Senator Race in Tennessee Still Tight

Harold J. Ford, Jr., may have a chance of winning the senate seat in Tennessee. If nothing else, he's made a real contest of it and has forced Republican candidate Corker, who thought he had a sure thing, to go dirty in the campaign. Here's a long post by Kiosan of A Voce:

I was born and grew up in Memphis, Tennessee. If someone had come to me 15 years ago and told me Harold Ford, Jr was going to make a serious bid for the Senate, and might even win it, I probably would have laughed myself into convulsions.

I'm not laughing today. The race is in serious enough contention that WaPo carries an article on the front page.

Ford, a Democratic House representative from Memphis, is young, telegenic, charismatic, smart, and one of the more socially conservative Democrats offered up this year for our national consideration. ...

(snip)

... A savvy campaigner with an established moderate record, Ford has been making significant gains in the polls.

And this has surprised a number of people, particularly those who assumed Tennessee was a foregone conclusion with a red punctuation mark. For the last ten years, the state has strongly favored Republican candidates. ...

Be sure to read the whole post. I can't say I know much about the local politics but let's hope the Democrats do well in Tennessee. Given the record of the GOP in recent years and the rampant corruption in Washington, Republicans can no longer waltz into an election and automatically assume they have the votes sewed up because they have big business and big money behind them. It's time for a different direction.