1115.org

**Though I obviously covered the 2004 elections in depth, the ‘06 cycle was the first one I was able to follow day-by-day in real time. The mental aggregation of events, campaign news (and the ensuing results), and yes, even a bit of pundit analysis has been incredibly instructive. This is the first in what will be a series of posts laying out my thoughts on this month’s mid-term elections.**

By now, if you have been following the news, you are well aware that the real winners last Tuesday were conservative Democrats, and hard-core conservatives. The (self-made) argument that “real” conservatives won anything in a rout that saw Republicans out of power for the first time since 1994 is prima facie absurd, and not worth the time to refute it. Much more important is this idea that because a handful of Democrats won races in deep red districts/states, the wave that swept to the party to power must have been a rather reddish shade of blue. Isn’t t interesting, then, that the most conservative Democrat standing for elections was turned away?

Before and after election night, many experts pointed to Representative Harold Ford’s Senate campaign as one of the best of the cycle. Maybe if politics is a parlor game, but certainly not if Democratic principles and the long term good of the party is of any concern. In debates, interviews and his own advertising, Ford did everything but declare himself an Independent. The concerns he voiced hit both sides about equally, his standard stump line (”I take on Democrats when they’re wrong. And I side with Republicans when they’re right.”) doesn’t even bother to mention if he thinks one side is right more often than the other. It got worse

Larry Kudlow: …and all the newspapers. A lot of Republicans in general are calling you a liberal. So, I want to ask you, Mr. Ford, are you now or have you ever been a liberal?

Ford: You know me and have known me well enough. It’s unfortunate that some of my friends at home and some of my friends here in Washington who really have no real viable record to defend and no serious vision to fight for want to engage in name calling. I voted for more than $1 1/2 trillion worth of tax cuts here in the Congress. They know that I’m a believer that the Ten Commandments ought to be displayed publicly. They know as well as I do that I’m not for abortion on demand. They know as well as I do that I’ve supported our president every step of the way when he’s been right on national security.
[...]
Larry Kudlow: Did you vote for a ban on flag burning?

Ford: I did. I think there’s some symbols that are so important and are so outside of the scope of speech in some ways.
[...]
Larry Kudlow: Income tax cuts, investor tax cuts on cap gains and dividends. How did you vote when they first came up, and would you vote to make them permanent?

Ford: You know I voted yes when they first came up. You know I voted to make them permanent. I’ve been on with you a few times with some of our other guests and even my friend Paul Ryan talking about it. I voted in favor of the estate tax reduction that came through the Congress. I even voted for the elimination of it prior times. I voted for college tax credits. I voted for extension of research tax credits. Again, since I’ve been in the Congress, I’ve voted for a little over $1 1/2 trillion worth of tax cuts.
[...]
I think this economy is growing. The challenge we face is how do we let it grow and make it grow for everyone and include everyone in this incredible thing called American prosperity and dynamism. That’s what government has, I think, to focus on even more than we have in the past few years.

Ford thinks the word “liberal” is tantamount to name calling. He managed to cosign at least 10 Republican issues and pat the President on the back inside of two minutes. All this before Ford’s callow condemnation of a gay marriage decision…in New Jersey:

“I do not support the decision today reached by the New Jersey Supreme Court regarding gay marriage. I oppose gay marriage, and have voted twice in Congress to amend the United States Constitution to prohibit same-sex marriage. This November there’s a referendum on the Tennessee ballot to ban same-sex marriage - I am voting for it.”

One lens through which I view politics (and other things) is my “New Coke Theory.” If you’re too young to remember, The Coca-Cola Company, in response to Pepsi’s rising market share decided to make Coke more like Pepsi. The results were nearly fatal for Coke as public backlash produced even bigger gains for the competition. But for Coca-Cola’s swift reintroduction of the original formula as “Coke Classic,” it could have all been over for one of the world’s most recognizable brands.

Through the years, there have been smaller scale replicas of the New Coke debacle, and one of my favorites is in the 24-hour cable news game. As Fox News began winning the raw ratings battles, CNN and MSNBC rushed to unload liberal and moderate hosts in favor of any Republican not in office or prison. CNN picked up talk radio buffoon Glenn Beck, unhinged former prosecutor Nancy Grace, and increased the airtime of their own anchors Kyra Phillips and Daryn Kagan. MSNBC went for former U.S. Representative Joe Scarborough, the bow-tied hairdo Tucker Carlson, Fox News retread Rita Cosby, and gave Chris Matthews the green light to let his “tough-guy Republican” fetish flag fly. Though Fox News‘ ratings are down from their peak, CNN and MSNBC still lag far behind in every time period. By offering a watered-down replica of the Fox formula, CNN and MSNBC determine their fate as also-rans.

Harold Ford ran a “New Coke” campaign in his run for Senate. In an admittedly conservative state, Ford left little ideological daylight between himself and opponent Bob Corker, instead seeking to win on ethics/competency grounds. This failure to provide a compelling alternative to independent voters, not to mention any incentive for members of his own party to vote for him, resulted in a narrow loss. Taking a look at the Tennessee exit polls, the minority vote percentages stick out:

Ford gave up a non-trivial segment of the non-white vote to a man (and a party) who ran blatantly racist ads against him. While it is entirely possible that those voters wouldn’t have pulled the lever (touched the screen?) for Ford under any circumstances, it is far more likely that Ford would have turned out more minority voters had he run on a platform more in line with the party of which he claims membership. And while no one deserves to lose an election due to racist advertising, Ford earned his defeat by not energizing the very voters who were most outraged, especially when he had no chance of making up those votes on the other side:

“I love it,” Maury Davis, pastor of Cornerstone Church in Madison, said of Ford’s use of a church as a backdrop. “I like that he brought church back into the political arena.”

But Davis also is troubled by Ford’s candidacy.

“My problem with it is, if people believe everything he says, he’s a man who is a Democrat, a party that is pro-gay and has a pro-choice platform. So how do you reconcile that with the fundamentals of a Christian church?” Davis said.

This is the essence of the problem faced by Ford and other almost-Republican Democrats: no matter how far to the right you run, the votes will never be there. It doesn’t matter how much gratuitous gay-bashing you do, nor how far you can push the anti-choice envelope, you’re still a Democrat. But it’s not just stupid for people like Ford and Barack Obama to be Democrats yet bash their own party at every chance, it’s also the apex of laziness. They’ll take the ballot access, the millions of dollars from Democratic campaign committees and individual donors, and the support of their fellow pols, but give nothing in return, save perpetual headaches. Rather than building the Democratic brand in places like Tennessee so that future candidates might run respectable campaigns there, Ford and others barely even acknowledge the letter trailing their names. It’s important to have a big tent, but you should really have to actually be under the tent if you want the the buffet.

What’s next for Ford? It’s unclear, but just as soon as I was preparing to mock Republicans for offering their party chairmanship to Michael Steele, a man whose campaign tried to trick voters in Maryland into thinking he was a Democrat by printing misleading signs and voter pamphlets, James Carville suggests sacking Howard Dean to make room for Ford to head the DNC.

I don’t know how anyone else feels, but I’d rather have a Democrat running the DNC, and Democrats running for office under the Democratic ticket. When Ford decided it was more important to betray Democratic principles, run away from his party, and lose a winnable election, he disqualified himself. His icebox full of New Coke can keep him company until he starts getting it.