Star Power to Blood Sport, Tennessee Senate Race Has It
By MARK LEIBOVICH- NYT
KNOXVILLE, Tenn., Nov. 4 — Control of the Senate is at stake, and Cybill Shepherd is sitting in the front row at a church rally in Memphis, blowing a kiss to Bill Clinton.
Mr. Clinton is about to say nice things about Representative Harold E. Ford Jr., the Democratic Senate candidate, but first he has to say how much he loves Ms. Shepherd’s movies and how he always looks for them when he is home alone at night, channel surfing.
Which has about as much to do with Tuesday’s election as cockfighting, and in northeast Tennessee that is what the burly welder is getting in Bob Corker’s face about. The man, arguing that the blood sport should be legalized, is cocksure about his love of cockfighting. Mr. Corker, a multimillionaire Republican running a small-government campaign against Mr. Ford, is less sure. People should be free from state regulation, but he is undecided about birds. He promises to learn more.
The final days of what may be the most captivating Senate race in the nation are a dizzying spectacle. The airwaves are ablur with hostile political advertisements. The candidates are wired and immersed, careering around the state, working rooms, doing the college football tailgate scene (as both did on Saturday before a University of Tennessee-Louisiana State University game in Knoxville) or bunkering in TV studios.
There are border-to-border boom mikes, international press throngs and a political celebrity cavalry: Senator Barack Obama, the Illinois Democrat, is scheduled to stump for Mr. Ford on Sunday; Senator John McCain, the Arizona Republican, is penciled in Sunday and Monday for Mr. Corker; Laura Bush was in Tennessee last Tuesday for Mr. Corker.
Races in Missouri or Virginia — or some surprise elsewhere — may well determine whether the Senate swings from Republican to Democratic control. But there is something about Tennessee that has invited immense attention. The Senate race here packs historic potential — Mr. Ford could become the first black senator from the South since Reconstruction, and the Republicans could lose the seat now held by the Senate majority leader, Bill Frist. And the race has spurred charges of distortion, mudslinging and subtle racism.
The prevailing view among some Tennesseans is that the attention is flattering, and in many cases, welcome. “We feel like we’re living in the right state at the right time right now,” said Betty Robinson, a Red Cross volunteer from Memphis. “The eyes of the country are on us, it seems. It makes us proud.”
If campaigns reflect their candidate, the final days bring the distinctions into sharp relief. Mr. Corker, 54, a white construction entrepreneur and former mayor of Chattanooga, projects ease and satisfaction. He slept seven hours the other night and says he feels just great, although his eyes are red. Aboard his customized “Corker Country” bus (with plush couches and the television set tuned to Fox News), he hits several small towns and cities a day, keeping to his schedule with precision.
His general election campaign got off to a sluggish start. But after pouring $2 million of his own money into it in recent weeks and bringing in new campaign advisers, he is running a cautious, orderly operation. He emphasizes his conservatism, optimism, pragmatism and experience in the business world. He pillories his opponent as a tax-raising liberal, scion of a “Memphis political machine” and a phony Tennessean at that (Mr. Ford grew up in Washington as a son of a congressman). A favorite Corker campaign line: “You’re going to have a senator from Tennessee, not D.C.”
Mr. Ford’s campaign has more of a ragtag feel. A five-term congressman, Mr. Ford, 36, is habitually late, in part because he likes to linger at events and because he loves to make a big entrance at the next one. His schedule often appears improvised. He subsists on three hours of sleep at night and five or six cups of coffee a day. He powers through a lunch of fried catfish during an interview on his bus, “The Success Express” (televisions tuned to MSNBC and CNN).
By many accounts, Mr. Ford is at a political disadvantage in this former Confederate state that has become a Republican fortress. Two recent independent polls show him 8 and 10 points behind his opponent. Still, insiders of both parties consider his to be the best-run Senate campaign in the country in terms of strategy.
He exudes intensity — bouncing up and down on his tippy-toes, eyes darting, slap-hugging supporters. He takes stage direction well and stays on point about the need for change, a new course in Iraq and his love of Jesus. He derides Mr. Corker as running a “negative, smut-filled, sleazy, slimy campaign.”
Both candidates betray some strain. Mr. Corker’s hand shakes clutching a 16-ounce cup of black coffee outside a cafe in Elizabethton. Mr. Ford, working a rope line with Mr. Clinton in Memphis, turns around and sneaks a yawn.
It feels as if it has been November for three months.
“I promise you, in a few days you’ll have your TVs back,” Mr. Corker tells plant workers in Greeneville. He jokes that children across Tennessee will soon be concluding their nightly prayers by saying, “I’m Bob Corker, and I approve this message.”
It is not easy to run this race or to follow it. The candidates have spent a great deal of time in recent days securing their bases — Mr. Ford in the west (including Memphis), Mr. Corker in the more rural east (including Knoxville). The size of the state — over 500 miles at its widest — is daunting for a campaign operation, and there is a time zone change near the middle. (Fun fact: The northeasternmost point of Tennessee is closer to the Canadian border than to Memphis.)
It can be difficult to see both candidates in the same day, given the logistics. But here is a drive-by anthropology of the campaign’s previous three days.
Wednesday: Memphis
To Johnson City
Elvis is here, Clinton version. Having Bill Clinton campaign for you, as Mr. Ford learns, is a mixed blessing. You are bolstered standing next to this outsized Democrat, but still seem puny by comparison.
Nearly all 4,500 seats of the purple sanctuary at the Temple of Deliverance Church of God in Christ are filled by a mostly black crowd.
“I miss peace, prosperity and Bill Clinton,” says a placard, held by Kelly Jacobs, up from Hernando, Miss. Cybill Shepherd autographed her sign.
Former Representative Harold E. Ford Sr. waits on stage. Ms. Shepherd, a Memphis native, is in the front row near brothers Jake and Isaac.
Mr. Ford and Mr. Clinton walk out together. Mr. Clinton waves and beams, Mr. Ford bows, half-salutes.
Mr. Ford speaks first. As he does, Mr. Clinton, sitting behind him, keeps doing little waves and thumbs-ups and smiling at people in the audience.
“Doesn’t it feel good to be in Memphis this morning?” Mr. Ford asks, and the crowd shouts out “Yes!” and Mr. Clinton keeps on waving, hamming.
Mr. Ford is the proverbial “fine young man,” which is how elders of both parties typically describe him. He is big into the sirs and ma’ams. Mr. Ford speaks for about 15 minutes, largely about Mr. Clinton. “He always tried to bring people together,” Mr. Ford says. Mr. Clinton squints, his mouth agape in that proudly dumbstruck Clinton way.
“Introducing the president of the United States,” Mr. Ford shouts, gaining momentum at the end. Everybody cheers for two minutes.
“You better settle down, or I might forget that I’m not still president,” Mr. Clinton says. Someone drowns him out, screaming “I love you Bill,” which becomes a “We love you” chant.
When done, Mr. Clinton hugs Mr. Ford. They work a rope line. Mr. Ford stands back deferentially, while Mr. Clinton leans and frantically grabs hands. It is like the ‘90s all over again, give or take a heart bypass and the cellphone cameras.
“He’s a bad white boy,” Marion Collins of Memphis says of Mr. Clinton. He means “bad” in a good way.
Later that night, in eastern Tennessee, conservative talk radio is awash in Senator John Kerry’s “botched joke,” which Republicans portray as his having said that American troops in Iraq are not educated. Sean Hannity, Neal Boortz, Michael Reagan, Peter Wiseback (“sitting in for Michael Savage”), all relentless.
And the political commercials are not nice to Mr. Ford. The “liberal” Mr. Ford. The “pro-abortion,” thinks “taxpayers should pay for abortions” Mr. Ford. “Harold Ford backs the radical homosexual agenda 80 percent of the time,” said a spot “paid for by Focus on the Family Action.” After two hours in the car, it is hard to imagine that Mr. Ford will get a single vote in eastern Tennessee.
Thursday: Elizabethton
Bob Corker is playing this very safe. Safe local events, safe Republican territories (the district he is visiting has not sent a Democrat to Congress in more than 100 years).
Safe crowd: “I came here to read his face, and I think he’s the real deal,” says Eddie Murphy. Not that Eddie Murphy (“No color, no money,” this one, of Bluff City, clarifies.)
Outside a cafe, Steve Burwick of The Elizabethton Star asks, “What are some of your best memories of the campaign?”
Mr. Corker lists a bunch of best memories that just happened to have taken place right here in Carter County. Mr. Corker clutches his little digital tape recorder like a teddy bear. He fears being misquoted. Earlier, when reporters approached him outside the cafe, he was caught without the recorder. He excused himself, summoned an aide and got it.
“Sorry, guys,” he explained. “Too close to the election.”
He keeps quoting polls, one that that has him up by 10 points and another that has him up by 8. “That one’s from Rooters,” he says, meaning “Reuters.”
On seven occasions on Thursday morning, Mr. Corker is overheard saying, “The only polls that matter are on November 7th.”
He is an intense, competitive type, an avid cyclist and runner and an entrepreneur who started a construction firm in his 20s and became a multimillionaire. He ran for the Senate in 1994 (losing in the Republican primary to Mr. Frist). Mr. Corker is also accompanied by his wife, Elizabeth, and by Senator Richard M. Burr, Republican of North Carolina, who looked out of place in rural eastern Tennessee with a monogrammed dress shirt and a bright purple tie that he sheepishly admitted he had bought in Paris (France, not Tennessee).
Mr. Corker sits for a brief chat in his impeccable bus, stocked with snacks, drinks and hand sanitizer. Clutching his tape recorder, he lets slip the following bombshells:
It is a privilege to be running in a race that is this important.
It has all been very energizing.
He has a true and deep sense of mission about what he does in the public arena.
Interview over, Mr. Corker decides to live dangerously. He steps off the bus and approaches Alex Bissel, the Ford staff member assigned to “track” Mr. Corker everywhere he goes and videotape him in case he says something incendiary. (It was on-camera mockery of his opponent’s tracker, whom he dubbed “macaca,” that caused Senator George Allen of Virginia endless grief.)
“Alex, turn the camera off,” Mr. Corker prods.
Mr. Bissel demurs.
“Oh, come on, Alex, do you trust me?”
Mr. Bissel mumbles something inaudible.
Mr. Corker walks away, chuckling to himself.
Friday: Hendersonville
Harold Ford is a great and prodigious hugger. He punctuates every one with three satisfying slaps, each landing with a distinctive crack.
He arrives a half-hour late for a 7:30 breakfast at a fire station, hugs his way inside and takes a spot in front of a fire engine.
As anyone would, Mr. Ford commands the floor much better when he is not sharing a stage, let alone with Bill Clinton. His speech includes paeans to Jesus, criticism of Mr. Corker as having spent so much of his own money “to smear me in these final days” and a reprise of a line he used last month after the Republican National Committee bought a commercial (since pulled) ridiculing him for attending a Playboy party at the Super Bowl.
“I like girls and I like football,” he said. In Memphis, Mr. Clinton said that was the best line of the campaign. (Insert wisecrack here).
“This man’s going to be president,”” says a Ford supporter, Brenda Gaither of Hendersonville. “President Ford.” Has a certain familiar ring.
After a satellite interview with Tim Russert of NBC, Mr. Ford sat for a quick chat on his bus under the din of Joe Scarborough and Pat Buchanan on the TV overhead.
“We’re going to win,” Mr. Ford says repeatedly (distinguishing him from all the candidates who say they are going to lose). This appears to be the prevailing message of the day.
Mr. Ford scheduled a news conference in Nashville on Friday morning to restate all the ways in which his campaign was clearly in the lead. He also unveiled new advertisements for the final days, one of which began with Mr. Ford looking into the camera and saying:
“Come Tuesday, you won’t have to hear ‘I’m Harold Ford Jr. and I approve this message’ anymore.”
Saturday: Nashville
To Knoxville
The late-night R.N.C. television ad says Mr. Ford favors giving abortion pills to teenagers and first thing in the morning, someone ranting on the radio says Mr. Corker is “just a rich smear-monger.” Otherwise, it’s all lightness and brightness here in Tennessee, a perfect day for the Tennessee-L.S.U. game in Knoxville.
Ah, college football, a bipartisan passion in the Volunteer State and a temporary refuge from politics.
If only.
Get 100,000 people together in one place three days before the election, and it’s a scheduling no-brainer, if slightly perilous.
“You’re way too short to be a senator,” one man declares of Mr. Corker, who is parked with his entourage outside Gate 20 of Neyland Stadium.
About 100 yards away, Mr. Ford takes a handful of chips from a hospitality tent and walks away without saying thank you. He pivots and returns. “Thank you, thank you,” he says. “Thank you, ma’am.”
Mr. Corker is joined by the man he hopes to succeed, Bill Frist, who grins adoringly next to the candidate while he talks to reporters.
Sports and politics can be a dicey mix, especially in the presence of well-lubricated college students. “Corker!” one young man, sporting orange body paint, yells persistently. He keeps loudly asking Mr. Corker if he favors online gambling.
“No,” Mr. Corker says finally, and the student storms off. The candidate should be this decisive on cock-fighting.
It seems like a pro-Corker crowd, for the most part. This includes three very enthusiastic young women who begin chatting up the candidate, who spends a few minutes with them. But then they reveal that they’re from Louisiana and Mr. Corker appears to lose interest.
“You the man,” declares one of them, an L.S.U. student named Sara Landry, and they pose for a photo. Then the candidate turns in search of Tennesseans and Ms. Landry admits that she has no idea who Bob Corker is.
“I just wanted to get in the picture,” she says.
nytimes.com |
