Ford: Will McCain Do Anything to Win?

Although our nation's economic house is on fire, John McCain isn't unveiling proposals to put out the fiscal flames. Instead, he is pursuing the presidency by taking the low road, as he and his surrogates attack Barack Obama in harsh, personal terms. It's hard to believe this is the same man who in 2004 said of the Swift-boat attacks against John Kerry: "I deplore this kind of politics. I think the ad is dishonest and dishonorable."

In fact, after McCain lost the Republican nomination to George Bush in 2000, he declared that there was a "special place in hell" for the Bush operatives who had run a smear campaign against him. By adopting the same approach against Obama, McCain diminishes his reputation and raises questions about his commitment to fairness and decency.

I know that John McCain is a man of courage and character. His ability to overcome the torture he endured at the hands of his North Vietnamese captors is a tribute to his strength and to the human spirit. But as Americans yearn for a president to lead us courageously into an uncertain future, McCain appears to be abandoning his creed of putting country first.

While I am disappointed in McCain's about-face, I am not surprised. When I ran for the Senate in 2006, my opponent, Bob Corker, also found himself trailing in the October polls. His campaign and the Republican National Committee launched a series of false and vicious character attack ads, including the infamous "call me" ad, in which a scantily clad white woman looked at the camera and said, "Harold, call me."

Every major news organization and independent ad-checking group ruled the ad a smear and deemed it way over the line. But that didn't stop John McCain from coming to Tennessee and campaigning for my opponent while the "call me" ad and other smears were broadcast across the state. Not once did McCain speak out against that ad as he did about the smear against John Kerry. In fact, the first manager he hired for his 2008 presidential campaign was Terry Nelson, the person who produced the "call me" ad. Nelson has such a history of practicing below-the-belt politics that Lee Iacocca, a strong supporter of McCain, wrote in his book "Where Have All the Leaders Gone?": "What does it say about John McCain that he's willing to make that kind of person the head of his team?"

This election may be the most consequential since Franklin Roosevelt won the presidency in 1932. Our country is at war in Iraq and in Afghanistan. The American dream is falling further out of reach of millions of families. We face intense competition from rising economic powers in Asia. And after eight years of the failed leadership of President Bush and Vice President Cheney, our image and standing around the globe are in disrepair. Our budget is burdened with runaway entitlement costs, and our public education system is failing our children.

John McCain has to make a choice over the next 3 1/2 weeks. Will he succumb to base impulses and take the country down a path littered with smears and personal attacks? Or will he focus on the future with straight talk and big ideas? America deserves solutions for its problems. Where are McCain's plans to replace the 750,000 jobs lost since the beginning of the year, to stop our financial meltdown, and to help the families hammered by the prices of gas, food and health care?

Source: Washington Post

Ford Op-ed: Devoting a year of service to country should be a priority

Between 1944 and 1956, 8 million returning veterans received-debt-free education, low-interest mortgages or small-business loans. The GI Bill helped assimilate those young men into a new post-war society and helped turn America into a middle-class nation. This large and noble effort by our government was based on their heroic service to our country.

After 9/11, Americans were hungry to serve and to make some sacrifice on behalf of a larger cause. But they were only asked to go shopping by our president. But the reason private volunteerism is so high is precisely that confidence in our public institutions is so low.

When Americans look around right now, they see a public school system with 38 percent of fourth graders unable to read at a basic level. They see the cost of health care escalating as 47 million people go uninsured. They see a government that responded ineptly to a hurricane in New Orleans. They see our military being hollowed out by our leaders who have sent them back to Iraq and Afghanistan on multiple tours.

Today, we need a new GI bill for national service involving men and women, young and old, to help secure America for the future and turn every new generation into a Greatest Generation.

The next president will have an opportunity to create a program for national service. It can be based on the simple, but compelling idea that devoting a year or more to national service, whether military or civilian, should become a countrywide rite of passage, and the common expectation and widespread experience of virtually every young American.

The plan would be voluntary, not mandatory, and it would be based on carrots, not sticks. Here are a few ideas to consider:

• Create a National Service Baby Bond. Every time an America baby is born, the federal government would invest $500in that child's name in a 529-type fund — the kind many Americans are using for college savings. At a rate of return of 7 percent — the historic return on equities — that money would total roughly $19,000 by the time that baby reaches 20. That money could be accessed between the ages of 18 and 25 on one condition: that he or she commits to at least one year of national or military service. Like the old GI Bill, the money must be used to fund education, start a business or make a down payment on a home.

• Expand AmeriCorps and the National Senior Volunteer Corps. Since 1994, 500,000 people have gone through AmeriCorps programs tutoring and teaching in urban areas, managing after-school programs, cleaning up playgrounds and caring for the elderly. AmeriCorps members earn a small stipend for their volunteering and receive education awards up to $4,725 a year. We should increase the size of AmeriCorps from 75,000 members each year to 250,000.

• Prohibit elite colleges From barring ROTC from recruiting on campus. At a time when we are confronting radical Islamic fundamentalism in Afghanistan and Iraq, we need to make military service a viable option for anyone who wants and is qualified to serve. After six years of fighting on two different battlefields, and stretching the resources and personnel of the American military almost to the breaking point, the Pentagon is estimating that we need 100,000 additional troops to meet our national security needs around the globe. It is unacceptable that some of the nation's most elite colleges now deny ROTC from recruiting on their campuses. It is time that these colleges practice what they preach when it comes to the First Amendment. Just recently, Columbia University allowed President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran to speak on campus, but it doesn't allow military ROTC to recruit on campus. This must stop. The GI Bill was just expanded and passed the congress. It provides significant educational benefits for those who serve in our nation's armed forces. Patriotism and love of country involves all service, including military service.

• Create an Education Corps. We need to create a corps of teachers, tutors and volunteers who can help the 38 percent of fourth-graders who can't read at a basic level. These people could also lead after-school programs for the 14 million students — a quarter of all school-age kids — who do not have a supervised activity between 3 and 6 p.m. on school days. Studies show that students who spend no time in after-school programs are 50 percent more likely to use drugs and 37 percent more likely to become teen parents. The Corps members would also focus on curbing America's dropout epidemic. Right now, 50 percent of the dropouts come from 15 percent of the nation's high schools, most of them located in urban neighborhoods with high rates of poverty.

The courageous men who signed the Declaration of Independence pledged "our Lives, our fortunes and our sacred Honor." The least we can do to carry on the Founders' service and that of so many others after them is to pledge our time in pursuit of the common good.

Source: Tennessean

Tennessean: Ford and From Attend Pre-Debate "Nashville Conversation"

It was all politics inside the 417 Union restaurant on Monday afternoon, as Democrats gathered for a pre-debate welcome to Al From, founder of the centrist Democratic Leadership Council, and former Rep. Harold Ford Jr., the group's chairman.

The event was one of a few in Nashville on the eve of the debate to welcome out-of-town political heavies, mostly focused on the Democratic side. The GOP's major event, a debate-watching party Tuesday that was expected to see John McCain afterward, was canceled.

State Rep. Beth Harwell, co-chairwoman of the McCain campaign in Tennessee, said former U.S. Sen. Fred Thompson would be in town for the debate. The GOP also said there were several county viewing parties for Republicans, as well as one sponsored by Music Row 4 McCain.

She also said B.C. "Scooter" Clippard Jr., a Republican fundraiser, is hosting a pre-debate event at his house, at which former Gov. Winfield Dunn is expected to attend, and possibly Thompson.

At 417 Union, a few dozen lawmakers, party officials, legislative staffers, and candidates milled through the narrow eatery near Capitol Hill, some hovering over a table of burritos and finger food, others preferring to linger near the bar.

The event was organized by Sen. Jim Kyle, the Democratic leader from Memphis, but he was detained at his Memphis law office, making his wife, Tennessee Regulatory Authority director Sarah Kyle, fill the role of host.

Ford took the microphone and condemned what he called the McCain campaign's increasingly negative tone, saying that the Republican nominee had condemned dirty campaign tactics in 2000. But, he said, Obama "has the wind at his back," and held out hope that Obama could still win Tennessee.

Source: Tennessean

Post Politics: Ford Attends Belmont Civility Forum

Below is a post by Kleinheider over at Post Politics giving a run down of today's Civility Forum at Belmont which Congressman Ford attended.

(See the bolded area for reference to Ford)

They Don’t Want No Civil War: The Belmont Civility Forum

By Kleinheider

Phil Bredesen’s civility forum this afternoon sponsored by the Tennessee Business Roundtable and the Freedom Forum featuring both political and media bigwigs turned out some extremely enlightening discussion over the state of political discourse in the nation.

The headliners of the event, Phil Bredesen and Senator Howard Baker, were not part of the geberal panel discussion but did set the tone with short speeches

Howard Baker explained that while excitement for cause and party are part of the process those stimuli should not result in us losing our way to the extent we have.

“Not withstanding the enthusiasm of debate, people must come with an open mind about what people have to say,” Baker said.

Phil Bredesen said that as we hit the “home stretch of one of the hardest fought campaigns” in memory, it is in our interest to “hit the pause button” and reflect.

Bredesen credited his wife Andrea Conte, for spearheading this effort.

Both Bredesen and Baker called for a new respect for governing rather than the uber-concentration on raw politics.

“Politics is a contact sport. Anything we can do to put respect back in the process is essential,” Bredesen explained.

After the speeches by Bredesen and Baker, panelists former Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour, former Colorado Congresswoman Pat Schroeder, NBC News VP Mark Whitaker, Bill Nichols of the Politico and moderator Bernard Shaw were introduced.

After taking their seats the assembled audience was treated to an mini history of political advertising.

Starting with the 1964 campaign’s Daisy Ad, the videos showed ads from Jimmy Carter and Gerald Ford crescendoing into 1988’s Willie Horton ad as well as the “swift boat” ads of 2004. Advertising from both John McCain and Barack Obama were also featured.

Haley Barbour started out the discussion outlining his barometer for appropriate negativism campaigns. Barbour asks only two questions, “Is it true and is it relevant?”

Barbour went on to argue that this decline in civil discourse is not a result of any change in politics but a change in media.

“What’s happening is not new,” explains Barbour. “There is just more media to broadcast it.”

While Patricia Schroeder did not disagree, she put the coarsening of our political culture chiefly on the way Congressional districts have been drawn. Reapportionment, she asserted, led to districts which are reliably either Republican or Democratic. These safe districts, Schroeder argues, encourage extremism.

“These people are scared of getting primaries, not losing general elections,” explained Schroeder.

Mark Whitaker chimed in with an interesting assertion. He argued that it was not just the candidates and the campaigns will to win that led them to go negative.

He said that political donors hold sway over politicians not only when they govern but when they campaign as well. Candidates get pressure from big partisan donors to attack — and they often get what they pay for.

Haley Barbour offered the observation that in the era of 24 hour media and McCain/Feingold campaigns don’t control their messages anymore. They could not stop the negativism even if they wanted to. Third party groups and the attacks they produce often shape the political discourse in ways that campaigns cannot control.

Bill Nichols concurred pointing to the advent and prominence of underground viral email campaigns such as the emails detailing wildly inaccurate connections of Barack Obama to the religion of Islam.

When Bernard Shaw asked what had happened to fundamental respect, the discussion again turned to reapportionment that the safeness of certain district has a polarizing effect.

Most interesting was the discussion of Harold Ford, Jr., who was in the audience. He was held out as an exception to the rule, that despite the safeness of his Memphis district, Ford was willing to work in a bipartisan fashion.

Haley Barbour, though, subtly called a bit of shenanigans on that assertion noting that Ford, for a long time, had been looking at a statewide political future.

“He was thinking of Tennessee not some narrow congressional district,” explained Barbour.

The former Mississippi Governor also pointed out the reason why Governors seem to be less polarizing figures than those in Congress.

“Senators talk about doing things. Governors actually have to take action…Governors get judged on results. Period.”

The dean of journalism John Seigenthaler brought the panel to a close noting that while the word civility is not in the forty five words of the First Amendment, it is still nonetheless an important goal to strive for.

Seigenthaler emphasized that there is marked a coarseness in our political culture which is dangerous.

“When will the people say enough?” asked Seigenthaler. “Will we wait too long?”

Source: Post Politics