All eyes on South's big race

He talks about driving by the Little Rebel Bar and Grill in Jackson, Tenn., one day and how "my God is telling me to stop by" – despite the Confederate flags on the trucks outside. He recalls the words of the pastor he had just met: "There are more answers than problems, and there are more Davids than Goliaths." Ford and his driver walk in and, he says, "a lady got off the stool and gave me a big hug and said, 'Baby, we've been waitin' on you to come by.' "

The racial dimension of the Ford-Corker contest looms large. Pollsters speak of a race effect on surveys– that is, shave off a few percentage points from the black candidate's total, since some white voters tell pollsters what they think they want to hear, that they're willing to vote for a black candidate when in reality they're not.

One Republican activist in Tennessee, who asked not to be identified, says he believes the racial aspect will be a wash in this race: Some whites won't vote for a black man, but turnout in the black community, 16 percent of the electorate, will be higher than usual.

Furthermore, says the activist, "this is a Southern state, but it's not a deep South state, so everything that applies to the South, you can cut a little bit."

Linda Boyd, a computer assistant in the Clarksville, Tenn., schools who is African-American, says she's been out canvassing for Ford and had people tell her they would never vote for him. "I know what they mean," she says.

Ford's big, political family – some of whom have been prosecuted for corruption – may also hurt him. At the Corker event in Loudon, some of those attending said that even if Ford himself isn't corrupt, he benefits from his family's activities. But among Ford fans, his big, political family is a plus. "The Fords are fighters," says Mary Hoskins of Clarksville. And she's not concerned about some Fords' legal troubles. "Everyone's got someone in their family," she says.

And what about Ford's life outside Tennessee? After his father's first term in Congress, he moved the family to Washington, where Harold Jr. was enrolled at the same elite prep school, St. Albans, that another son of Tennessee, Al Gore, had attended. Ford then attended the University of Pennsylvania and University of Michigan Law School, and at age 26 was elected to Congress.

Corker, in contrast, was born in South Carolina, moved to Tennessee at age 11, and has lived here ever since. In an interview, Corker calls Ford "a nice young man," but adds that "I just know that I more fully represent the values of this state."

After Corker won the primary, against two more-conservative Republicans, he set out to portray Ford as a liberal, but it didn't work. Ford is one of the most conservative members of the Congressional Black Caucus. He opposes gay marriage, so-called partial birth abortion, and what he calls "amnesty for illegals."

Corker, a moderate Republican who at one time supported abortion rights, may have trouble inspiring Christian conservatives to turn out for him. Even though the National Right to Life Committee has endorsed Corker, Tennessee Right to Life has refused.

"That sends a signal to some people," says the Republican activist. "Tennessee Right to Life isn't huge, but in a close election, every vote counts."

And in a close election, with control of the Senate on the line, both parties are spending millions of dollars on ads, some of them suggestive and nasty, leading the candidates to call on their parties to take them down. In a preemptive move, Ford showed up at the Memphis airport last Friday and confronted Corker right before the Republican was due to give a press conference. The Corker campaign has been publicizing the dustup ever since, saying it shows Ford's lack of maturity.

The wealthy Corker also has the option of writing another large check to his campaign. If he does so in the final days, that would make it difficult for Ford to invoke the federal "millionaire's clause," which allows Ford to raise more money from his donors.

Still, the larger forces at play in the campaign haven't changed. "The combination of facing a strong Democrat who's moderate and a year that isn't particularly kind to Republicans – Corker may just lose this thing," says John Geer, a political scientist at Vanderbilt University in Nashville. "But I'm not prepared to make any predictions."

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