For my money, Harold Ford, Jr. is one of the premier, up and coming politicians on the national scene in this great country. Like Barack Obama, a centrist, Ford bridges the gap between the beleagured and the successful by his very biography. We can leave aside his keen intelligence and mature good-sense to note that he is a black politician, like Michael Steele, who can set not only a fine example but a new, effective course for black perceptions of themselves and for black pathways to achievement in a society that has oppressed them. Too much black orientation can be considered "outsider" or even "outlaw." Even at today's enlightened perch, the gulf between black and white achievment and especially adaptation are cause for bipartisan concern. Ford could help bridge that gap. He could embody Bill Cosby's admonitions by the sheer dint of his presence on the national scene.
Yet, Tennesseans are bound to vote their own understandings and aspirations from their own perch within history, and that prospect does not bode well for Ford. Though I see the contest much differently from here in West Orange, New Jersey, Tennesseans seem to see their fate in working out a slaveholding legacy as supporting a candidate who more clearly embodies the ethic and the values, one would think, of traditional Tennessee society. Alas, my disappointment is their rightful voice.
On the other hand, a man of significant promise himself, Michael Steele, I pray, will lose his race for the Maryland Senate seat because Marylanders have a different, more progressive history to deal with, and won't, despite the allure of a fine man, jeopardize their identity and their nation's health at this time to vote for a candidate who has largely thrown his lot in with ideas contrary to their heritage.
