That’s a rather simplistic way of looking at it. Ford never had the race sewn up in Tennessee, a Republican stronghold. Corker had a consistent lead in Zogby polls; Ford had a lead in polls in early October by Rasmussen & Gallup. </p>
<p>There was a 3% differential less than the 4% margin of victory Bush had over Gore in 2000, and substantially closer than the 10% margin in the Senate race in 2002. Corker publicly asked for the ad to be pulled on October 21st. The same day, Ford had a Micheal Moorish momenent when he showed up at the site of a Corker-scheduled press conference and tried to confront Corker over Iraq policy; the confrontation did not go all that well for Ford. </p>
<p>I wasn’t in Tennessee and so I can’t know what was in the minds of voters, but I think it’s overly simplistic to attribute Ford’s loss of his late September/early October lead in some (but not all) polls solely to the ad, especially since Ford managed to do better in Tennessee than any other Democrat since who-knows-when. I’d be interested in knowing about how the air time of confrontation video on various news outlets compared with the air time of the Playboy commercial. There may have been racism at work in the response to the Ford/Corker confrontation as well, in the sense that white people might have been expected to react more negatively to seeing a black guy verbally challenge or harass a white guy … but if so, then it’s a situation Ford brought on himself. I mean, the bottom line is that he did something that was likely to engender negative publicity, in that he came off as pushy, rude & arrogant. Since that happened at around the same time as the RNC ad, it’s hard to say which had more impact… but the news video of the confrontation may very well have had a lot more air time.</p>
<p>My son told me last night about a rally he attended a week or two ago in Boston for the new governor, Deval Patrick, where he was introduced by Barack Obama. My son reported being extremely impressed with them both.</p>
<p>He probably was pushy, rude, and arrogant (I’m no fan) - also ahead until the playboy thing aired, and aired, and aired (it was on cable news constantly, even the night before the election.)</p>
<p>Tester didn’t run against a moderate Republican. The only moderate Republican incumbent senator running was Lincoln Chafee.</p>
<p>As to Liebermann, the Republicans entirely ABANDONED their moderate Republican candidate. Had they not, and had Republicans simply voted for the Republican candidate at they rate they did elsewhere - do the numbers yourself: Lamont wins walking away.</p>
<p>Yeah, in Montana–
Tester is just a good, good guy. No, he’s not as liberal as many of us would like, but wow! what a contrast to Burns. Burns is very conservative. </p>
<p>I can’t count over the decades how many horrible racist statements that man had made. Some just this year. Arabs are “ragheads.” Once a rancher came up to him and said, “Conrad, how do you manage to live in D.C. with all those ni*gers?” “It’s a challenge,” was Burns’ reply. </p>
<p>Oh! It was embarrassing how long Burns lasted in Montana. And another example, I’m afraid, of the Republican party sheltering a bigot.</p>
<p>P.S.
Burns is not a Montanan! He grew up in Missouri. I can tell you that no one in our state talks with a drawl, nor do we wear cowboy hats much or chew tobacco!</p>
<p>I suppose you don’t like my Tester example. Fair enough. The fact remains that many of the Dems were running on moderate tickets to beat moderate Republicans. Considering the incumbency rate in the US, very little else explains the rather sizable shift this year. Especially a midterm election.</p>
<p>But most of the moderate Republicans defeated – from Clay Shaw to Curt Weldon to Nancy Johnson to Lincoln Chafee - were not defeated by “pragmatist, moderate Dems,” but by quite liberal, anti-war partisan ones.</p>
<p>mootie, my 20 year old saw Obama in action on the Hill this past summer. He says the guy is electric.</p>
<p>Carville, that old dog. He was right on top of the analysis as it was happening. He called that staunch story in the South. He also pointed out that in November, the US will have been at war in Iraq LONGER than we at war for WWII–where we defeated fearsome foes on two continents.</p>
<p>Dems aren’t going to be able to sit back and enjoy the hearings–although they will be entertaining. They will have to solve Iraq or let it tank them in 2008.</p>
<p>Pro-choice, anti-privatization of Social Security, strongly anti-war, strongly for negotiating pharmaceutical costs, not in favor of the border fence - these are positions that the majority of Democrats in the South did NOT adopt in running against conservative Republican incumbents, and, for the most part, those who took to more moderate positions lost.</p>
<p>One bet I have is that Pelosi’s going to be a very strong Speaker with a very active whip. Especially to keep the Liebermans and Testers in line.</p>
<p>Ya need a whip to control Lieberman? Even though he bit the hand that smacked him, He’d be a robot not to feel a bit chastened by the whole experience.</p>
<p>As I said, I believe there is a back story to his demise in the primaries–a back story from the back rooms of the DNC, not the state of Connecticut.</p>
<p>What kind of backstory Cheers? It was very curious why the DNC put little support behind Lamont.</p>
<p>I was ashamed of Lieberman when I heard his acceptance speech. He’s a sore loser to the end - a strange mix of arrogance and whine that I don’t trust.</p>
<p>I don’t know that the Democrats won so much because they were liberal or moderate. I think they won because they were anti-war and less corrupt. Unfortunately a few years in the vicinity of K St. seems to make everyone corrupt. :(</p>