Do not throw in the towel just yet! There is late word that Democrat Harold Ford is quickly closing the gap on Republican Bob Corker in the Tennessee Senate race.
The last two weeks have been an utter nightmare for the Ford Campaign. The Republican's racially-driven that aired in mid-October took the wind out of what was likely a Democratic Senate pick-up. Just about every poll since then has shown Bob Corker's lead increase. In a conducted between November 1st and November 3rd, Corker led Ford 50% to 38%. But in a that was taken through Saturday, Ford only trailed 51% to 47%.
And now, in a scheduled for Monday morning release, Bob Corker's lead has been cut to just three points, within the margin of error. also confirms Ford's late surge.
On Sunday, Barack Obama was in Nashville with Ford:
"I know that all of you are going to work the next couple of days tomake sure it happens, because I'm feeling lonely in Washington," Obamasaid at the Mt. Zion Baptist Church. "I need my dear friend to join me."
All that we can hope for is that undecided Tennessee voters head to the polls on Tuesday and vote for a candidate based on how they stand on the two most defining issues of our time: Iraq and the national debt.
Remember the GOP smear against Harold Ford awhile back that wrongly him of accepting money from the Hollywood porn industry?
It turns out that the Republican National Committee in fact from a someone that distributed gay adult army films:
The president of Marina Pacific, Nicholas Boyias, has personallycontributed to the Republican party several times over the last fewyears, six times to the Republican National Committee. The donationsrange from $200 to $500 and total around $2,000, according to a searchof federal election records.
The RNC would not comment on the donations from Boyias or from the porn industry in general.
But are we ever going to read or hear about that? Of course not. So much for the liberal media bias.
I might as well put this all into one post. Believe it or not, the Democrats might have a better chance of winning Arizona than Tennessee. Yesterday, Bill Clinton was in Arizona stumping for Democrat Jim Pederson. You can watch the video .
Here are the polls:
Tennessee Senate Race () (R) Bob Corker - 53% (D) Harold Ford - 45%
Virginia Senate Race () (R) George Allen - 49% (D) James Webb - 49%
Arizona Senate Race () (R) Jon Kyl - 45.8% (D) Jim Pederson - 41.3%
Pennsylvania Senate Race () (D) Rick Santorum - 43% (D) Bob Casey - 51%
Again, Clinton was in Arizona yesterday. The poll was taken a few days before that -- so it should be interesting if that gave Pederson yet another bump. If it did, then the Democrats might want to think about taking resources out of Ohio and Pennsylvania, and putting them into Arizona.
Montana poll numbers are not up yet. As soon as they come in, I will put them up. That race is close as well.
541 Likely voters Taken between October 26 and October 29 Sampling error: /- 4
This one is from :
Tennessee Senate Race
(R) Bob Corker - 49% (D) Harold Ford - 47%
The second poll was taken among likely voters, and it is within the margin of error. All we can hope for is that the CNN poll was just an outlier. Although, you have to admit that it seems like Bob Corker has regained the momentum he lost a few days ago. It will just come down to who ever has the momentum in the end.
If you live in Tennessee and you want to see Harold Ford win this November, then please in any way that you can.
Terry Nelson, who was in charge of the unit within the RNC that created the anti-Ford ad last week that had racial undertones, is also the of John McCain's PAC that raises money for his possible presidential bid. And according to , Nelson is also the head of a consulting firm called -- which acts as a publicist for Wal-Mart. But within the last few days, Wal-Mart its ties with Nelson due to all the outrage.
However, regardless of the Terry Nelson's smutty ad, reports that John McCain is refusing to fire him:
Sen. John McCain's (R-Ariz.) PAC has no plans to cutties with top GOP strategist Terry Nelson, who ended his contract withWal-Mart this week amid complaints from Democrats and union groups overhis authorizing of the now-infamous Tennessee Senate ad linkingDemocratic nominee Rep. Harold Ford Jr. to a Playboy Bunny.
Nelsonheads the Republican National Committee's (RNC) independent expenditureunit, which sparked a pre-election dustup over racial rhetoric in theSouth with an ad featuring a bubbly white woman claiming to have metFord "at the Playboy party" and telling the young black Democrat,"Harold, call me!"
TheDemocratic National Committee (DNC) took aim on Sunday at RNC ChairmanKen Mehlman, who defended the Tennessee ad, and McCain, whose StraightTalk America PAC hired Nelson in March as a senior adviser.
"EvenWal-Mart fired Terry Nelson for his role in making this ad. Instead ofdoing what's right, Ken Mehlman and Republicans like John McCaincontinue to stand by Terry Nelson and these racist, divisive campaigntactics," DNC Communications Director Karen Finney said, adding that"Ken Mehlman and John McCain should fire Terry Nelson."
As of this moment, they are continuing to embrace Nelson's campaign tactics.
If this is the kind of campaign John McCain plans to run in 2008, then he is more of a Rovian than a Maverick.
A new internal poll of the Tennessee Senate race conducted by puts Ford ahead of Corker by five points:
Tennessee Senate Race
(R) Bob Corker - 43% (D) Harold Ford - 48%
(560 likely voters via phone)
This internal poll might be skewed a little bit, especially since almost every other recent poll puts Corker slightly ahead of Ford. However, a new Poll did show the race tied over the weekend at 48%. This is significant because the Survey USA Poll before that showed Ford losing, meaning that since then Ford has had the momentum.
With just over one week to go, the national polls still favor the Democrats. In the latest , only 37% approve of the President. Only 37% plan to vote Republican in this year's elections. On Iraq, only 29% think we are making progress.
I hate to say this, but don't look at another national poll again for the rest of the campaign. Those kinds of surveys are meaningless. The battle for Senate majority will come down to three contests -- Virginia, Missouri and Tennessee. The Democrats appear to be on the verge of capturing Missouri, following Claire McCaskill's successful three week push on stem cell research. Tennessee and especially Virginia will be much harder to win. The Democrats must win one of those two seats to capture Senate majority. If they are unable win either of the two, then the Senate will end up in a 50-50 split, with Dick Cheney issuing the tie-breaking vote to give the majority to the GOP.
With the Tennessee race looking more and more like a must-win for either party, Democrat Harold Ford and Republican Bob Corker went toe-to-toe in their final debate. The two intensely over Iraq:
The candidates in one of the country's tightest Senate races disagreedon a strategy for the war in Iraq in their last of three debatesSaturday.
Democratic Rep. Harold Ford Jr. said he wants to"chart a new course in Iraq" by dividing the country into threeautonomous states that would share control over international borders.
RepublicanBob Corker disagreed, saying: "If we can't cause a county to cometogether in one, I know we can't do it dividing it in three."
The contest is calming a bit after a long week of finger-pointing. Now it comes down to the volunteer effort in getting out the vote. The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee is to help maximize voter turnout in this Senate election and other U.S. Senate and House races throughout the country.
While the Democrats are preparing for the political grunt work in the final week, the Republicans will have an easier time because of their sophisticated microtargeting technology. Even DNC Chairman Howard Dean to the New York Times that the Republicans have an advantage in the technology front:
“I think we’ve closed the gap, but I don’t think we are there yet,â€Mr. Dean said. “It’s going to take some time. I think we could matchthem in 2008, if everything goes right, in voter turnout.â€
OtherDemocratic leaders disputed Mr. Dean’s view, saying they wereincreasingly confident about their party’s ability to achieve parity,and perhaps regain its dominance, against the Republicanget-out-the-vote machinery. Democrats pointed to evidence of what theparty’s $35 million in spending on turnout programs, nearly matchingRepublicans, has given them in tight races like the Senate campaignhere in Missouri, where Senator Jim Talent, a Republican, won office in2002 by just 21,000 votes.
Thousands of Tennessee residents have because some polling stations have opened two weeks early. Early voting is scheduled to stay open through next Thursday, making it harder for either parties to target undecided voters that have yet to cast their ballots.
Let's attack the black guy and his father and give a free pass to Corker's family.
Until President Bush made the error of changing the subject back to Iraq two days ago, the Republicans had Harold Ford right where they wanted him. The bachelor Ford that he attended a Superbowl party last year that was sponsored by the Playboy company. When you couple that revelation with the racially driven GOP that was finally yesterday, Ford has been successfully branded by GOP strategists as someone that does not share Tennessee's southern values.
While Ford faced all this scrutiny, Republican Bob Corker still has refused to comment on the that surfaced of his college-aged daughter that showed her engaging in behavior that many Tennessee voters would be embarrassed to see out of the daughter of a Senate candidate whose main theme is family values. One of the showed her making out with another girl. Don't you think that the Republicans would be all over Ford with smear ads if a photo surfaced of his son kissing another guy? Or how about if his son was dating a white woman?
Well, the Ford Campaign won't have to worry about that because Harold Ford doesn't have kids. He isn't even married. So for some reason it is a sin for a single man to go to a Superbowl party that was just sponsored by Playboy? However, if a Republican's daughter is caught making out with another girl, then it's no big deal.
Obviously what Corker's daughter did was her own right. But these photos are an example of the hypocrisy that is plaguing this Senate race. They blame Ford for attending a party, yet Corker's daughter was at a party herself, making out with another girl. They brand Ford as weak on immigration, yet Corker's former company illegal immigrants to work on his job site.
There is a double standard in place that, more than anything else, is distracting voter attention away from Iraq. How is Ford attending a Superbowl party sponsored by Playboy more important than a conflict where our brave troops are dying each day? In fact, more died yesterday. But nevermind that -- let's be sure to keep our eye on the black guy.
I don't know whether or not to trust this poll. released a poll today on the Tennessee Senate race that shows Democrat Harold Ford leading Republican Bob Corker:
Tennessee Senate Race
(R) Bob Corker - 45% (D) Harold Ford - 47%
Throughout the campaign reason, HB-S has polls for the Democratic Senatorial Campaign. Therefore, the chances are that this is also an internal poll since it was not released to any traditional media sites. I will caution you that numerous polls have indicated that this race has been trending more towards Bob Corker over the last three days, possibly deeming this HB-S poll as an outlier. However, a Poll released two days ago, which went under the radar, put the race even at 48% each. So you really never know. It just underscores the common wisdom that this race will come down to turnout, and also whether a particular demographic is not being honest to pollsters about their likeliness to vote.
Last week, following the release of a series of that targeted the family of Democratic candidate Harold Ford, Ford decided to show up at one of Republican candidate Bob Corker's events to talk to him face-to-face about it.
WMC-TV Memphis had another spin. They painted Ford as a nut-job bully that was doing this out of desperation, while branding Corker as a genuine reformer. Watch the news report and ask yourself whether it is biased:
A series of show that Corker's attack strategy has paid off, and that he leads Ford by a slim margin.
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