Black Tenn. Senate Candidate Will Need White Voters’ Support

MORRISON, Tenn. — Bobby Ray Freeze talks about U.S. Senate candidate Harold Ford Jr. with an excitement that most guys around here reserve for football.The truck driver, who is white, said he liked Mr. Ford’s tough stance on illegal immigration and his rhetoric about helping working families. And he isn’t the least bit bothered that Mr. Ford is black.Mr. Freeze considers himself a product of changing times in this rural swath of Middle Tennessee: His late father, he said, would have bristled if anyone even suggested voting for a black candidate.“My daddy, he’d have had a few short words for you,” Mr. Freeze, 58, said with a chuckle.Mr. Ford will need the support of many Tennesseans like Mr. Freeze if he wants to make history tomorrow by becoming the first black senator from the former Confederacy since Reconstruction.The Democratic congressman is locked in a tight, nasty race against Republican Bob Corker, a popular former mayor of Chattanooga who is white. On Thursday, a Reuters/Zogby poll showed Mr. Corker leading 53% to 43%, but other recent polls have indicated that the race is closer.The outcome could determine which party controls the upper house of Congress. It also could have implications for race and American politics that extend beyond tomorrow’s election. A political scientist at Vanderbilt University, Bruce Oppenheimer, said voters and political shotcallers might look to the election for clues about whether Southerners — and Americans in general — were comfortable electing black politicians to higher office.Democrats, Mr. Oppenheimer said, will wonder about the chances of another high-profile black politician, Senator Obama of Illinois, if he decides to run for president in 2008.“If Mr. Ford loses, people will say, ‘Here was this very attractive, moderate black candidate in a good year for Democratic candidates, and running against a Republican candidate who, although he had some money, was not something special,'” Mr. Oppenheimer said. “It might say something about whether there’s still a glass ceiling for African-American politicians.”Mr. Ford, a decade-long member of the House, is running on a center-right platform and has mostly tried to skirt the issue of race.“I’ve never thought about race,” Mr. Ford told MSNBC’s Tim Russert on Friday.”Don’t believe for one moment just because we’re in the South that we can’t look for what’s in our best interest, and look for the person who will best serve and represent us.”It has been difficult, however, for Mr. Ford to avoid the issue since October 20, when Republicans introduced one of the season’s most talked-about attack ads. In the 30-second TV spot, a bare-shouldered white woman coos “call me” to Mr. Ford — a reference to the Democrat’s attendance at a Playboy-sponsored party. The ad has been pulled, but Republicans were accused of stirring up old Southern fears of miscegenation.Republicans in recent years have made a greater effort to reach out to black voters. Last year, Republican National Committee Chairman Ken Mehlman publicly renounced old Republican strategies that sought to “benefit politically from racial polarization.”If Mr. Corker wins, Republican leaders may have to rethink that pledge, Mr. Oppenheimer said, and ask,”Was it the racial appeal that did it?”And yet at Prater’s BBQ — where Mr. Freeze stopped for lunch Thursday — the crowd had much more to talk about than Mr. Ford’s skin color. The restaurant is in Warren County, a rural area about 80 minutes southeast of Nashville that is 95% white.It is a long way, culturally and geographically, from Mr. Ford’s home base in Memphis, which is 61% black. And it is exactly the kind of place where he needs support.The Carrier Corp. air conditioning plant closed in August 2005, eliminating more than 1,000 jobs. Some said illegal immigrants were pushing down wages. The county went for Al Gore in the 2000 presidential election and for President Bush in 2004.This year, residents said they were worried about their jobs and businesses, about health care and Iraq. They were also trying to gauge the moral character of the two candidates after weeks of withering personal attacks from both sides.Mr. Ford’s conservative leanings made a believer out of Steve Martin, 46, a nursery farmer who is white. Mr. Martin said he particularly liked Mr. Ford’s support for the House’s border overhaul bill, which would make felons of illegal immigrants.Still, he said, Mr. Ford’s race “hurts him. It doesn’t for me at all — but I think there’s still some of that [racism] in this region.”

Black Tenn. Senate Candidate Will Need White Voters’ Support

Black Tenn. Senate Candidate Will Need White Voters’ Support

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