Harold Ford Jr, on the (campaign) trail, first stop:Buffalo
The Observer followed Harold Ford throughout his day, on his first stop in Buffalo, Sunday. I don’t think that anyone believes that he is not running against Senator Gillibrand , but he has yet to announce. He’s making the rounds, stopping in the “Mom and Pop” places with a gold buffalo lapel pin, trying to look like “one of the guys”
… with appointed incumbent Kirsten Gillibrand stuck in the polls and seemingly unable to do anything about it, Mr. Ford’s early maneuvering has been taken very seriously by a number of high-profile donors and party officials and, perhaps most crucially, the press. And so here he was in Buffalo, embarking on a listening tour.
Maybe, not too excited about the Observer’s presence, this interchange was noted:
Waiting for his ride in the concourse, Mr. Ford told The Observer he had been to Buffalo before, and met the mayor, but this was just a first stop like any other.
“There was no conspiracy behind it, where to start,” he said.
“They drove up yesterday, from New York City,” Mr. Goldin told his boss of The Observer. “Six hours.”
“I know how long it is,” Mr. Ford quickly replied.
To be perfectly blunt, I don’t like him running. We’ve got wayyyy too many Blue Dogs in the Senate already. Although I agree with Stlo7 who says primaries are good for the party, as it forces issues that might not ordinarily make it to the table to be discussed and debated-this guy is far too smooth. I don’t believe he can win in New York State, but I wouldn’t have believed that Scott Brown could have won in Massachusetts.
Though Mr. Ford is winning the daily news cycle—and, perhaps, doing real damage to Ms. Gillibrand—he has a long way to go before establishing himself with New York’s voters in his own right. In the week before his Buffalo trip, two polls had him trailing Ms. Gillibrand by 20 points. So while the sitting senator’s approval rating remains at an enticingly low 31 percent, the bad news for Mr. Ford is that he’s still more effective as a troublemaker than as a candidate, and that he’s more likely to cost Ms. Gillibrand the seat than he is to win it himself. One gets the feeling that if he so much as fails to be in the press for a couple of days, the ground could shift under his feet, and that someone else—maybe one of the Democrats who had previously taken a pass on the race—might find it too tempting not to take advantage of the cover now provided by Mr. Ford to declare his or her own challenge to Ms. Gillibrand. Mr. Ford’s very presence, if he sticks around for a bit, could also entice new Republicans into the race, too, throwing the general election into doubt for whichever Democrat emerges. It will be easier for him to turn her into Martha Coakley than to transform himself into Scott Brown.
The message here is for Kirsten: Run as if your life depended on it. Talk to your liberal base. Let them know that you will represent them and then continue to follow through with those commitments. Don’t vacation while on the campaign trail. Don’t cloister yourself. Make the people your priority and that means Universal Health Care.
Yes, you have Schumer as your protector, but that is no longer enough.
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I don’t think Ford can position himself as a populist the way Scott Brown did. Ford is getting paid millions of bucks by a giant Wall Street bank, he’s from a political dynasty, he talks about landing in Staten Island in his helicopter, etc. No way is he driving around in a pickup truck. He’s taken seriously by rich people and political reporters because that’s who he hangs out with all day - rich people and political reporters. I’ll eat my shirt if Ford wins.
Senator Gillibrand needs to run a good campaign, but she’s not the only one. We (her supporters) need to be vocal, visible, and generous with our time, money and goodwill. We need to be as agressive as we can to minimize the damage done in a primary, and to focus on KEEPING Gillibrand in the Senate.