Reid Asks Bloomberg Not to Support Anti-Gay Harold Ford Jr for Senate

On Wednesday Rod 2.0 reported that anti-gay, anti-choice former Tennessee congressman Harold Ford Jr—who voted against the Employment Non-Discrimination Act, for the Federal Marriage Amendment and did not support extending hate crime protections to gays—is considering a primary challenge to Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand. New York LGBT activists are not welcoming the news.

New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg is encouraging the anti-gay, anti-choice former congressman's candidacy. Sen. Charles Schumer and Majority Leader Harry Reid called Bloomberg to ask him not to back Ford, reports the New York Times, on the same day the mayor's close advisors met with Ford to plot strategy.

Mr. Bloomberg, speaking on his cellphone on a drive to an event, reassured Mr. Reid that he was not personally involved in the effort to promote a Ford candidacy, according to a senior Democratic official and an aide to the mayor. But Mr. Bloomberg also told Senator Reid that Ms. Gillibrand, with whom he has at times clashed, was vulnerable and would undoubtedly face a challenger, whether it was Mr. Ford or someone else. But around the same time that Mr. Bloomberg was distancing himself from the Ford effort, two of his top campaign strategists met with Mr. Ford, 39, for lunch at the Harvard Club in Manhattan. Bradley Tusk, who managed Mr. Bloomberg successful mayoral re-election campaign, and Doug Schoen, the mayor’s pollster, provided a detailed portrait of the city’s political landscape to Mr. Ford, a former Tennessee representative, and described to him what a challenge to Ms. Gillibrand would involve. The senator, appointed by Gov. David A. Paterson last year, has never run statewide, but is considered a prodigious fund-raiser.

This would be the same Mayor Michael Bloomberg who claimed Gov. David Paterson would renege on his promise to push for marriage equality to "appease" black voters, and, who donated millions to NY Senate Republicans and claimed several would support same-sex marriage. We saw how that worked out.

Meanwhile: The Rev. Al Sharpton is also not dissuading Ford from challenging Gillbrand. And perhaps not-coincidentally, Ford will deliver the keynote address at the state Association of Black and Puerto Rican Legislators' annual conference.

Comments

[Derrick from Philly]

I just "googled" Harold Ford Jr and Ford Sr. I spent about a half an hour reading about their family which has been prominent in Tennessee politics since Reconstruction. I have to respect them (for historical reasons which nobody else would care about but me), but I don't like them.

I think Ford's anti-gay stance is real; it's not just because he came from a conservative state, represented a conservative religious Memphis community, or always had plans to run for higher Tennessee office--so he turned politically to the Right (like some other Democrats do--but I won't fight that fight today).

His family seems like just the type in which a black gay man would have to stay in the closet: well known, tightly knit, with high expectations for each new generation (you know, reputation to uphold).

There are a lot of men/boys in the Ford family--don't tell me none of them are gay. I'm not talking about Harold, but certainly with 3 brothers, all those male 1st cousins--the family seems loaded with men. Somebody's got to be gay.

....must be awful: to be from a prominent black upper middle-class (that's been middle-class since slavery ended), financially secure, and 4th generation college educated--but not dare come out the closet.

Then again, maybe my imagination has just run wild on "screenplay mode" this afternoon.

[Rowan]

@ Derrick from Philly

But it's the 21st century now.

Anyway, he's married to a white woman-interesting. What ethnicity are they? A mixture of Afro American and White American?

Barack Obama is actually halk African black and White American. He doesn't come from a history of Afro American slavery but yet he married a dark skinned Afro American woman.

If the NY blacks OR gays let this opportunist in? Well they have themseleves to blame for their stupidity.

[Matthew Rettenmund]

He would be almost as disastrous as a Republican. He would be our own Joe Lieberman, except by virtue of his race would be an even more effective tool vs. President Obama's agenda.