Posted on 04/05/2008 2:27:30 PM PDT by SmithL
Jake Ford, who filed qualifying paperwork Thursday to run for the Ninth Congressional District seat as an independent, wasted no time in taking his campaign on a detour down the low road.
Jake Ford suggested that incumbent U.S. Rep. Steve Cohen is unable to represent the district because Cohen is white and the majority of the district's residents are black.
Jake Ford also accused Cohen, who is Jewish, of supporting reparations for Holocaust survivors but not for African-American descendants of slaves.
"He's just not for the money for blacks," Jake Ford said. "He is for Jews, but not for blacks."
(On that point, among others, Jake Ford seems to have gotten his facts wrong. Cohen is a co-sponsor of a bill to study reparations for slaves' descendants.)
As if Jake Ford's own words weren't delivered with all the subtlety of a sledgehammer, Isaac Ford neatly summarized his brother's talking points before leaving the Shelby County Election Commission headquarters.
"Jake Ford is a black candidate, it's a black district and we need black representation," Isaac Ford told our reporter. "Say that Isaac Ford said that."
Obviously, it's fair for Jake Ford or any other candidate in the race to examine Cohen's record as a congressman.
If the district's voters decide Cohen hasn't been doing a good job of representing their interests, then he should be replaced.
But the idea that only a black person can represent a majority black district is simplistic and wrong-headed.
No congressional representative can be the physical embodiment of all the people who live in a particular district. And all people deserve fair representation in Washington, regardless of whether their elected officials happen to share their race or religious beliefs.
It's ironic that Jake Ford would be making that type of appeal during a year in which a black candidate, Barack Obama, is making a historic run for the presidency.
If one were to turn Jake Ford's logic on its head, then Obama shouldn't be elected because, as a black man, he doesn't "represent" the majority of the country's population.
That's pure nonsense, of course. Obama and the other candidates in the race should be judged on the strength of their character, their backgrounds and their ideas.
Speaking of which, Jake Ford has yet to explain what qualifications he brings to the race, other than his skin color and his politically connected last name.
His campaign pitch, at least as he expressed it Thursday, seems to be: "Vote for me because I'm black and the other guy is not."
Surely Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. would have hoped for better.
When did that start?
Win anyway you can (the 'Rats Motto)...no charge/lie is acceptable...say anything, NYT/WaPo/ABCNNBC_b_s, will back you.
"He's just not for the money for blacks," Jake Ford said. "He is for Jews, but not for blacks."
Hey Jake, when are you going pay the citizens of the U.S. back for the distruction of our cities?
Hell, whenare they gonna cough up the money for the cost of the Civil War after the Emancipation Proclamation.
A racist vs. a Communist: that’s my district.
Harold Ford Jr’s baby brother...
Copying Obama, just like Harold does...
Well he didnt do too good in 2006, when Uncle John Ford was his campaign manager...
Never heard of Isaac...
Aunt Ophelia Ford has returned to the TN State Senate after a long “illness”
The family is cleaning up their image...
And keeping a low profile...
“...And keeping a low profile...”
For the Fords, that is a physical impossibility. There is no way they can keep a low profile.
LOL
Jumping to a safe presumption, Mr. Ford supports Obama. Therefore Mr. Ford invalidates the very rationale to vote for the supposed post-racial candidate for President, Obama.
Wow! When is hillary going to use that in her presidential campaign speeches?
Not that it would matter to Mr. Ford, but the reparations were for actual survivors of the Holocaust - people who actually were in concentration camps, not their descendants. If Mr. Ford can find one living African-American who actually was a slave in the U.S., then he might have a case for reparations for that person only.
Just what Memphis needs. Another crooked Ford running things.
The bad news, we all had to hide the liquor in Nashville. Can't have Auntie falling down through another manhole cover again.
“The family is cleaning up their image...”
Not enough Ajax in the world to clean that filthy family.
I remember my father, a Main Street merchant in Memphis, talking about what scum they were, and that was 50 years ago.
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