Let me start out with a simple humble statement: HAROLD FORD IS THE BEST POLITICIAN WE HAVE IN THE MFing DEMOCRATIC PARTY RIGHT NOW, SO SHUT THE F UP!
Dems committed to changing this nation for the better, should be down on their knees giving thanks that Ford is in our party, running in a hopelessly Confederate Red State, and actually putting us in a position to WIN. He is a f-ing GIFT FROM THE POLITICAL GODS! He is the Way Out of the Wilderness for the Democratic Party. The path we HAVE to walk BEFORE regaining relevance as a national party.
IF HE LOSES BY 20 MFing POINTS, WE SHOULD STILL BE THANKING OUR LUCKY STARS FOR THIS DUDE. And begging him to forgive some of our excesses.
Why am I having to point this out? Again? To friends I've had an eerily similar argument with before about a guy named Clinton? (Clinton sucking because he was a f'd- up "conservative.") Yeah, we all remember how much worse life in these United States was while HE was screwing with our Progressive Values.
I started this diary the other day after the flap over Ford "not supporting Gay Marriage." I was dumbfounded that people would actually torpedo our chances in TENNAFUCKINSEE over this?!
Has anybody who's criticizing Ford ever been to Tennessee??? Ever seen him in person? Or even seen him in action on TV? Does any one of us really have a "problem" with Ford representing "us" in the fricking Confederate South? Does anybody know who the current Senator from TN is? Guy named Frist. The Republican Majority Leader who will be running for President.
If this wasn't the context Ford was existing in, he would STILL be an atomic bomb in the Democratic arsenal. The guy is pure magic. He is always two steps ahead of his opponents. He's got Jackie Chan agility with white Southern working class rhetoric. He can turn racist wingnuts around on their own dumbass words faster than a speeding bullet. He has diffused their idiotic memes into meaningless drivel before they could even show up to pathetically throw them at him. He has taken all the well worn, time tested demonizing tactics that Republicans have used to spin off people who SHOULD be Democrats in the South, and has cut them off at the balls. Yes, Ford has practically neutered the Southern Republican line of bullshit, and made them run on ISSUES THAT MATTER to the majority of Southerners. Like economic justice for instance. Iraq. Health care.
He is, in that overworked and grossly inarticulate phrase, a god damn Southern fried ROCKSTAR.
And miraculously for us, he's a f-ing Democrat. A Democrat, who against all odds, and through shere force of his own brains, personality, and political skill, is actually posed to not only win a Senate race thought inconcievable, but to become the first black Southern Senator since Reconstruction.
You don't like his position on "gay marriage?" How bout Corker giving Bush continued control of the Senate, and rubber stamping his next appointment to the Supreme Court where they are one vote away from making "sodomy" a FELONY???
For those having problems with Ford's rhetoric on "gay marriage," what's your position on rotting in jail? Yes folks, THOSE ARE THE STAKES HERE. The stakes being so cavalierly waved off by some because Ford is not putting all the "progressive" garb on and parading around Tennesse lecturing rednecks on tolerance and diversity.
A narrow House majority is next to nothing in the grand scheme of things, my friends. Might evaporate in two years. "Moderates" from both parties will wield ridiculous power over all the hot button issues, and water down everything.
But Bush's Supreme Court could last TWENTY YEARS! And that's odds on to happen in the next two years if Republicans hold the Senate.
We got a brilliant politician who has an uncanny ability to communicate with white Southerners and actually bring some of them back into the Democratic Party for the first time in half a century (who also just happens to be a black kid) and many around these parts are ready to throw him under the bus.
WTF???
Consider reality, people!
I live in San Francisco. On purpose. I don't live in TN. Also on purpose. I don't give a shit whether the Volunteers win or lose. But I can tell you right now, nobody "better," or more "progressive," could actually be in a position to WIN THE SENATE FOR DEMOCRATS in Tennesee (and bring us a majority in the Senate) at this moment in history.
And if Harold Ford loses this election, or god forbid, is marginalized by the Party, we will all lose. Big time. And for years.