, we throw it in the face of young people from when they can breathe, forcing it down their throats….
Is it not therefore the epitome of hypocrisy for politicians and other folks to beat their chests in self righteous “interest” when the natural outcome of sex, like pregnancy occurs?? People bombarded by sexual images daily will have sex especially when they are young and impressionable.

And yes, I know this does not directly relate to this Ford fellow per se but reading about this abortion debate sometimes amazes me.

Phew, I am glad I got that off my chest.

LM
http://theblindspotsofgod.wordpress.com/2010/01/08/technology-savvy-nigerian-criminals-are-the-greatest-threat-to-national-security/

Truth be told, I wasn’t paying attention when Clinton was running to know so I can’t give an example for a rebuttle, but it would not shock me if your penchant for selective hearing was the issue there.
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Regardless, this interview seems to be a bunch of issues where the candidate has had questionable positions from the perspective of the Democratic base and it basically asked about his opinion of the party’s position on these issues. In effect, they’re giving him an opportunity to compare himself with the Dem base for the Dem primary where the voters are almost certainly asking the same questions. Yes, there are other topics to be discussed and need to be discussed, but these are all the negatives against Ford’s candidacy. This interview basically set him up to either silence those questions by explaining his position or leave those questions there by not answering the questions – he wasn’t ready for the questions and thus the story is all of these unanswered questions about his negatives. They could’ve given him a chance to basically restate his platform, but that would be lazy interviewing (mind you, not looking at his platform and having questions about possible issues with said platform is also some level of lazy). Interviews shouldn’t be a soapbox available for anyone to stand on and preach – they’ve got websites and rallies for that. Interviews should be questioning the person about his positions, challenging him with facts and questions to see how strongly he believes these things, how well he understands these issues, and how interested he is in those issues.
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The New York Times did that in this interview. Ford wasn’t expecting it, he got slaughtered, and he should’ve gotten slaughtered.

In fairness, one side believes that it’s legalized murder and thus, the most heinous legal crime. When that’s the scale, it’s not hard to see how other things seem small in comparison

forgottenlord:

“Interviews shouldn’t be a soapbox available for anyone to stand on and preach – they’ve got websites and rallies for that. Interviews should be questioning the person about his positions, challenging him with facts and questions to see how strongly he believes these things, how well he understands these issues, and how interested he is in those issues.”

I agree 100%. And if this was the case in the 2008 election Obama would still be voting present as the junior Senator from Illinois.

My point is the NYT knows what position it will take and then forms the questions and answers to substantiate thier position.

Also in fairness, whenever this comes up I direct people to one of these links which appear every Monday. Those who are so concerned about the unborn can do something for the actually born.

http://www.philly.com/inquirer/magazine/81117532.html

Next best thing to getting a Republican elected is getting a conservative Democrat elected…

…heck, it’s practically the same thing!

Again, I suspect they were far more concerned with using the Democrat’s party line for those two issues and forcing Ford to answer questions regarding this. Again, I point out that the next election he’ll be in is the Democratic Primary who will want to weigh him, in part, on these issues against the party line. I cannot comment on bias for some politicians vs others, but can you at least agree that A) this is a reasonable approach for interviewing someone running in the Democratic ticket and B) that the questions as worded, would be approximately in-line with said strategy?

Depends – are we talking a Sarah Palin Republican or a Lindsay Graham/Susan Collins/Olympia Snowe Republican?

Anyone know if Imus’s chosen candidate for the Louisiana Senate seat has got the man’s backing for this effort? Is Scarborough on board? Old Reliable Centrist Democrat (aka Republican lite or rite ) can always be called upon to toe the line of the day.

forgottenlord:

I would agree that candidates of all parties should be questioned thoroughly on all issues. It should not matter what the party platform is but the issue. I think voters would be more open to listen to pols if they did not have to conform and twist an answer around some useless party document. (Demo or Rep)

I still believe the question (and the proposed law) on disassembled guns is idiocy.

OT:
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Debatable. Your assumption is that guns are used for personal protection which isn’t a universally supported way to use guns. Other uses, such as hunting or collecting, aren’t nearly as problematic but also have far fewer issues with this law. I’m sure if we can agree that the owner had no intention to use those guns for self-defense, they should be unloaded and locked away for fairly clear safety reasons.
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That, I’m pretty sure, is about as far as you and I will agree. From there you get into the debate of whether it is reasonable for people to own a gun for self-defense, etc, etc, etc (and please note that when I make a comment about whether it’s reasonable or not, hiding behind the second amendment is pointless because I’m talking about what should be enshrined in law, not what is currently in law). My point, however, is that there is some way to show logic in this law – if you don’t like self-defense usage while not really limiting usage for sport, etc, this law is fairly reasonable. Surely, you can agree that there is causal logic there.

So-called liberals give Gillibrand a lot of grief about guns and what else? Because if you’re going to run a liberal against her, you need some issues.