Harold Ford Implodes
by Peter Beinart
DailyBeast
New York’s would-be senator admits he gets regular pedicures, avoids the subway, and visits the five boroughs by chopper. Peter Beinart on how not to run for office.
It was the most embarrassing interview I’ve ever read by a politician not named Sarah Palin. This week, The New York Times asked Harold Ford Jr. about his potential Senate bid in New York. Why does he now support gay marriage, having voted against it twice when he was a congressman from Tennessee? His answer: “maturation.” Hard to know quite what that means, given that in a 2006 television ad he said his opposition was rooted in his “faith” in “God.”
Then The Times turned to abortion. Why is Ford now pro-choice, having previously declared that “I’m pro-life” and “I don’t run from that”? It’s all a big mistake, Ford explained. By “pro-life” he meant his support for “benefits to veterans” and “equal pay treatment to National Guardsmen.” Nothing about abortion at all.
By this point, one assumes, Ford’s flak is lying dead on the floor, having impaled himself with his BlackBerry.
Then The Times asked about Ford’s experience in New York. (He established legal residence there last year, still holds a Tennessee driver’s license, and was considering running for office in the Volunteer State as recently as 2008). Turns out Ford was always a New Yorker at heart. New York City, he explained, is one “of really two cities [the other being Palo Alto] in the country where the outlook is always forward-looking.” (Evidently, Memphis—the city where Ford was born and raised and which he represented in Congress—is already being thrown under the bus.) So has he been to all five boroughs? Yes, in fact—by helicopter!—on a tour for business leaders given by “Chief Kelly, Commissioner Kelly” (whatever). And he can’t wait to see Rochester.
(More here.)
DailyBeast
New York’s would-be senator admits he gets regular pedicures, avoids the subway, and visits the five boroughs by chopper. Peter Beinart on how not to run for office.
It was the most embarrassing interview I’ve ever read by a politician not named Sarah Palin. This week, The New York Times asked Harold Ford Jr. about his potential Senate bid in New York. Why does he now support gay marriage, having voted against it twice when he was a congressman from Tennessee? His answer: “maturation.” Hard to know quite what that means, given that in a 2006 television ad he said his opposition was rooted in his “faith” in “God.”
Then The Times turned to abortion. Why is Ford now pro-choice, having previously declared that “I’m pro-life” and “I don’t run from that”? It’s all a big mistake, Ford explained. By “pro-life” he meant his support for “benefits to veterans” and “equal pay treatment to National Guardsmen.” Nothing about abortion at all.
By this point, one assumes, Ford’s flak is lying dead on the floor, having impaled himself with his BlackBerry.
Then The Times asked about Ford’s experience in New York. (He established legal residence there last year, still holds a Tennessee driver’s license, and was considering running for office in the Volunteer State as recently as 2008). Turns out Ford was always a New Yorker at heart. New York City, he explained, is one “of really two cities [the other being Palo Alto] in the country where the outlook is always forward-looking.” (Evidently, Memphis—the city where Ford was born and raised and which he represented in Congress—is already being thrown under the bus.) So has he been to all five boroughs? Yes, in fact—by helicopter!—on a tour for business leaders given by “Chief Kelly, Commissioner Kelly” (whatever). And he can’t wait to see Rochester.
(More here.)
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