Monday, October 23, 2006

On Bob Corker's Tall Liberal Tales

Harold Ford is almost as liberal as Hillary Clinton and Ted Kennedy?

It seems like only yesterday when former Congressman Ed Bryant (R) said that Bob Corker "fails to demonstrate character and integrity." And we haven't forgotten that Ed Bryant accused Bob Corker of being "the king of lies." Nowadays, the conservative is calling Corker "a good man." Nowadays, Bryant doesn't say a word about Corker's penchant for stretching the truth.

But Bob Corker is still at it. According to Corker, Harold Ford is so liberal that he "votes 88% of the time like Hillary Clinton and Ted Kennedy."

Whoa! Who knew that the five-term Tennessee Congressman is a flaming liberal on par with Ted Kennedy and Hillary Clinton? Gee, it almost sounds like Massachusetts, New York and Tennessee are the leading liberal havens of the nation!

But let's see how our alleged flaming liberal Harold Ford compares to Clinton and Kennedy on a few of the issues that are so important to conservatives -- via Project Vote Smart:

Senator Clinton supported the interests of:
NARAL Pro-Choice America 100 percent in 2005.
Human Rights Campaign 88 percent in 2003-2004.
NAACP 95 percent in 2005.
Planned Parenthood 100 percent in 2006.
National Right to Life Committee 0 percent in 2005-2006.
Leadership Conference on Civil Rights 100 percent in 2005.

Senator Kennedy supported the interests of:
NARAL Pro-Choice America 100 percent in 2005.
Human Rights Campaign 100 percent in 2003-2004.
NAACP 100 percent in 2005.
Planned Parenthood 100 percent in 2006.
National Right to Life Committee 0 percent in 2005-2006.
Leadership Conference on Civil Rights 100 percent in 2005.

Representative Ford supported the interests of:
NARAL Pro-Choice America 60 percent in 2005.
Human Rights Campaign 44 percent in 2003-2004.
NAACP 78 percent in 2005.
Planned Parenthood 78 percent in 2006.
National Right to Life Committee 22 percent in 2005-2006.
Leadership Conference on Civil Rights 88 percent in 2005.

We're sure Ford's scores look like flaming liberalism to Corker, but clearly Ford is a long way from voting with Clinton and Kennedy 88% of the time on pretty well anything. We think Brian Harris of the Tennessee Right to Life was correct when he said that Bob Corker will "say anything" to win an election.

The truth is that Harold Ford is depressingly conservative. But the conservative Dem has the potential to deliver the Senate to the Democrats. And next to cat-killer Bill Frist, maybe Harold Ford does resemble a flaming liberal.

The fact is most liberals in this state will be holding their noses when they vote for Harold Ford (and some won’t vote for him), but liberals in Tennessee have become accustomed to having little or no representation. In this crazed rightwing era, liberals are happy if they can just keep the rightwing boot off their necks. And Harold Ford sure beats extremist rightwingers like Corker who actually seem to believe that it is radical to support civil or human rights!

Posted by egalia at