Bob Corker
Harold Ford
As near as anyone can tell, it's not really his fault.
In mid-October, polls showed Ford, a five-term congressman from Memphis, pulling ahead of Republican Bob Corker, a not-at-all surprising result given that (a) the national current so strongly favored the Democrats; (b) the glib and telegenic Ford had shrewdly cultivated a red state-friendly image as a church-going, Pelosi-weary, Second Amendment enthusiast; (c) Corker, who failed in a 1994 Senate bid, had run a listless campaign that had put his party's social conservative base to sleep.
Ford's surge created considerable national buzz, since a win would make him the first African-American elected to the Senate from the South - and only the fourth African-American senator since reconstruction. In the last few weeks, though, his numbers have nosedived, and now he lags anywhere from three to 12 points behind Corker.
Ford, who was joined on the stump by Barack Obama over the weekend, claims he's closing the gap, an assertion a recent Gallup poll seemed to support.
But to some observers, the race is already over, thanks to an ugly political truth: In the privacy of the voting booth, racism, however subtle, still exists. Ford, the theory goes, needs to be ahead in the polls heading into Election Day to offset the silent defections he'll suffer when rural white voters - who may have told pollsters they'd vote for the Democratic Senate candidate - actually see Ford's name on the ballot. read more »
