Harold Ford Jr., The Book
The intrepid Josh Robin reports: Hitting bookstores next month, the autobiography of Harold Ford, Jr., “More Davids than Goliaths; A Political Education.”
Ford mentioned his memoir several times as he publicly flirted with a primary challenge to Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand earlier this year.
But anyone hoping for some insight into the botched pseudo-run are going to be disappointed. The book appears to have been sent to the presses right around the time he abandoned the challenge, and, with the exception of a brief afterword, ends in 2006.
Instead, a quick glance at the 244 pages shows much more about his early life steeped in Tennessee politics, his quick ascent in the Democratic party and his failed 2006 bid for Senate in the Volunteer State versus Bob Corker.
While Gillibrand is spared, there are some jabs at New York’s senior senator.
Ford knocks Chuck Schumer for allegedly badmouthing the former congressman to party donors and for “conventional” thinking when he told Ford to hoard campaign money until later in the ‘06 race.
He also recounts a tense faceoff with Schumer where Ford mulls cursing at the senator with a four-letter word. Finally, he says Schumer never admitted Ford was right in his campaign strategy:
“He wouldn’t say it, because he’s CHUCK SCHUMER and always has to be right and get the last word,” Ford writes.
To be fair, Ford is warmer to Schumer later in the chapter, although that seems a little gratuitous.
It’s not surprising Ford is frosty to Schumer, who is, after all, a steadfast Gillibrand backer. Ford famously knocked them both as “parakeets” for always mouthing the Democratic Party line, while he was still in listening tour mode.
And while his short-lived, haphazard and ultimately never-realized New York campaign against Gillibrand has some writing off Ford’s chances for future success here, Ford himself begs to differ. The book ends with a quote from a friend:
“‘New York will fully embrace you,’ a New York friend told me just after I made my decision to move to New York. ‘As soon as you fully embrace it.’ AND I HAVE.”
| Print article | This entry was posted by Liz Benjamin on July 26, 2010 at 6:38 pm, and is filed under Chuck Schumer, Kirsten Gillibrand. Follow any responses to this post through RSS 2.0. Both comments and pings are currently closed. |
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