Tag: 9th District

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Politics Politics Feature

The 9th District Debate: ‘Who is Who and What is Not’

CREDIT: jb

Every old saw has an ideal application, and Sunday night’s
televised debate involving three 9th District congressional
candidates perfectly invoked that sardonic chestnut which goes, “All have won,
and all must have prizes.”

When the sometimes stormy hour-long affair at the studios
of WREG-TV, News Channel 3, had run its course, backers of incumbent first-term
Democrat Steve Cohen ended up being reassured of his unmatchable experience and
prowess. Those supporting Cohen’s chief primary challenger, attorney Nikki
Tinker, were likewise convinced of their candidate’s common touch and oneness
with the people. And state representative Joe Towns’ claque (such as there was
before Sunday night) were pleased with their man’s singular common sense and
panache, as well as his full-out assault on unidentified “special interests.”

Conversely, detractors of Cohen may have seen him as
somewhat smug and supercilious, Tinker’s opponents might feel justified in
seeing her as shallow and opportunistic, and those prepared to discount Towns
could have likened him – as did Richard Thompson of the Mediaverse blog –
to another notorious spare political wheel, John Willingham.

The actual impact on whatever portion of the electorate ended up watching the
debate was probably a composite of all these points of view. And, while Cohen
might have finished ahead in strict forensic terms, the equalizing effect of the
joint appearance and the free-media aspect of the forum had to be a boost for
both his rivals.

Questioning the contenders were Norm Brewer, Otis Sanford, and Linda Moore – the
former a regular commentator for the station and the latter two the managing
editor and a staff writer, respectively, for The Commercial Appeal,
a debate co-sponsor, along with the Urban League and the activist group Mpact Memphis.

All three panelists posed reasonable and relevant questions, as did the two
audience members who were permitted to interrogate the candidates – though the
issues raised (or the answers given), tended to be of the general,
all-along-the-waterfront variety. All three candidates viewed rising gas prices
and the home-mortgage crisis with alarm, and all wanted to see improved economic
horizons. Each claimed to have a better slant on these matters than the other
two, but Cohen could – and did – note early on that neither Tinker nor Towns had
found fault with his congressional record to date. “I appreciate the endorsement
of Miss Tinker and Representative Towns for my votes,” he said laconically.

The Race Issue

The first real friction as such was generated by a question from the CA‘s
Moore, who made bold to touch upon what she called “the elephant in the room” –
namely, the importance of racial and religious factors in the race.

This brought an unexpected protestation from Tinker that she was “not
anti-Semitic” and regarded it as “an insult to me” that she had been so accused.
That such an allegation had been made was news to most of those attending,
though one of her chief backers, Shelby County Commissioner Sidney Chism, had
made the point last week, addressing a black ministers’ association on her
behalf, that Jews were likely to vote for co-religionist Cohen.

And well they might, on the general principle that voters tend to gravitate
toward candidates of like backgrounds. There has been no suggestion from the
Jewish community, however, that a Jew should represent the 9th
District, while Tinker and many of her supporters openly assert that the
majority-black urban district should be represented by a black congressman. As
Tinker put it Sunday night, noting the demographic facts of life in Tennessee’s
nine congressional districts, “This is the only one where African Americans can
stand up and run,” she said. “Can we just have one?”

If Tinker expected agreement from Towns, himself an African American, she didn’t
get it. “If you’re black and no good, you’re no good. If you’re white and no
good, you’re no good,” he said, in pithy dismissal of the issue. That did not
stay him, later on, from chastising Cohen for what Towns said was the then state
senator’s anguished reaction to a lower-than-hoped-for black vote in 1996 after
losing his first congressional race to Harold Ford Jr. that year.

Cohen’s response to that was that his frustration had mainly stemmed from the
vote garnered against him that year by the late Tommie Edwards, a relatively
uncredentialed opponent in Cohen’s simultaneous reelection race for the state
senate. The congressman noted that he went on to win the black vote in the 2006
general election. As for 2008, Cohen, a sometime speaking surrogate for
presidential candidate Barack Obama this year, cited voter acceptance of racial
differences in his own case, that of Obama, and that of Shelby County Mayor A C
Wharton, an African American.

“We’ve turned a corner,” Cohen maintained. “Barack Obama, A C Wharton, and Steve
Cohen are in the same boat, and it’s a boat that’s moving forward.”

Towns made an effort to rock Tinker’s boat as well as Cohen’s, castigating as
“demeaning” her frequent declarations, in a TV commercial recycled from her
previous run in 2006 and elsewhere, that she’s running in part to make sure
that her infirm grandmother’s government check continues to get to her “porch.”

More friction

Tinker’s pitch Sunday night was heavy in such personally tinged declarations,
which constituted a counterpoint of sorts to Cohen’s frequent citation of his
endorsements and the financial benefits to the district and other
accomplishments from his legislative record, both in Congress and previously,
during his several decades as state senator. In a sideswipe clearly directed at
the incumbent, she said, “”People are tired and fed up. At the same time we’ve
got elected officials just running around here and going to galas and, you know,
giving out proclamations and renaming buildings.”

Debate moderators Richard Ransom and Claudia Barr had their hands full keeping
accurate tabs on time allotted to the principals, especially during a segment
allowing candidates to accuse and challenge each other. Tinker availed herself
of such a moment to ask Cohen, who holds an investment portfolio, if it was true
that he “profited” from an increase in gasoline prices.

The congressman rebutted the notion, contending, “I always vote against my own personal financial
interests.” He then turned the question around on Tinker, inquiring about the
stock holdings in her pension or 401 K accounts at Pinnacle Airlines, where she
works as a lawyer. Cohen also pressed Tinker on her self-definition as a “civil
rights attorney,” extracting her grudging concession that she had served
Pinnacle for the last decade on the management side of labor-relations issues.

But Cohen’s relentless prosecution of that line of questioning also yielded
Tinker what may have been an effective moment in self defense.

When the congressman interrupted Tinker at one point, insisting on a direct
answer to a question, she responded, “Mr. Cohen, I’ve respected you, and I’ve
allowed you to [finish your answers]…I’m asking for your respect, as humbly as I
know how.” Apropos his allegations about the nature of her employment, she
contended that her airline’s flight attendants and baggage handlers are “on the
front lines with me and supporting me in this campaign.” She concluded, “My
heart is pure, and I’m satisfied with what I’ve done.”

“…Who is who and what is not….”

It remains to be seen to what degree viewers were satisfied with what the
candidates, together or singly, had done in a debate that, as Towns suggested,
was meant to “allow… us to see who is who and what is not.”

One issue that remained unexamined was that of abortion, on which Cohen has long
been known as pro-choice, while Towns has just as resolutely proclaimed his
pro-life views. Tinker’s position has been shrouded in mystery, though she
received an endorsement — and presumably the promise of funding – from the
pro-choice group Emily’s List.

CA columnist Wendi Thomas, originally scheduled to be a panelist for the
debate, wrote a column speculating on the dilemma of Tinker, many of whose
supporters are virulently anti-abortion. One result of that was apparently a
negative reaction from the Tinker camp, who in any case saw her column as
over-critical and, according to debate organizers, requested that Thomas be
replaced as a panelist.

One result: Moore was there in Thomas’ stead. Another result, inadvertently or
not: No question about abortion was ever asked.

jb

Settling in for the fray: Cohen, Tinker, and Towns

Categories
News

Tinker’s Challenge: Can She Pass the Debate Test?

The detractors of 9th District congressional candidate Nikki Tinker say she’s nothing but a corporate shill and a pretty face, hiding behind surrogate mudslingers in her race against incumbent congressman Steve Cohen. Can she disprove all that in this weekend’s televised debate with Cohen?

See Jackson Baker’s take in “Viewpoint” here.

Categories
Politics Politics Feature

LaSimba Gray to Congressional Black Caucus: “Stay Out” of 9th District Race

CREDIT: jb

According to
Roll Call, a Washington, D.C. publication for political insiders, the
Rev. LaSimba Gray is asking members of the Congressional Black Caucus to “stay
out” of the 2008 Democratic primary race pitting incumbent 9th
District congressman Steve Cohen against repeat challenger Nikki Tinker.

Noting an appearance in Memphis last weekend on Cohen’s behalf by U.S. Rep.
Emanuel Cleaver of Kansas City, who is black, Gray said, according to the
newspaper, “”Steve
Cohen has been quoting many of them heavily and bringing them into the district
and we are simply asking them to stay out of this race.”

Gray strove unsuccessfully during the 2006 congressional race to winnow down a
large field of African-American candidates to a consensus black
candidate to oppose Cohen, who, as the minister noted, is both white and Jewish.

Roll Call quoted Gray as contending that the second-place finish in last
year’s primary of Tinker, a corporate attorney, meant that “she has won … the
primary of African-American candidates.” Gray said further, “The road has been
cleared for Nikki and we are busy meeting with candidates who ran last time to
show them the reality — the fact that with all of them in the race they can’t
win.”

Gray’s concept of a black-versus-white showdown was frowned on by Cleaver
spokesman Danny Rotert, who remarked that Cohen seemed to stand high in the
estimate of his constituents and observed, “If somebody here [Kansas City] said
Congressman Cleaver can’t represent his district because it’s a [majority] white
district, that would not go very far. So it’s too bad that that’s the rhetoric
that’s being used in Memphis.”

As of the last Federal Election Commission filing, Roll Call noted,
Tinker had $172,000 in cash on hand compared to Cohen’s $374,000. As the
periodical also observed, the feminist organization Emily’s List, which supported Tinker
strongly in 2006, has so far been non-committal about 2008.

A number of Tinker’s former Memphis supporters have also indicated they will not
be backing her in next year’s race. One such, lawyer Laura Hine, said she had
committed to Tinker in 2006 before Cohen made his candidacy known. Affirming her
support for Cohen in next year’s race, Hine said recently, “The fact is, he’s
been a very effective congressman, speaking to all the issues I care about.”

One such issue, according to Hine, was pending federal Hate Crimes legislation,
which Cohen has backed and Tinker has been silent about. Rev. Gray recently made
an effort to organize opposition to Cohen’s stand among black ministers, on the
ground that the bill would muzzle their opposition to homosexuality.

Other
local African-American ministers, like the Rev. Ralph White and the Rev. O.C.
Collins Jr., have refuted that allegation, citing specific sections of the bill,
and made a point of supporting Cohen. The Memphis chapter of the NAACP also
recently affirmed its support of the bill and Cohen’s activities on its behalf.

Categories
Politics Politics Feature

Old Foe Harold Ford Sr. Comes to Herenton’s Aid Again

Never let it
be said that the twain don’t meet. They are about to – for the second time in a
generation. Mayor Willie Herenton, involved in what he acknowledges is a
difficult reelection race, has called for support once more from an old political
foe, former 9th District congressman Harold Ford Sr., who bridged their
personal distance to help Herenton become Memphis’ first elected black mayor in
1991.

Though the
Get-Out-the-Vote assistance of Ford, a significant political broker, was widely
regarded at the time as essential to Herenton’s victory, the mayor repeatedly
disparaged that interpretation in subsequent years. For a decade and a half, he
and Ford, who had never enjoyed cordial relations, lapsed into a state of
intense rivalry and an ongoing war of words, one which Herenton escalated as
recently as the congressional campaign of 2006 — when the ex-congressman’s son
Jake was a candidate — to include all “the Fords,” whom Herenton described as
power-mad.

At the time the mayor was supporting Democratic nominee Steve Cohen, the ultimate winner, against Jake Ford, who was running as an independent. The senior Ford, now living in Florida and working as a well-paid political consultant, spent considerable time in in Memphis working on behalf of both son Jake and another son, Harold Ford Jr., his successor in Congress, who was then running for the U.S. Senate.

Relations between Herenton and the Ford family had rarely been so strained.

But an email circulated by the Herenton campaign Sunday spelled out a different and sunnier scenario, containing this
paragraph from the mayor: “I am proud to announce another member of TEAM HERENTON
07.
Our former U.S. Congressman, Harold Ford Sr., has not only endorsed my candidacy
for re-election, but he began campaigning with us today in churches throughout
Memphis. He will continue campaigning with us through Election Day, Thursday,
October 4.”

The release
went on to offer free tickets to a joint rally: “Join us on Tuesday,
October 2nd,
at my church home, Mount
Vernon Baptist Church
at
6 p.m.
as Memphis prepares to face a huge voter turnout on October 4th.”

The
announcement of this unusual alliance occurred less than a week before
Thursday’s mayoral election, at a time when recent polls have indicated that the mayor’s
two chief opponents, councilwoman Carol Chumney and former MLGW head Herman
Morris, are both within striking distance of him.

Categories
Cover Feature News

The Third Man

In the mob they call it “Omerta.” It’s a word of Spanish origin that can be defined more or less as, “Don’t mean nothing.” The Sicilians, however, adopted the word and gave it its darker current meaning: “The family doesn’t talk about family business.” If there’s a word that sums up why Democratic Congressman Harold Ford Jr., the national media darling of the 2006 elections, lost his senate bid to a weak Republican candidate like Bob Corker, that word is Omerta.

In an attempt to reinvent himself as a Bible-thumping good ‘ol boy, Ford consistently voted — and ran hard — against his party’s mainstream and even harder against its left flank. He sided with the Republicans on such controversial issues as the bankruptcy bill, the Schiavo bill, the torture bill, and the wiretapping bill. Ford never missed an opportunity to crow over his ability to frustrate and confound fellow Democrats. At a Monday night campaign rally in Memphis — the last official function of the political season — he underscored his personal distance from both parties and unwittingly spelled out the very reasons his campaign strategy would ultimately fail him.

“There’s no Democrat or Republican way to get a knock on your door and [hear that] a loved one was killed in Iraq,” he said. “There’s no Democrat or Republican way to pay too much for gas. There’s no Democrat or Republican way to learn that we are more dependent today on the commodities that landed us in Iraq than we were on September 10, 2001. There’s no Democrat or Republican way to learn prescription drug costs are going up. There’s no Democrat or Republican way to see kids who’ve lost hope.”

The rally, stage-managed by Ford’s lobbyist father, former Congressman Harold Sr., centered around Junior’s much ballyhooed bipartisan appeal and touched on subjects near and dear to conservative hearts. While Junior delivered what must have been the most pro-Republican speech in the history of Democratic rallies, his brother Jake watched from the crowd.

Ford Jr.’s fall from grace began in full when Ford Sr. left his cushy compound in Florida to help his unqualified, ill-tempered son Jake run as an independent candidate in the 9th Congressional District race against Democratic nominee Steve Cohen. Senior’s campaign rhetoric flirted with racism and smacked of family entitlement. His activities on Jake’s behalf were a reminder that papa Ford makes his cheese based on what does and doesn’t get done in D.C.

Jake Ford’s most vociferous support came from members of Memphis’ black clergy, who claimed Cohen, a white Jew, couldn’t properly represent the majority-black 9th District. In an interview with The New York Times, Reverend LaSimba Gray went so far as to speculate about whether Cohen was a homosexual. But no matter how dirty the attacks became, Harold Ford Jr. kept his mouth shut. Even when Jake caused a stir by calling Matt Kuhn, the chairman of Shelby County Democrats a “piece of shit,” Junior kept Omerta.

When Junior’s poll numbers began to slip below Corker’s, the national media blamed it on a white-racist response to the shady “Harold, call me” commercial produced by the RNC. Throughout the controversy, there was nary a peep from the national press about Jake or Harold Sr. or the bitter race- and faith-based campaign they were running against Cohen. There was no speculation as to how the Yid-bashing might impact Tennessee’s Jewish vote or how progressive Democrats might recoil from Junior’s conservative rhetoric. Tennessee was simply red, and red hates black. And that was that.

It’s easy for the national news media, in the absence of detail and context, to cling to traditional narratives about race and the South. But in order to fully grasp what actually happened to Harold Ford Jr., you must consider the scene going down at Memphis’ Bayou Bar & Grill on Tuesday night after the election was over and the candidates had gone to bed. The Midtown watering hole was packed with serious, dyed-in-the-wool Democrats who danced and sang, “Hey hey, goodbye,” every time Harold Ford Jr. appeared on television. A casual survey of the room suggested that most of the celebrants had actually voted for Ford but only because they wanted a Democratic majority in the Senate. Nobody at this party — all stragglers from Cohen’s victory celebration next door — mourned the outgoing congressman’s defeat.

There can be no doubt that Tennessee, like much of the South, still has plenty of problems with race. But when the election dust finally settles over Tennessee, Harold Ford Jr.’s Senate loss may say less about the Volunteer State’s confederate past than it does about its progressive future.

Categories
Cover Feature News

Turn, Turn, Turn …

CREDIT: Jackson Baker

As the rain clouds that doused West Tennessee on Monday passed eastward on Tuesday — in the direction of Republican Bob Corker’s presumed stronghold of East Tennessee — Democrat Harold Ford Jr. had every reason to hope for a perfect storm that would elevate him to the U.S. Senate.

It would end imperfectly for the Memphis congressman, however, three percentage points and some 40,000 votes behind his more mundane opponent. At The Peabody, where there was a goodly-sized media contingent and a giddy crowd had gathered for a potential celebration, hope dimmed only gradually.

And when, well after midnight, a somber Ford finally reached the podium and looked out over his sea of faithful supporters, some of them still calling out encouragement as if the next day would bring another vote, another shot at glory, the look of blank disappointment on his face said something otherwise.

It attested to the congressman’s realization that his own — and his family’s saga — had reached a turning point. Not only had he lost, but so had brother Jake, a poor second-place finisher (as an “independent”) to Representative Ford’s soon-to-be successor in the 9th Congressional District, Democratic nominee Steve Cohen — who even then was reveling with an exuberant crowd of his own supporters at Palm Court in Midtown.

As Ford spoke his brief subdued remarks of concession to a gathering that included Uncle John Ford, who resigned from the state Senate last year and faces imminent trial for his role in the Tennessee Waltz scandal, it began to dawn on some that the proud political family’s ranking official had suddenly become Ophelia Ford, the modest and muted successor to powerhouse brother John as senator from District 29.

Presumably, her margin of victory over Republican Terry Roland had been substantial enough this time to withstand the charges of vote irregularities that earlier this year caused her Senate colleagues to void her narrow victory in a 2005 special election for the seat.

Jackson Baker

John McCain (center) stumps for Bob Corker in Nashville

Though the national media saw in Tuesday’s outcome only the abrupt (if perhaps temporary) end of the golden-boy saga they had been chasing these last several weeks and months, the local subtext of the election results had to be: What next for Harold Ford Jr.? What next, indeed, for the Fords?

There had been signs, to be sure, that the weather was turning irreversibly against Representative Ford.

As the campaign wound down and the last week’s polls showed GOP adversary Corker with a double-digit lead, it began to seem that the congressman had over-reached himself — that his family history would trip him up, if nothing else.

Some Democrats — local and statewide — took umbrage on election day upon hearing that Harold Ford Sr. — the Florida lobbyist, former congressman, and Ford-clan patriarch — was putting out copies of a “Harold Ford Sr. Approved Democratic Ballot” on which his second-born son, Jake Ford, had the place of honor for the 9th district rather than Cohen, the Democratic nominee.

That smacked too much of the old Ford machine for various Democrats, whose loyalty to Harold Ford Jr.’s curiously new-breed politics — ranging from indistinct to undeniably right-of-center — was tenuous at best. (See “The Third Man”)

Discontent with Ford among hard-core Democrats may have been a marginal affair, but further analysis may show that this election actually hinged on the margins.

Any student of the blogosphere — suddenly swirling with political dervishes in Tennessee as elsewhere — could attest to the passions that were driving partisans at the edges of ideology. And, whereas in the outer, traditional world, ads for the pious, button-downed-collar Ford were making converts — such as Knoxville’s Frank Cagle, a journalist and conservative activist of the old school — he was still being regarded with suspicion online by red-hots both left and right.

Beyond the convenient descriptors of race or party label, there was in fact not much in the way of ideological difference to distinguish between Corker and Ford. Whatever their private convictions, both had progressively moved from their party’s moderate wings to positions that were clearly right of center.

Both candidates, formerly pro-choice on abortion, now described themselves as pro-life. Both opposed gay marriage. Both favored an extension of the Bush tax cuts, opposed immediate troop withdrawals from Iraq, and supported the president on the so-called “torture” bill. Their differences even on issues like tort reform and Social Security were being fudged.

Chris Davis

Steve Cohen at his Palm Court victory party

So it came down to a contest between individuals — Corker, the plain-spoken businessman and former Chattanooga mayor, versus Ford, the dazzling, charismatic wunderkind of 2006.

Right up to the end, Ford was routinely being described by those pundits who were hazarding election forecasts as having run this year’s best campaign. But that surely was a paradox: In the year of a roaring Democratic tide, with personal gifts that were undeniable and with coverage of his race with Corker devoted disproportionately to him, how indeed could Ford have lost?

One clue, perhaps, was the debate that raged amongst progressive bloggers in Memphis. It narrowed down to the following choices: Hold your nose and vote for Ford, whose politics had gone conspicuously rightward; vote for a fringe candidate of the left, such as the Green Party’s Chris Lugo; desist from voting in the Senate race altogether; or, as a fourth alternative that came to be increasingly taken seriously, vote for Corker.

Several developments drove that resolution: There was a factor that loomed much larger in Tennessee than elsewhere, where pundits chose to ignore that old chestnut about all politics being local. This was the fact, familiar to most Tennesseans within reach of a TV set or a morning newspaper, of the Ford family of Memphis, a.k.a. the Ford political “machine.”

The franchise began in 1974, the year of Watergate, when a two-term Democratic state representative named Harold Ford won an upset victory over white Republican Dan Kuykendall. Soon, Ford Sr. (the suffix, of course, derives from latter-day circumstance) was encouraging his siblings — all, like him, the sons and daughters of N.J. and Vera Ford, operators of a successful South Memphis funeral home — into the new world of politics.

Such were the leadership skills of the first Congressman Harold Ford that soon there were Fords everywhere in government — on the City Council, on the County Commission, in both chambers of the Tennessee legislature. Over the years, those family members, like John Ford of the state Senate, became dominant figures — exercising power up to, and sometimes beyond, established governmental lines.

John Ford’s indictment last year and subsequent resignation capped a swaggering, often scandalous career in which the senator’s very real legislative acumen soon became a secondary issue in the minds of Tennesseans. Ironically, the senator’s arrest in May 2005 occurred on the very eve of his nephew’s announcement for Senate.

Harold Ford Jr., raised in Washington, D.C., and schooled in such environs as St. Alban’s Prep School, the University of Pennsylvania, and the University of Michigan, had every chance to avoid being stereotyped as “one of the Fords.” First of all, he was different — even early on, he was the same smooth article that TV viewers saw this year in Ford’s political ads.

Almost preternaturally self-assured and glib, he moved into the frames of his commercials and hit his marks with a grace and flourish that any professional actor might admire. Indeed, he was so accessible a figure that reigning political shibboleths ceased to be of any use to would-be analysts. It had long been said, for example, that no black could win in Tennessee.

Ford’s U.S. Senate candidacy directly confronted that assumption. It soon became clear that, while he was black enough, at least in concept, to be the overwhelming favorite son of the state’s African-American constituencies — 16 percent of the total population — he also conformed closely enough to middle-class models of success that crowds of young white professionals soon began to crowd his rallies. His professions of piety (he called himself “Jesus-loving” and began to carry a Bible on the stump) proved effective in rural surroundings and even on TV, where his nods and finger-pointing heavenward was reminiscent of famous pro athletes.

One measure of Ford’s possible appeal to social conservatives was that in Shelby County — where, as returns approached completion, he was maintaining a consistent 65 percent of the total vote — the referendum on state Amendment One, which would ban gay marriage, was winning by tidal-wave proportions — 80 percent to 20 percent. At the very least, this meant no sign of the usual anti-Democratic backlash that in recent years has accompanied evangelical voting.

In retrospect, Ford’s strong showing should have surprised no one. Added to his personal panache — virtually without parallel among Tennessee politicians, black or white — were the facts of an undeniable voter discontent with Republican rule and, for that matter, with politics-as-usual.

But the three percent lead that Bob Corker held onto as a margin never disappeared. And as news organizations began to call the race for the Republican, Harold Ford Jr.’s excellent adventure finally expired.

In the end, the same factors that gave him his chance ultimately may have doomed him to defeat: He lacked an important part of his base. Close, but no cigar.

After all the excitement, after all the better-than-expected election results in Shelby, Davidson, and Hamilton counties (all urban centers), Harold Ford did what most Tennesseans thought he would do at the beginning of his race: lose to an established Republican in a taken-for-granted red state.

Maybe it was never possible he would win. At the end of it all, campaign strategist Tom Lee acknowledged to the media that his candidate had reached or achieved most of the campaign’s goals, falling short, perhaps, only in the upper northeast corner of the state, the so-called Tri-Cities of Kingsport, Bristol, and Johnson City, traditional Republican strongholds all.

Maybe it was what the national media saw as racial content in the infamous line, “Harold, call me,” spoken by a white bimbo in a Republican National Committee ad — though most Tennesseans doubted it. Indeed, Ford seemed to do well among young, white professionals, who flocked to his rallies and sported his bumper stickers on their Volvos and SUVs. Indeed, they were as much a core constituency as African Americans were.

And he seemed to do well in some of the rural counties where a state constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage also ran up a big vote. At various times, he even appeared capable of doing the impossible — stealing the religious vote from the Republicans. He promised on national TV that he would be a “Jesus-loving, gun-supporting” senator; he began toting a Bible on the stump and seemed about to create a brand-new political type.

But red-state reality insisted on asserting itself.

Even in his concession speech before adoring supporters at The Peabody, Ford clung to that most surprising and unexpected component of his 2006 persona. Quoting passages of scripture, he made one last nudge of head upward, pointed heavenward one last time, and thanked his maker, the celestial one, for the opportunity to do what he had almost done. And then, after having spoken the merest congratulations to his victorious opponent, he moved offstage, slowly, as most disappointed mortals would, the consoling arm of congressional colleague Lincoln Davis, his campaign chairman, draped over his shoulder.

Ultimately, Harold Ford Jr. fell back to earth, having fallen just short of becoming a political archetype. But, like Icarus of legend, he made a good flight of it while it lasted.

Meanwhile, Cohen was flying high, having won the 9th District seat with a solid 60 percent margin that exceeded what most of his backers regarded as possible. At 57, Cohen would not only have the opportunity for national office that he had hankered for since his earlier try for Congress in 1996 — against Harold Ford Jr. — he would be privileged to begin his term of service as a member of the House majority. That was a privilege his predecessor had never enjoyed. Even the new congressman’s unabashedly liberal bias — unlike Ford’s conservatism — seemed perfectly in tune with the new Congress, where Democrats had also strengthened themselves in the Senate.

As vintage rocker Randy Haspel played piper for the packed and racially diversified crowd of young and not-so-young Democrats at Palm Court, the state senator’s recent bête noire, the moody, unpredictable Jake Ford, was nowhere to be found.

Absent from his brother’s event at The Peabody, the erstwhile congressional aspirant was rumored to have been involved in this or that fracas on election night. Soon enough, even the gossip about him died down — nobody seemed to care any longer what the facts were — and his somewhat less than 15 minutes in the limelight had pretty much wound down.

It was otherwise with Republican Mark White, the third-place finisher in the 9th, who would presumably be able to translate his newly enhanced name recognition into another — and better — chance at elective office somewhere down the road.

Other results: Something of that sort might also be the case for Democrat Bill Morrison, the Bartlett schoolteacher who waged a spunky if underfunded race against incumbent Republican Marsha Blackburn, an easy winner in the 7th Congressional District.

In the 8th Congressional District, the loser was Republican John Farmer, who had a good time venting his idiosyncratic brand of conservative populism even while losing badly to Democratic incumbent John Tanner. Farmer also lost a race to Beverly Marrero, the Democratic state representative from District 89.

There were no surprises in the other local legislative races. Republican Paul Stanley beat Democrat Ivon Faulkner for Curtis Person’s old District 31 state Senate seat; Democratic incumbent Barbara Cooper won over her perennial GOP challenger, George Edwards, in House District 86; Democrat Mike Kernell continued his personal streak of invincibility against Republican challenger Tim Cook in House District 93; and Republican Ron Lollar beat Democrat Eric P. Jones in House District 99.

Winners in Memphis school board races were: Kenneth Whalum Jr. succeeding the retiring Sara Lewis by a landslide in At Large, Position 2.; Betty Mallott, displacing incumbent Deni Hirsch in District 2; Martavius D. Jones, unopposed in District 4; and Carl Johnson, reelected in District 6.

As indicated, state Amendment One, to ban gay marriage in Tennessee, won lopsidedly, by a 4-to-1 margin, as did Amendment Two, providing property-tax relief for seniors.

Oh, and to no one’s surprise, Governor Phil Bredesen, running against underfunded Republican Jim Bryson, who declared late as the GOP’s sacrificial lamb, won easily in what may have been the most unnoticed major statewide contest in recent Tennessee history — confirmation, if any were needed, that not every contest this year had to be a matter of heavy weather.

 

 

Categories
Opinion Viewpoint

American Gigolo

Come up off your color chart/I know where you’re coming from./Call me!

— Blondie

Last week, a fast-paced, clearly satirical ad, funded by the Republican National Committee and produced by Scott Howell, the muckraking media consultant behind the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, was pulled from circulation after receiving negative attention from the national news media. The ad, which featured a melange of colorfully quaint and comically sleazy miscreants who might have wandered off the set of a Coen brothers movie, attacked Democratic senatorial candidate Harold Ford Jr. on a number of fronts. It was, according to its detractors, a racist ploy created to stir up the lingering Southern white prejudice against interracial relationships.

An editorial in The Commercial Appeal called the ad an “insult.” The New York Times described it as a transparently “racist appeal to Tennessee voters.” The Chattanooga Times Free Press minced no words, either, saying, “A black man, a white woman, more than a hint of sex. … [C]learly the hope is that viewers will free-associate to a word like ‘miscegenation.'”

And there you have it: a controversy based not on the ad’s many misleading assertions but entirely on a presumed hope that voters psychologically inclined to free-associate along stereotypically racist lines may see things that aren’t actually in the commercial.

The ad’s harshest critics have centered their complaint around only one of the eight oddball characters presented — a white girl who claims to have met Junior at a Playboy party and who delivers the spot’s now-infamous catchphrase, “Harold, call me.” But the trampy little snowflake isn’t the only character who likes the cut of Junior’s jib. The spot begins with an African-American female praising Ford’s physical attributes and asking, “Isn’t that enough?”

The obvious question: Would critics of the spot still see racist overtones if the race of these two characters were reversed, or if both women had been played by either black or white actresses? The uncomfortable answer: Yes, someone looking for a racist angle could find it no matter how the spot was cast. That makes it pretty tough for the GOP to get their politically expedient and decidedly non-racist message across.

Love him or hate him, Ford has waged a smart campaign, and by getting well to the right of Republican candidate Bob Corker on key issues, he’s effectively diffused his opponent’s frequent attempts to tar him as a liberal. Ford’s mildly controversial use of a church as the backdrop for one of his ads appealed to women and conservative-leaning swing voters, who will certainly decide this tight election. “Call Me” was clearly aimed at these two groups, reminding them that deep down inside all Democrats are American gigolos given to dirty, Clintonian urges.

Any other reading is, as the Times Free Press acknowledges, free association. Why would the RNC go into a tight race and waste good money trying to convince white racists — the one group certain to vote against a black candidate — to vote against the black candidate? Factor into that equation an October poll by SurveyUSA suggesting that Corker may receive up to 23 percent of Tennessee’s traditionally Democratic African-American vote, and claims that “Call Me” is overtly racist seem even less substantial.

While shooting at Confederate phantoms, almost everyone criticizing the ad has either missed or minimized its real shortcomings. What of the man in camouflage suggesting that Ford wants to take his guns away — even though the congressman’s most recent NRA rating is a gentleman’s C? Who’s bellyaching about the leather-vested codger who says Ford wants him to pay taxes after he’s dead or the comical sleazebag who reminds viewers that Ford once accepted campaign contributions from a pornographic producer. (The RNC, as it turns out, does as well.)

Over the past six years, the GOP, and Scott Howell in particular, have turned out numerous deceitful, hypocritical ads designed to assassinate the character of Democratic candidates. “Call Me” may very well be as dirty as anything Howell and his Republican partners have produced, just not for the obvious reasons — which, at second glance, aren’t so obvious after all.

Chris Davis is a Flyer staff writer.

Categories
Editorial Opinion

Foul Play

The 9th District Congressional debate sponsored Monday night by the Downtown Merchants Association was marked, as The Commercial Appeal‘s Halimah Abdullah put it, with “plenty of gusts from unexpected directions.” So what else is new? This political season, especially here in Tennessee, the level of negative campaigning has gone over-the-top “nukular,” as George W. Bush likes to say.

We find that a depressing development. But those who run for public office these days know full well that this is how the game is now played, however unfortunate the rule changes are. If a political candidate cannot stand the heat of opponents lambasting their past behaviors and present foibles, he or she needs to consider getting into another line of work.

But a line is crossed when this demonstrable incivility extends itself to reporters trying to do their jobs in as fair and equable fashion as possible. Just such a line was crossed Monday night, when, in the aftermath of this particular debate, Flyer political editor Jackson Baker was verbally accosted by 9th District Independent candidate Jake Ford. The particulars of this event are referred to elsewhere in this issue.

However distasteful his debate remarks about his two opponents may have appeared to those opponents and to many members of the audience, Jake Ford was well within his rights to hurl verbal abuse in their direction within the debate context. When he later decided to extend that approach to a reporter — from whatever news organization — simply trying to do his job properly, he was completely out of line. Period.

Ford owes Baker a public apology, immediately, if not sooner.

The Kroc Center

City attorney Sara Hall is right to say the city should get fair-market value for land at the Mid-South Fairgrounds if a deal is struck with backers of the Kroc Center.

The $48-million recreation complex and social center would be a welcome addition to the underused fairgrounds property. Money from the family of McDonald’s founder Ray Kroc, along with local private-funding sources, would pay for the center, which was discussed this week at the Memphis City Council.

But there’s a principle here that shouldn’t give way to expedience in a rush to make a deal: The Salvation Army, which is the recipient of the Kroc grant, is a church. If the city wants to sell city property to this or any other church, it should receive market value. Some Memphians may be tempted to say that the property should be given away for a nominal amount because the end justifies the means. Hall is right on the law and right on principle to object.

The Salvation Army and other Memphis churches can be important partners with the city. But we’re not ready to turn over public responsibilities or public property to churches without full disclosure and market pricing. Other Christian churches and colleges have their eyes on public land, and Hall has drawn the line properly.

Categories
Politics Politics Feature

Much Ado

So Jake Ford did show for the 9th District congressional debate sponsored by the Downtown Neighborhood Association (DNA) and the South Main Association (SMA) — despite his several threats not to.

Underscore that word, “threats,” for it is all but inseparable from this candidate’s very presence. (Editor’s note: See “Fly on the Wall,” for a brief account of the incident that provoked this column.)

The fact is, a political candidate has, for no good reason whatsoever, chosen to try to employ me as a foil for his own purposes, to have made me a story and to have hauled me onto center stage against my will. In the process, he has also bullied one of the most good-hearted, civic-spirited presences around — Joan Robinson of the DNA.

Since this became enough of a story to have attracted a battery of TV reporters to my home and to the site of a long-planned 9th District congressional debate involving both me (as a moderator) and the aforesaid Jake Ford as a candidate, and since it becomes increasingly clear that the context is candidate Ford’s political strategy, then readers are entitled to know the background of the story. The “back story,” as it were.

That began with a phone call I placed to Jake Ford on the same day (September 6th) that mayors Willie Herenton and A C Wharton endorsed Ford-rival congressional candidate Steve Cohen, the Democrats’ nominee, in a public ceremony. I had seen independent candidate Ford make a brief response — his first public exposure of the campaign season — on the evening news that night (WMC-TV, to be exact).

Herenton had blasted Jake Ford directly (“No one can convince me that Jake Ford has a modicum of qualifications for this position. All he brings to the table is the Ford name. … He has simply no qualifications to serve.”) and assailed the Ford family for seeking, as he put it, “a monopoly on all elected positions in this state and this county.”

Under the circumstances, Jake Ford was restrained and, I thought, impressive. As I said in my column online the next day, Ford had appeared to be “a slim, well-groomed, and reasonably well-spoken — if less prepossessing — version of his older brother, U.S. Representative Harold Ford Jr.”

I continued: “Jake Ford’s posture on the occasion, unprovocative and respectful toward the two mayors (whom he declared himself a “supporter” of) did much to mitigate a profile — high-school dropout and hothead — that had been widely propagated in quarters as diverse as local establishment circles and the highly non-establishment blog of African-American maverick Thaddeus Matthews (whose name for the candidate is ‘Joke Ford’).”

Either because he is incapable of making such distinctions or because it fits a calculated purpose, Jake has proved careless in distinguishing between things I have said with my own voice and things said by other people whom I have quoted. This is germane. But to proceed:

I had called Jake, using a cell number given me by his uncle, Shelby County commissioner Joe Ford, a widely liked and respected public servant who had, much to his nephew’s advantage, offered the first-time candidate support and advice.

I told Jake much the same as what would appear in my column the next day, that he had handled himself well, demonstrating gifts of his own worth publicizing. I told him I envisioned writing a cover story about him to that end and suggested we get together for a full interview process.

He responded equably, appreciatively, and with the exquisite manners that he and all members of the Ford family possess in their arsenal and offered to let me speak to my old friend, former Congressman Harold Ford Sr., whom I could hear in the background, drumming up support for son Jake on the telephone.

As it happened, the former congressman never got off the other line. So Jake and I chatted for a while and then said goodbye, with the understanding that we would have another conversation to set up an interview.

On the way into work the next morning, I gave Jake a call on my cell phone. To my astonishment, he began trying to berate me for a line in the online version of the column I have quoted from above. Because of an html-coding error, a phrase about other Ford-family races (“including Ophelia Ford’s in state Senate District 29”) appeared as “including Ophelia Ford’sin state Senate District 29”). Jake kept insisting that was an intentional slur and seemed unwilling to accept my explanation that it was an obvious typo and that I would make sure it got corrected as soon as I got to the office.

Even more astonishingly, he took exception to the description of himself as “slim,” fairly shouting out, “Jackson, I’m the same weight that I’ve always been since you’ve known me!”

He also blustered: “You’re not going to do a cartoon cover on me, are you?” That had to be a reference to a cover illustration that had accompanied a much earlier article on his brother, Representative Ford, and I pointed out to Jake that it is rare for writers to usurp the functions of the editor and art director and that in the case at hand, I hadn’t even seen the cover until all other readers had, for better or for worse.

The long and the short of it was that Jake kept shouting and interrupting and overriding what I had to say. When I had a moment, I explained to him, as politely as possible, that I was going to hang up, that we’d have to try another day for a conversation, when conditions and temperaments were more permitting of it, and then disconnected.

In the next days, I kept to my normally quite busy schedule, which included attendance at a rally for Representative Ford’s U.S. Senate campaign at his Park Place headquarters. There I briefly encountered Jake Ford and shook his hand. When various bloggers, operating on faulty hearsay information, subsequently began to write about a wholly fictitious collusion between Harold Ford Jr. and Jake Ford on that occasion, I made a point of debunking it. (However Jake Ford felt about that, I have reason to believe that Representative Ford, who has not intervened in the congressional race, was grateful for the correction.)

I went on to write positively about Jake Ford’s appearance on a local radio show. When I was unable to attend a Medical Society forum featuring the candidates, asked colleague Chris Davis to go instead. I then posted Davis’ largely favorable review of Ford’s performance in the “Political Beat” section of the Flyer Web site.

Fade to a mid-September downtown meeting of principals involved in the then-forthcoming debate of 9th District candidates sponsored by the Downtown Neighborhood Association and the South Main Association. Joan Robinson of the DNA had observed me in the role of moderator for several forums and debates in the previous year, and, on the strength of that, had asked me to serve again in that role. I happily complied.

One of the principals at the meeting was Isaac Ford, Jake’s brother. At one point, while he was searching for a pen, he realized, “Oh, Jake’s got it!” Whereupon I hazarded an admittedly ill-advised quip, “Uh oh, you mean Jake Ford’s out there with a pointed instrument?”

Everybody laughed, including Isaac, who then, however, began to brood, even when I apologized for the remark and made a point at aiming similar quips at other principals.

The long and the short of that: After the meeting broke up, Isaac and Jake (who had also attended) returned to Joan’s office, and the two of them began berating her and demanding a second moderator. The long and the short of that: She quoted chapter and verse to them of my largely positive columns about Jake and expressed absolute confidence in my objectivity and fairness. When I was informed about the situation, I honestly owned up to being insulted that my integrity was being questioned.

But in the long run, in the interests of comity and letting the forum proceed, both Joan and I relented and were fortunate enough to prevail on News Channel 3 anchor Richard Ransom to serve as co-moderator. Their tempers having apparently cooled, both Isaac and Jake, when we saw each other at an intervening congressional debate on WREG-TV, actually apologized for having made the second-moderator demand. But there we were.

As the world (the local world, anyhow) knows, Jake Ford last week became the subject of reports about multiple arrests during his late teens and early twenties while living in D.C., in the household of his then-congressman father (whose consulting business is also Jake Ford’s sole employer these days).

As the world doesn’t know, I had access to that information but decided against pursuing it, not wanting to be what the trade calls a headhunter and preferring to write about politics and not scandal. Once The Commercial Appeal published its story, however, and Jake held a press conference to give his version, it became a political story, and I did write about it.

I never said so until now, but I had a distinct memory of an occasion, many years ago, when then-Congressman Harold Ford Sr. came up with broken or badly bruised ribs. I realized from the published date of Jake Ford’s arrest for assault against his father that it dated from that same exact time frame.

All of which added to my feeling of awkwardness when Jake Ford, apparently reacting to my matter-of-fact ex post facto story, began — citing me as the reason — trying to back out of the DNA/SMA debate this week. He eventually showed up, however, and comported himself during the debate with reasonable polish and aplomb except for inexplicable intervals of making reckless charges against opponent Cohen. (Nobody, Jake, ever said, “Poor people don’t deserve to go to college” on the floor of the Senate — not Steve Cohen or any other politician.)

Unless I’m mistaken, my colleague Davis will have provided something of a chronology of the near-assault against me that followed the debate. I’ll pay no more attention to it and go back to covering, as objectively as I can, the events of the election and the political world.

I deeply regret that I am compelled, for purposes of providing a complete background record, to use the valuable space allotted to me this week to this subject — it has crowded out an abundance of other news, including that of Representative Ford’s soaring Senate race and the surprising showing now being made by 7th District Democratic congressional candidate Bill Morrison, freshly endorsed by the Nashville Tennessean and rising in the polls.

I promise that both will receive their due next week. And Jake Ford no more than his.

Categories
Politics Politics Feature

Brother Act

Say this about Harold Ford Sr.: The former 9th District congressman hasn’t lost his appetite for political combat. He made that clear last week when he accepted co-billing with his son Harold Ford Jr. at a Friday-morning rally at the Park Place headquarters of the current congressman, now a candidate for the U.S. Senate.

A “reception” for the two Harold Fords, it was called, and it drew a goodly crowd. With some time to kill, the senior Ford shared some thinking about his son’s campaign as he awaited the arrival of Representative Ford’s campaign bus. (Yes, if earlier that morning you were watching hometown idol Justin Timberlake on ABC-TV’s Good Morning America, that was the selfsame bus that just happened to have pulled up behind the stage, flashing its Ford For Senate logo before the eyes of the nation.)

Nor has the old warrior lost his sense of strategy. It was clearly a mistake, the former congressman said, for his son’s Senate rival, Republican nominee Bob Corker, to have invited President Bush to Memphis for a fund-raiser next week — the second such occasion in Tennessee, following a public embrace between the two the week before last in Nashville.

“That’s the trouble with those millionaires. They don’t want to spend any money, especially none of their own,” Ford Sr. — a seven-figure type himself these days as a well-paid Florida-based consultant — said of the former Chattanooga mayor, an entrepreneur whose considerable fortune has derived from low-income housing projects.

As the elder Ford explained it, Corker’s misplaced frugality was making him over-dependent on a president with sagging polls and presumably frayed coattails. As a piece of analysis, it made sense. It was certainly true that his son’s campaign seemed to be spending more money than his rival’s just now — mainly on a recurring and well-crafted series of TV ads that made the most of the younger Ford’s mediagenic looks and reassuring stage presence.

Those commercials — the most recent one made in a church! — featured the same right-of-center rap (pro-Patriot Act, pro-curbs on immigration, etc.) that has driven the left wing of the congressman’s party bananas. One effect of this approach has seemingly been to prevent Corker, fearful of being out-flanked on his right, from coming to the political center as newly minted party nominees usually do.

The audience for Representative Ford’s typically rousing and generalized remarks at the Friday-morning rally included a generous collection of Democrats — senior citizens, business types, Midtown Democrats, suburban types, etc.

Subsequent to the event, the impression got out in some quarters that it had been an affair for College Democrats (it wasn’t — though they, like other Democrats, had been invited and responded) in which, according to a widely circulated e-mail from a University of Memphis student: “Apparently, after Junior was done speaking, his fucktard brother got a chance to speak to the volunteer base that we acquired for Junior.”

Hearsay of this sort begat further hearsay, and soon an honest blogger or two had picked up on a gathering outrage among supporters of 9th District Democratic nominee Steve Cohen that the “fucktard brother” (i.e., independent congressional candidate Jake Ford) had benefited from what had now, in some tellings, become a “handoff” at the rally from Representative Ford.

Actually, nothing of the sort occurred. Jake Ford had been no more than one member of the large and milling crowd. He had no role in the proceedings, which ended after his congressman brother left to go join the Rev. Ben Hooks for the dedication of a Whitehaven Job Corps center in Hooks’ honor.

If Jake Ford “worked the crowd” afterward (as a revised version of the ever-shifting story had it), then so did anybody else who had been in the throng. It was just a case of a large gathering breaking off into isolated conversational clumps as people made their way out the door.

That so much was later made of a non-event merely served to underscore the existence of a very real schism in local Democratic ranks — one that was bound to be exacerbated by Jake Ford’s own claim in a radio interview this week.

Asked by a caller on a show hosted by Jennings Bernard why Representative Ford had not publicly endorsed him, Jake Ford maintained that his brother had in fact done so and, to further that contention, availed himself of the same rumors that were already in play concerning last week’s Friday-morning rally.

“Quite simply, he [Representative Ford] endorses me every day,” said Jake Ford. “I endorse him every day.” As for why his brother hadn’t “officially come out,” Ford said, “I think most people should realize he does endorse me. I was just with him on Friday at his campaign headquarters for a rally. Make no mistake about it, he’s my brother, and I love the guy. It’s just two different races. He’s running for the Senate and I’m running for Congress.”

The bottom line was that now people were prepared to believe what they wanted to believe. When Jake Ford’s radio remarks are carefully parsed, they don’t authenticate the fact of an “endorsement” that, ultimately, could only come from Representative Ford himself. But they certainly put Ford Jr. in the position of having to speak to the issue himself, something he ultimately will be under great — perhaps unavoidable — pressure to do.

Understandably, proponents of state senator Cohen are vexed at Representative Ford for the statements of neutrality he has made so far concerning the race to succeed him. They, too, tend to regard the congressman’s posture as indicative of de facto support for brother Jake.

In the long run, some believe, that feeling could grow in Democratic circles, even at the statewide level, and cost Representative Ford enough votes at the margin to threaten his chances in the Senate race. Right now, with Corker running like a dry creek and losing momentum in all the polls to Ford, it may not seem so to the congressman.

And his ex-congressman father has made no secret of his intention to pull out all the stops for both of his sons.

Meanwhile, Cohen continues to be regarded as the front-runner. He, after all, is his party’s nominee, made what has to be regarded as a substantial primary showing in black precincts (17 percent overall), is regarded by many Democrats, especially liberal ones, as a longtime champion of their causes, and even has boosters in Republican circles.

That last fact, based on some isolated conservative positions (e.g., on gun control and the death penalty) as well as a general admiration for his legislative service and tenacity, is cause for some concern in the camp of Republican nominee Mark White, who has devoted much attention in his own campaign to social issues like abortion and gay marriage. It is areas like those where he perceives Cohen to have possible weaknesses.

In an address to the College Democrats at the University of Memphis Monday night, Cohen maintained that “both of my opponents” hoped to undermine him in such areas. He defended his opposition to constitutional amendments against gay marriage — jesting, however, that he was firmly opposed to “intergalactic” marriage.

Cohen told the College Democrats that Jake Ford in his radio appearance had implied Cohen was a homosexual, a racist, and “a crook.” In all fairness, the first two allegations derived more from innuendoes and more from callers than from anything Ford said. But candidate Ford did seem to be doing his best to nudge home the last charge.

“I think he’s stepped over the line a couple of times, and we still cannot get the attorney general to be responsive to some of the allegations that we have become aware of pertaining to some dealings that he has had himself,” Ford said on Bernard’s show without elaborating further.

The very fact that he said something like that was taken by many Cohen supporters as ample confirmation that Jake Ford was intimately bound up with the appearance of a new Web site called CrookedCohen.org, which makes the very unspecified allegations alluded to by Ford. Blogger Derek Haire (rivercitymud.com) painstakingly traced that site and Jake Ford’s own campaign site back to the same IP address.

No sign, by the way, of Ophelia Ford, unseen on the campaign trail during this entire season but still, for demographic and party reasons, the favorite in the District 29 state Senate race over the relentlessly campaigning Republican Terry Roland.