To Ford, Quality is Job One
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According to former U.S. Rep. Harold Ford Jr., Americans are tuned into the current presidential campaign on a level unseen in generations, and earlier than ever. And while both Barack Obama and John McCain pledge various forms of "change," Ford told a standing-room only audience in the Bart Luedeke Center Theater on September 17 that what voters really seek is quality leadership.
Ford, who was on the Lawrenceville campus to deliver the Constitution Day address as part of the Rider University Lecture Series, said the 2008 presidential election is unique in many ways, and represents a race for the White House the founding fathers would have been hard-pressed to imagine when they declared American independence 232 years ago.
“You have someone who would be the oldest fella to ever be president running against a black fella with a funny name, who defeated a woman for his party’s nomination,” said Ford, who is personally acquainted with Obama and McCain from his five terms representing Tennessee in the U.S. Congress. “Not only that, but McCain had been declared politically dead a year ago, and was tied to a political doctrine that was very unpopular.”
Ford, the current chairman of the Democratic Leadership Council who was once called “the walking, living embodiment of where America ought to go in the 21st century,” by President Bill Clinton, declared his friendship and support for Obama, yet presented a thoughtful and impartial analysis of the 2008 campaign. He addressed his concerns about Obama’s proposed tax plans while crediting McCain with a savvy political choice of a running mate in Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin.
“Palin personified change at the Republican National Convention,” explained Ford, a visiting professor of Public Policy at Vanderbilt University and vice chairman of Merrill Lynch & Co., Inc. “She did for McCain what he could not do for himself, which was capture the issue of change. She stole it, at best, or at least neutralized what had been a strength for the Democrats.”
At the same time, Ford praised Obama’s vice presidential pick of Delaware Sen. Joe Biden, saying he’d like to see more of them together, and recommended the Democrats involved New York Sen. Hillary Clinton more often on the campaign trail. “Sen. Clinton has the credibility to make the case why Obama and Biden are the change we need,” he said.
Still, Ford continued, American voters will have a chance to look deeper than the campaign rhetoric when the two presidential candidates meet for their first debate on September 26 at the University of Mississippi in Oxford, where they are slated to discuss their respective strategies on foreign policy and national security. These are issues, according to Ford, that may well swing the election.
“I don’t think Americans will elect a Democrat they don’t trust on national security,” he said, adding that the debate will be an opportunity for Obama to win that confidence from the electorate. The candidates will meet twice more, on October 7 and 15, while the vice presidential hopefuls will debate on October 2 at Washington University in St. Louis, Mo.
“I hope they get the toughest questions possible. They should think, ‘wow, if being president is anything like being questioned like this, maybe I don’t want to be president,’” Ford quipped, while making a point about his desire to see a rigorous debate to discuss real solutions to America’s myriad of current problems.
Whoever emerges victorious on Election Day, Ford says he will take executive control of a nation of many citizens with reservations about America’s place in the world. “After eight years, we find ourselves asking if we can remain great going forward,” he opined.
Ford, who as a congressman served on both the Financial Services and Budget Committees, is a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania, where he earned a B.A. in American History, and the University of Michigan Law School. He continues to serve on the Pentagon’s Transformation Advisory Group, an assembly of current and former military commanders, political figures, academics and business leaders who advise the Pentagon on how to moderate the U.S. Armed Forces to meet and defeat 21st century threats. Ford, a frequent panelist on the MSNBC program Morning Joe, is also an overseer on the board at the International Rescue Committee and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.
Submitted on September 24, 2008
