Economist:"If Anyone Can Turn The Volunteer State Blue, It Is Mr. Ford"...
SOME audiences are easier than others. The students at Maryville College are as liberal as you will find in eastern Tennessee, so Harold Ford, a Democrat running for the Senate, has no trouble wowing them. He's young, clever and says the government should pay for college tuition. After a sunny speech, the audience's questions are mostly either friendly or lovestruck. "Mr Ford, will you marry me?" asks one girl, just out of the candidate's earshot.
The rest of Tennessee is a bit more conservative than Maryville College. As Mr Ford once said, "The national image of the Democratic Party does not sell well in the South." So he is running as far from his party as he credibly can. At the Kiwanis Club nearby, where several members are boycotting his speech simply because he is a Democrat, Mr Ford boasts that he has never voted for an unbalanced budget, that he would never hire an illegal immigrant and that he gets "jumped on" a little by his own party because he goes to church a lot and loves Jesus.
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