When Republican candidate Bob Corker, after winning his primary, immediately ran ads attacking Ford as a liberal, they had no effect. Ford can say labeling him a "liberal" is mere name-calling (as liberals often do when it suits their purposes), and it rings true. Republicans complain that Ford's turn right is calculated. He had a 100 percent rating from the liberal Americans for Democratic Action as recently as 1999, but as his ambitions turned to a statewide race, it dipped down into the 70s and 80s. Well, if Paris was worth a Mass, a Senate seat is worth some shrewd insincerity.
Many Democrats will never go as far as Ford toward the center. He has even allowed it to become a matter of ambiguity whether he's pro-choice. But a presidential candidate had best heed the lesson of his campaign. Without picking off red states like Tennessee, Democrats will never win the White House.
Ford could still lose. Tennessee isn't Mississippi, but it's solidly Republican, and Ford's race will probably count against him in a region that hasn't elected a black senator since Reconstruction. But if he wins, Senate Democrats will get a voice of reason besides (a bruised) Joe Lieberman, another rising African-American star along with Barack Obama and, quite possibly, the majority. Not a bad payoff for some strategic repositioning.