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THE vice president of the United States was unhappy. In 1983, a "Conservative Digest" poll of conservatives found that 64 percent of right-leaning party leaders wanted George H.W. Bush replaced on the 1984 Reagan ticket. "Light reading," Bush scribbled across a cover sheet as he sent a copy to his friend James Baker - adding a frowning face. Reagan would have none of it - he liked and appreciated Bush. But the gulf between establishment and insurgent Republicans has only grown in the ensuing decades. The elder Bush's struggles through the years with a restive right shed light on the...

Gov. Sarah Palin will be joined in Colorado on Monday by country music singer Hank Williams Jr., who has retooled his classic "Family Tradition" into an ode to Palin and Sen. John McCain. Williams Jr. has been performing at campaign events recently, singing the national anthem and then firing up the crowd with the new version of his song, "McCain-Palin Tradition." The new lyrics take on the "left-wing liberal media" and Democrats, with veiled references to Sen. Barack Obama. Palin will be in Colorado Springs at 8 a.m. Monday, followed by a noon stop in Loveland and a 6 p.m....

Saw Palin in Richmond today (Mon 13 October 2008). Introductory speeches by Jerry Kilgore, Robb Whittman, Jim Gilmore. Other than Palin herself, the highlight was Hank Williams, Jr., singing the National Anthem and then doing a multi-verse rendition of his "Family Tradition" with new campaign lyrics extoling the virtues of John McCain and Sarah Palin. Believe H.W. Jr. was also in Virginia Beach with McCain and Palin in the morning. Big crowd in Richmond VA, out in the grass in a makeshift outdoor theater on the grounds of Richmond International Raceway. Hope video makes it online. Mike B.

State Sen. Ophelia Ford dialed 911 at 6:30 a.m. Sunday from her Mud Island apartment requesting medical help, according to a tape of the emergency call. "What's the problem ma'am? Tell me exactly what happened," the operator said. "I haven't eaten in about a week and I can't stop shaking," Ford said. "I think I got a blood infection." Sunday's call for help is the latest in a series of events that have raised concerns about the Memphis Democrat, including an off-topic outburst during a Senate committee meeting in Nashville, a hospital stint after reportedly falling off a hotel bar...

State Sen. Ophelia Ford has been admitted to Methodist University Hospital in Memphis, her brother Joe Ford said Monday evening. Joe Ford was unsure why his sister was in the hospital, but said she’d been there since Sunday morning. He planned to visit her Tuesday. "I called my sister and she told me she was in Methodist University Hospital, but I do not know what’s wrong with her," Ford said. Methodist spokesman Ruth Ann Hale said Ford is not in the hospital’s directory of patients, but added that someone can opt out of that directory to avoid publicity. Joe Ford...

State Senator Ophelia Ford is refusing help from her family. Some of her family members went to Nashville to pick up the state senator. This comes after after several incidents including a fall off a bar stool and an accusation of assaulting a cab driver. Ford's brother, Shelby County Commissioner Joe Ford says she needs to go to rehab. Ford insists she doesn't have a drinking problem. Meanwhile, Senator Ford is involved in a suit that could cost you tens of thousands of dollars. She's suing the senate for ousting her following a special election where some dead voters had...

NASHVILLE, Tenn. -- State Sen. Ophelia Ford is refusing help from her family despite some of them saying she has a drinking problem. Meanwhile, Ford has filed a suit against the state Senate that could cost taxpayers tens of thousands of dollars. Even though Ford is the senator from District 29, she is still suing the state senate over a disputed special election that occurred 13 months ago. Election officials later found that dead voters cast ballots in the election. Ford attorney David Cocke said a status hearing next month will determine how to go forward with this litigation. "The...

Ophelia Ford refused to talk to family members who traveled to Nashville Sunday to bring the state senator home for help. Shelby County Commissioner Joe Ford and two relatives left for Nashville at 6 a.m. Sunday, hoping to bring her home and admit her into rehab. When the party reached the Holiday Inn near Vanderbilt, they called Ophelia Ford. "She found out we were at her door, turned the phone off and wouldn't answer her door. We stayed there about three hours and finally came home. "That's about all I can do. We're washing our hands of it until she...

After failing to hear from state Sen. Ophelai Ford by late Saturday afternoon, concerned family members were planning to head to Nashville to bring her home, said Shelby County Commissioner Joe Ford. We know that she checked out of the Holiday Inn in Nashville but we don't know what other hotel she checked into," Ford said of his sister. "But we will be going to Nashville to get her." Ophelia Ford has blamed a string of bizarre episodes in Nashville on 'chronic anemia." She has flatly denied any suggestion that she has a drug or alcohol problem. Joe Ford Said...

City Councilman Edmund Ford struck a deal May 19 to purchase the property where his funeral home is located for $750,000. During a Saturday-afternoon auction, Charles Monger of Supreme Lending Group announced to property owner Dennis Churchwell and a group of reporters: "I'm going to arrange the loan for Mr. Ford." Ford, a politician whose credit is blemished by three bankruptcies and a widely publicized history of not paying utility bills, is the type of customer profit-driven banks fear. But the councilman, currently under federal indictment for taking bribes, may have found an ideal mortgage broker in Monger. The 61-year-old...

NASHVILLE -- Embattled state Sen. Ophelia Ford said Thursday she will remain in office at least through her first term ending in 2010 and flatly denied any suggestion that she has a drug or alcohol problem -- as her brother, Shelby County Commissioner Joe Ford, has implied. But just as Ford, D-Memphis, moved to put a string of controversies behind her, news of another bizarre episode surfaced later Thursday: a Nashville taxicab driver told police that an "intoxicated" Ford pulled his shirt collar so hard while he was driving her to her hotel from a downtown bar and restaurant that...

NASHVILLE -- A Nashville taxicab driver told police that an "intoxicated" state Sen. Ophelia Ford pulled his shirt collar while he was driving her and another woman to Ford's hotel Tuesday night from a downtown bar and restaurant. According to a Metropolitan Police incident report obtained today, driver Habib Abdi Hashi told police here that he had transported Ford about 4 p.m. Tuesday and got a call to pick up her party at the Wildhorse Saloon about 9:13 p.m. Hashi told officers that the "suspect was intoxicated and was brought out to the cab under a blanket to keep the...

NASHVILLE -- Embattled state Sen. Ophelia Ford said today that she plans to remain in office at least through her first term that ends in 2010. She also flatly denied any suggestion that she has a drug or alcohol problem, as her brother County Commissioner Joe Ford implied Wednesday. "Ms. Ophelia Ford is going to be here and there is nothing you can say or do to take me away. I don't care what the media says," Ford said in an interview in her Nashville office. "I will be here in the Senate and I will be here until my...

State Sen. Ophelia's Ford family plans to encourage her to enter rehab this weekend, according to her brother, Shelby County Commissioner Joe Ford. "I've come to the conclusion that there's a problem. Whether it's drugs, alcohol or anemia, there needs to be rehab," he said Wednesday afternoon. If Sen. Ford doesn't return to Memphis today for the weekend, as most Shelby County legislators do, Joe Ford said another brother, Melvin, plans to drive to Nashville on Friday to get her. Joe Ford said the family plans to meet with the Democratic state senator over the weekend to urge her to...

A judge said Monday he thinks the public is owed a more detailed explanation about an alleged plot by three poll workers to throw a 2005 election to Ophelia Ford, now a state senator. Shelby County Criminal Court Judge John P. Colton took guilty pleas earlier this month from the three election workers who avoided jail time in a deal with prosecutors. Advertisement The workers admitted to voting fraud charges against them, yet never said what motivated them to fake at least three votes, two of them cast in the names of dead people. "I think the public has a...

Memphis City Councilman Edmund Ford may be able to keep his mortuary in its Whitehaven home after all. His landlord, Dennis Churchwell, had threatened to auction off the 5.8-acre property on Elvis Presley because of its notoriety. It's where Ford was allowed to rack up a five-digit Memphis Light, Gas and Water Division bill, touching off a scandal that led to the resignation of the utility's president. Advertisement But after the live auction Saturday afternoon, the property's only bid came from a lender of the Supreme Lending Group in Memphis, who offered Churchwell $750,000 to purchase the property on Ford's...

MEMPHIS - State Sen. Ophelia Ford says a chronic health condition and eating problems caused her to fall from a bar stool at a Nashville hotel, while a 911 call recording indicates that she may have been intoxicated. Ford, who was taken to a hospital Tuesday and kept overnight, told WMC-TV that she has been struggling with anemia and hasn't been eating well. She dismissed reports that she was intoxicated Tuesday night. "I might have a glass of wine, but I'm sorry, that ain't true," she said. "My problem is blood related and not eating." An employee at the Sheraton...

Witnesses say senator fell ill in hotel lounge --NASHVILLE -- State Sen. Ophelia Ford was taken to a hospital by ambulance one day after delivering an angry, rambling tirade in a committee meeting, say three lawmakers who were familiar with the incident. One legislator, who said he witnessed the incident, told a reporter for The Commercial Appeal that Ford was taken on a stretcher from the 24th floor lounge of the Sheraton Hotel in downtown Nashville, where she stays when the legislature is in session. The lounge, which serves drinks and appetizers, is reserved for frequent hotel guests. The lawmaker,...

NASHVILLE -- State Sen. Ophelia Ford of Memphis raised eyebrows during a legislative hearing Monday when she launched into a rant against child-protective service officials and a state auditor. The public hearing focused on a performance audit of the Division of Child Protective Services of the state Department of Children's Services. The audit contained only one finding: That the agency did not complete some investigations of child deaths within the 60 days set out in state policy. But Ford, a Democrat, pressed DCS officials about death certificates and other matters that seemed to have little relevance to the hearing, even...

Rep. Patrick Kennedy (news, bio, voting record) crashed his car near the Capitol early Thursday, and a police official said he appeared intoxicated. Kennedy said he had taken sleep medication and a prescription anti-nausea drug that can cause drowsiness. Kennedy, D-R.I., addressed the issue after a spate of news reports. His initial statement said: "I consumed no alcohol prior to the incident."'Later, however, he issued a longer statement saying the attending physician for Congress had prescribed Phenergan on Tuesday to treat Kennedy's gastroenteritis.Kennedy said he returned to his Capitol Hill home on Wednesday evening after a final series of votes...