What strikes me is that the Republicans must be worried about Jr. or they wouldn't be doing this.

Actually, setting up a website and hosting it is pretty cheap. They're just driving traffic to it and getting out ahead of Ford, who isn't doing much to promote himself, or raise his profile, or even define himself apart from his family name locally. Sorry, but he's not.

And apparently, his campaign doesn't have a ready response, his web page still doesn't list any endorsements, and he doesn't even outline his positions.

(link...)

That page has been "coming soon" for months now.

The GOP spent maybe a couple grand in web design and now host that site on servers that are paid for many times over.

What does the GOP get in return? Well, the national Republican campaign is apparently waiting for the local GOP faithful to pick out their pony -- but no matter who wins, they're going to have a white protestant male going up against Ford come November. So this bit of slime works to their advantage no matter who rings the cherries in the primary.

They're "worried" about Ford just about as much as they "worried" about Kerry taking Tennessee. They just didn't have to work very hard in 2004 because the Democrats all but said that they were conceding the state early, and you had Bredesen out in the press calling Kerry everything but a loser. Who needs Republicans when you've got Democrats mouthing all of your talking points?

However, they've kept a hold of that seat since Frist managed to run Jim Sasser out of office with typical Republican mud, and they've held GOP dominance in the TN-Sen since Al Gore took up as Clinton's running mate. They're not conceding a thing, and they're going negative way early. Did you see that among poll respondents in the last Rasmussen that 13% said they were voting against Ford simply because he's black??? That's a solid swing block right there. This race won't be decided by 13 points; if history holds, it'll be more like 7 or 8. All they need to do then is to convince 38% more to vote against him for other reasons.

If it's this ugly this early, it'll be positively putrid come election time.

Ford's gotta be pretty surprised, for that matter. He's been seen tousling the hair of the president and hugging the Senate majority leader, and now they're all but calling him an uppity n*****, cruising the world in a lifestyle which he isn't allowed into, pretending to be a rich white man, and going after white Playboy bunnies on the taxpayer's dime. Ford's gonna have to face facts -- this is personal with a lot of them. Not all Republicans are racist, but racists flock to the Republican party. And the NRSC knows that and they're appealing to those base motivations with trash like this. Thoughtful, politically active people should take it a lot more seriously.

I have deep abiding reservations about Ford, but on ideological grounds -- he's a Blue Dog GOP lite Democrat. At least Kurita isn't out on the stump calling Ford out as a darkie who doesn't know his place. Then again, she's not quite the ideological mold in which I'd like to see my candidate cast. I thought I was thoroughly disgusted until I saw the race card being thrown.

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If we heard mortar shells, we'd cuss more in our songs and cut down on guitar solos