In one of the scariest election campaigns in memory, it is not
reassuring that Halloween this year heralds the final week leading
to the Nov. 7 balloting.
In one of the scariest election campaigns in memory, it is not reassuring that Halloween this year heralds the final week leading to the Nov. 7 balloting.
With Karl Rove’s demon playbook in hand, Republicans have been by far the worst scare-tactic abusers, and things will likely get worse. But sometimes the mud merchants go too far and an attack backfires. That may be what is now taking place in Tennessee.
Last week one of the ugliest TV commercials ever produced in American politics was finally shut down in that state. Funded by the national Republican Party, the ad targeted the U.S. Senate campaign of Rep. Harold Ford, D-Memphis, by playing to the basest racial sensitivities in a region that has struggled, which much recent success, to put its tortured past behind it.
You’ve probably seen the ad. It’s been all over cable news, continuing to run even after Ford’s opponent, Republican Bob Corker, asked that it be pulled.
The ad featured an attractive blond, bare-shouldered woman who claims to have met Congressman Ford at a Playboy party. The ad ends with her looking coyly into the camera and cooing, “Harold, call me.”
Harold Ford did attend a Playboy party – with some 3,000 others – at the Superbowl last year in Jacksonville, Fl. And in his defense, as if he needed to mount one, the single Ford admits he likes women.
Maybe the Republicans attacked him for this preference – which does, after all, set him apart from certain Republicans this year.
Ford himself seemed nonplussed at the venality. “You know your opponent is scared when his main opposition against you is, ‘My opponent likes girls,'” he said, to the delight of a campaign audience.
Some of the innuendo may be lost on socially liberal Central Coast residents, but in parts of the South, it’s clear at whose crass sensitivities the ad is directed.
Political science professor John Gere of Vanderbilt University, who studies political advertising, said the TV spot “makes the Willie Horton ad look like child’s play.”
“It’s raising the race card and playing it through the use of old-style fears about interracial couples and interracial relations. I’ve never seen anything like this.”
Ford had been falling behind Corker in recent polls. But after the ad was pulled last Wednesday, Ford’s numbers bounced, so disgusted were many Tennesseans by the tactic. Now the race is looking like a dead heat, with Ford gaining momentum.
This is no small matter. The Tennessee seat is in play only because Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist gave it up to run for president in 2008 – which is looking like a longer shot every day – thinking it would be safe for a Republican.
Now, not only is it not safe, it could be the seat that gives control of the Senate to the Democrats – putting an end to the far right’s hopes of packing the Supreme Court with Antonin Scalia clones.
Needing six Republican seats for control, Democrats seem certain of four: Pennsylvania, Ohio, Rhode Island, and Montana. Missouri and Virginia, in addition to Tennessee, are in play. My call: Dems gain five.
And for the record, here is my bet on the House: Democrats are a lock to pick up the minimum 15 seats they for control. Five more are Democratic leaners, and another dozen are toss-ups. My number? Dems gain 22.
So let the nail-biting begin.
When the Halloween starting gun on the home campaign stretch goes off, liberal sufferers of PEAD – Pre-Election Anxiety Disorder (see last week’s column) – will be at their nervous worst, fearing above all a last-minute Rovian gambit that will make the Tennessee ad seem tame. To help out, I recommend two Web sites to assist election junkies in following the latest polls.
The first is realclearpolitics.com/polls, a conservative commentary site with an excellent compendium of up-to-date polls on key Senate and House races.
But polls only reflect peoples’ stated preferences. For a clearer indication of trends, nothing beats putting money where your poll is.
That makes my second stop Tradesports.com, where traders can actually buy and sell, using real money in a market setting, the equivalent of political futures contracts, betting on individual contests. Risking cash wrings the sentiment out of political prognostication.
At Tradesports.com, Bob Corker is favored, but the money, as of this writing, is trending to Harold Ford.
Now try to relax. A week is an eternity in politics.
