Crash and burn?

Many around the country might be wondering why.

After pulling even in a race nobody gave him a chance to win, why would Harold Ford, Jr barge in on Bob Corker's Friday press conference in Memphis and challenge him to an ad hoc debate in the parking lot? Did he bother to study the risk/reward?

Maybe.

It's important to understand why Corker came to Ford's home turf in the first place. He came to Memphis to unveil his ethics reform initiatives designed to stop lobbyists with family members in Congress from being Congressional lobbyists. That would include Harold's dad Harold, a lobbyist living in Florida. It goes hand in hand with his ad campaign.

Another plank of the reform measure just happened to be 'full disclosure' of all government-paid trips, to which Ford, Jr has apparently taken about 69, at least according to another Corker commercial.

This isn't real hard to figure. Ford has effectively voted and talked himself into a conservative, therefore Corker has no other option but to go after his only vulnerability--the Ford family. Coming into Junior's backyard to announce these measures was surely a political "calling out" and was probably designed to ellicit some kind of response, perhaps the one they got. In other words, it worked.

Regarding the possible fallout from this stunt, commenter LASunsett made the following analysis in the immigration post below:

If Ford loses this race, one may be able to point back to this event and say, this could have been a breaking point in his campaign. I have tried to come up with an answer as to why he would do this, especially when he was leading in the polls. I can't.

The whole thing makes Ford look immature.

I'll second that, and stand by my initial reaction that Ford was trying to create a stunt to deflect the media away from Corker's initiative, which is itself designed to essentially paint Harold back into his family portrait.

Early morning scans from the middle and eastern blogs show no large shock waves. The left-slanted blogs seemed to be ignoring it. Fair and balanced Knoxville blogger Michael Silence took a pass, although the event might have occurred too late in the day Friday to make his deadline. Not sure whether the timing favored Corker or Ford on this one. Instapundit (ht for the video) ran several links ensuring national visibility, but only Tennessee voters matter.

Speaking of voting, an online poll at WREG-TV in Memphis was standing at 55-42 against, whatever an internet poll is worth. Speaking of real voting, the early version is now underway, but Diebolt has yet to miscount mine (lines were too long).

MORE 10/21/06

Bill Hobbs thinks Ford's stunt backfired, but he's a professional political analyst. Now, if Lane Wilson's opinion is shared by a lot of others in the east, Ford might be in trouble. He already seems to be in trouble with some on the far left.