Friday, January 15, 2010

Helicopter Harold

Harold Ford Jr., DLC Chairman, charter school proponent, union buster, and a former congressman from the right-to-work state of Tennessee, would like to run for Senate here in New York.

Just as he inherited his House seat from his daddy, Harold Ford Sr., Harold Jr. is hoping to work as little as possible at this and have prominent supporters (i.e., people with lots money) buy the Senate seat for him.

Don't laugh - connections have worked for him more than once.

Not only did he owe his Congressional seat to his family connections, he now works at a Wall Street bank even though he knows nothing about finance. Can't imagine he would have gotten that job without some connections.

And he's married to a fashionista wife with a wealthy family and lives in the Gramercy Park neighborhood with a winter home in Miami, though he's still registered to vote in Tennessee.

Guess it doesn't matter much when you live in that kind of rarefied air.

What a charmed life Harold Jr. lives - even more charmed when you consider the one job he tried on his own - law - he failed at because he couldn't pass the Tennessee bar.

That's all right, though - when you're as connected as Harold Jr. is, you don't actually have to succeed at anything.

Stuff just comes to you.

But I wonder if he's not shooting his sights a little high with Kirsten Gillibrand's Senate seat.

True, fellow charter school proponent Mayor Moneybags is a huge supporter of Ford and just might bankroll him in the race.

But Harold Jr. seems a little tin-eared to me to be a success in NY.

For instance, Harold Jr. says he's never actually seen much of New York outside of Manhattan except by helicopter when he's flown over the city on the way from the heliport to the airport.

Not kidding - that's what he told the NY Times in an interview.

He also says he loves to breakfast at the Regency Hotel and picks his favorite football teams by which football team owner he spends the most time with.

How's that for charmed living?

But he's never even seen the BQE, the LIE or the subway.

That should work great in campaign commercials.

Vote for me, I only know your state when I fly over it!

Anyway, it remains to be seen if Harold Jr. actually gets in this race (I suspect he won't now that most people are laughing at him) but I would say watch out for him to pop up and do damage elsewhere.

Anybody as clueless as Helicopter Harold Jr. doesn't know just how much he doesn't know and will no doubt show up in some prominent position to screw something important up.

I just hope it's not in education.

UPDATE: Taegan Goddard surmises Ford may not only be using Mayor Moneybags' dough to run for Senate, he might be using his political playbook as well:

Former Rep. Harold Ford (D-TN) may be planning an independent bid in New York for the U.S. Senate seat currently held by Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY).

Two key factors:

* Ford is primarily being advised by close advisers to independent Mayor Michael Bloomberg.
* Ford's recent rhetoric of being "independent" from Democratic leaders makes little sense in a Democratic primary.

However, it was a conversation with someone in Ford's inner circle that convinced me this might be his ultimate strategy. If New York Republicans run a weak candidate, he could essentially follow the Joe Lieberman path to the Senate.

An interesting side note: Both Lieberman and Ford were heads of the Democratic Leadership Council.


That may make more sense than running as a Dem against a well-funded Gillibrand.

Still, I think he can be dispatched pretty easily.

Just run ads with all the stupid stuff he says that make him sound like the spoiled blue blood brat he actually is.

SECOND UPDATE: Was it Shakespeare who once said, "First thing we do is kill all the DLC chairmen?"

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