Steve at WhitesCreek already said pretty much everything I was thinking below, and he said it better.

I will add a couple of things. Ford probably ran the best campaign in the modern history of Tennessee politics to make this race close. I don't think anyone would have expected this back when Kurita dropped out of the primary. I know I didn't.

Turnout was key, for both sides -- low turnout for Democrats, and big turnout for Republicans. Republicans had an extra hurdle because many in their ranks are dissatisfied with the current crop in D.C. and either crossed over or abstained. But the well-oiled GOP machine worked, as usual. The anti-gay marriage amendment probably helped, too. 6% higher Democrat turnout and we'd be celebrating a Ford victory this morning. 10% and we'd be celebrating a landslide.

The mainstream media and the liberal blogs will talk about Tennessee as being a backwoods racist enclave. If they were from here, though, they'd realize that for a black man, from Memphis, named Ford no less, with a ten year Congressional record to defend against a guy with deep pockets and no record, to get nearly 875,000 votes is quite an accomplishment. Not to mention that he's a Democrat running a statewide campaign in Tennessee.

Race was only one "obstacle" to overcome, yet Ford got 150,000 more votes than Clement in 2002, and nearly as many votes as Alexander. There's not much doubt that race played some small role, but only the bigots in the darkest recesses of their poisoned souls know for sure.

So besides turnout and the racist "x" factor, what happened?

Some point to the "Memphis Meltdown". I thought it could go both ways, with the MTV crowd reacting favorably to the "in your face" attitude v. more mature and serious voters being put off by it. In that sense it should have been a wash, but unfortunately the MTV crowd doesn't vote. Anecdotally, I know of at least a couple of R votes that this stunt cost Ford.

The negative attack ads against Ford seemed to be a factor. The nastier they got the better Corker's numbers got in the polls, so everyone generally agrees they work. Maybe Ford should have hit back harder.

And maybe he should have attacked the generic GOP record harder, especially on Iraq and foreign policy, and done a better job of rubber-stamping Corker with it. It worked everywhere else, even against incumbents. I thought Ford was pretty effective on this in the debates, but that was early on and two of them competed with UT football games, so in the end it was all about the ads. (Corker gets credit for his debate strategy.)

And it's too bad we didn't get to talk much about the other issues, because Ford is pretty strong on things that matter to working people such as health care and education.

Ford and his supporters must also wonder if running so hard to the right cost him some votes among the party faithful. I'm guessing it did, but I'm not sure it cost him 50,000 votes. It may have cost the Democrats some turnout, though. His refusal to support the Democratic succssor to his 9th district Congressional seat probably cost him some votes, too.

At any rate, a lot of Democrats (including me) were going along with the program for the greater good of a Congressional majority. There won't be any liberal Democrats elected to statewide office in Tennessee in my lifetime. And as many have noted, when faced with a choice between a faux-Republican and the real deal, Republican voters will go with the real deal every time, and they will get out to the polls.

So I don't think there's any one thing you can point to, except that Ford ran a hell of a campaign and he almost pulled it off against incredible odds. For that, he and his campaign should be proud.

On the bright side, elsewhere we are looking at a majority in the House and we are one recount and a lawsuit away from a majority in the Senate. And who knows? Maybe some of the national attention focused on Harold Ford Jr. in Tennessee helped that effort.

OK, then.