The Puzzling Case of Harold Ford, Jr.

In today's edition of the New York Times, Harold Ford, Jr. explains why he will not be challenging Senator Gillibrand for the U.S. Senate. To run in the primary would be to cripple the eventual Democratic nominee, and Ford, Jr. simply "refuse[d] to do anything that would help Republicans win a Senate seat in New York, and give the Senate majority to the Republicans."

We can certainly disagree about the sincerity of his views, and whether he stood a chance in the primary contest. From where I sit, far away from New York politics, the Harold Ford, Jr. non-campaign raises innumerable questions about the media and U.S. politics. As I think about these, I cannot help but return to the one fundamental question: why the obsession with Mr. Ford?

From the moment in early January that we heard that Mr. Ford was contemplating a challenge to Ms. Gillibrand, the attacks began slowly yet relentlessly. They came from all quarters, and even Steven Colbert joined the fray. In fairness, Mr. Ford offered an easy target. It was also great fun to boot, to watch him squirm and defend past positions in light of a changed prospective constituency.

(In the interest of full disclosure, I must note that I am a big fan of the Colbert Report AND loved the Ford interview, the way one loves an impending car crash)

The day Ford announces his decision not to enter the race, Steve Kornacki over at Salon asks "where will Harold Ford Land?" He offers four choices: the governorship of Michigan or Texas, the DC mayor's office, or the U.S. Senate race in Pennsylvania. It is pretty funny stuff, even worth reading.

But the whole story is still puzzling all the same. Certainly Ford is not the first candidate to relocate to New York and run for office there. Surely commentators remember Bobby Kennedy's 1964 successful Senate run, or Jim Buckley's successful run in 1970, not to mention Hillary Clinton's run in 2000. So carpetbagging can't be it.

Another reason often cited is that Harold Ford is a phony. This might be part of the answer, but cannot be all of it. After all, we are talking about politics, an arena where phoniness and flip-flopping are job requirements. It is not as if politicians have just acquired a new persona in the public imagination, yet Harold Ford somehow missed out.

Besides, as I have written before, Ford's "phoniness" is not as simple as columnists like to argue. He is a politician running for office in New York, trying to make his case to a left-of-center electorate. In his last race, for a Senate seat in Tennessee, he had to make his case to a right-of-center electorate. Now, it is obvious that his prior views must change if he stood a chance in the New York race. But the better question is, what exactly do we want to see in our ideal representative? I won't rehash this argument here. Rest assured, the argument is not terribly complicated. Unfortunately, that argument neither sells papers nor amuses readers.

I neither have the time nor the inclination to look back through prior campaigns and compare the media treatment given prior outsiders running in New York. I can sincerely say that I do not remember a similar skewering of Clinton's obvious carpetbagging. I also wonder about Kennedy and Buckley.

As I ponder the questions posed by the Ford "campaign," I think of James Fields, the Alabama state representative featured on the Sunday Times. In reaction to this piece, Guy asks: "what does it cost black elected officials (or would be elected officials) to run for office in predominantly white electoral districts in the deep South." That is a very important question to ask. The treatment of Harold Ford Jr.'s non-candidacy makes me wonder whether the question should be applied across all fifty states.

What Representation Means: Why Jonathan Chait Is Wrong to Savage Harold Ford Jr

It's hard to figure out what it is about Harold Ford Jr that is so polarizing.  People seem to either love him or hate him.  Count Jonathan Chait of the New Republic as one of the haters.  In this article he savages Ford's character.  His chief complaint is that Ford does not have any principles.  But Chait's analysis is not only gratuitously uncharitable, it is also based upon an assumption about representation that, as Luis has shown in a prior post, is contestable.  Because smart people keep screwing this up, it's worth revisiting.

Harold Ford, Jr., Media Star

A few nights ago, Harold Ford, Jr. appeared as a guest on the Colbert Report, to the delight of columnists and bloggers everywhere. Depending on who you ask, the interview was "painful -- yet strangely captivating;" a "skewering;" and "[t]he most charitable thing to say about it is that it did not go well." In a word: Colbert "destroyed" Ford, Jr.

Undoubtedly, this was not a good interview. Again.

Rather than focus on the limitations of his as-of-yet unannounced candidacy, however, we should focus on the opportunities that his candidacy bring.

Think of it as community service.

I alluded to some of the lessons of his candidacy last week. Are representatives supposed to speak for us, so stand-in and say the very things that we want them to say? Or are they to act as trustees, doing what they deem best and irrespective of what we would want them to do? This is by no means an easy question, nor does it have a definitive answer. In fact, Ford's candidacy amply demonstrates that we hold conflicting views on this important issue.

Sometimes we criticize him for changing his views and pandering to a New York constituency; while other times we criticize him for misunderstanding this constituency in the first place.

Thus the opportunity: rather than criticize him for trying to squirm out of the difficult position he is in, we should engage the larger debate that his candidacy represents. To run for office in Tennessee, after all, is far different than running for office in New York state. I am afraid that it is just too much fun to watch him squirm, so the larger lessons and debates will have to wait for another day.

In fairness, he is partly at fault for this. Rather than try to make his views square up with the the electoral realities of his new state, Ford should just embrace the change and be honest about it. The evidence is clear and unassailable, and trying to re-write it only makes matters worse.

In this, he should listen to Kelli Conlin, President of NARAL Pro-Choice New York. When asked why NARAL had backed Ford initially and even gave him a 100% rating at one time, she answered: "You have to look at it in context. In the South, we're constantly looking for candidates that will be moderate and progressive. It's hard down there."

It is hard down there indeed, not just for NARAL, and context is everything.

This is all to say that Ford should just stop treating New York voters like idiots. This reminds me of President Obama's speech on race during the campaign. This is similarly a teachable moment.

While in the end he might lose all the same, at least he would do so with dignity.

On the Candidacy of Harold Ford Jr.

Guy poses two questions on Harold Ford, Jr.'s impending primary challenge: has he correctly read the political tea leaves within the state of New York; and, if he fails, is his political career over?

I am not sure how to answer either one. If pressed, I'd say that he is on the wrong side of public opinion. It is also a safe bet that a failure to win the Democratic nomination would end his political career.

But his challenge to Senator Gillibrand is much more interesting than that.

Take first the early criticisms from the left. Criticisms against Senator Gillibrand focused on her centrist and right-of-center positions on issues ranging from gun control to immigration reform. Any primary challenger hoping to unseat her would need to bring an attack from the left. This would be difficult for Ford, whose last race was state-wide, and in Tennessee no less. This is when we saw him telling Tucker Carlson, " "I'm pro-life, I'm pro-life, so I mean, I don't run from that." He also flaunted his vote for the PATRIOT Act, defense spending, and opposition for amnesty for illegals immigrants. Try running away from that. This would be a tall order even for Winston Smith.

Yet I choose to view in a more forgiving way. In fact, Ford's Senate candidacy in Tennessee and his primary challenge in New York ask us to think hard about the concept of representation. What is it that we want and expect from our politicians? One view is that we want them to represent us, their constituents, and if they don't, we are ready to hold them accountable for their votes and positions. A competing view sees politicians as Burkean trustees, holding views independent of those held by their constituents and ready to carry them out even if it means losing future elections.

In recent days, Ford has changed some of his earlier views on some of these volatile and controversial issues. For example, he has recently changed his position on same-sex marriage and on the abortion question. Senator Gillibrand's positions similarly evolved once she was appointed to the Senate. To some, Ford's policy shifts underscore his "soullessness" and "deceit," as well as his willingness to humiliate himself in his quest for public office. Maybe. But isn't this what a representative, or a candidate running for office, should do? He is either out of touch, for sticking to his guns, or pandering, if he changes his views.

I was prepared to write this entry late last week. In the meantime, Ford wrote an op-ed for the New York Times where he called for, among other things, tax cuts and malpractice reform. This is either a statesmanlike display of his views or sheer foolishness. Over at Salon, Alex Koppelman nails the issue in the head: "[Ford] doesn't seem to realize that he'll be running in his new home state of New York and not in Tennessee." Pandering is thus expected of somebody running for statewide office; you just need to know who you are pandering to. Harold Ford Jr.'s sin, to go back to Guy's initial question, is not that he is shifting his views, but that he is misreading the relevant electorate.

I then came upon his N.Y. Times interview, which Glen Greenwald has labeled "cringe-inducing" and Peter Beinart at Daily Beast has called "the most embarrassing interview I’ve ever read by a politician not named Sarah Palin." This is where Ford declined to disclose how much Merril Lynch pays him and where he exhorted the virtues of capitalism and his belief that "people take risk, and there are rewards if they do well; they should lose if they don't" while at the same time blasting Senator Gillibrand's opposition to the taxpayer bailout of the financial industry. Come again? At the very least, nobody can accuse him of pandering on this issue. He also redefined what it means to be "pro-life" and acknowledged visiting all five New York City boroughs "by helicopter."

To end where Guy began: this interview reminds me of some professors all three of us encountered at Michigan Law: very smart, to be sure, even brilliant.

And maybe a little too smooth, with a tad of crazy.

What to Make of Harold Ford Jr

Both Luis and I went to law school with Harold Ford, Jr., who was in our first-year section at the University of Michigan Law School.  At the time, we both knew Harold quite well.