Via My Left Nutmeg we learn that Harold Ford Jr. has the highest praise for Rep. Chris Shays (R-CT), the sole remaining Republican congressperson from New England.
When Harold Ford, Jr. walked onto the Quick Center stage for his OPEN Visions forum he knew whose district he was standing in.
“There is not a better Congressman in Washington than Chris Shays,” said Ford, to a crowd of about 600 Fairfield University students and community members.
“No national legislator has been to Iraq more times than Chris Shays.”
Shays, who was also in attendence, responded, “The reason Harold Ford likes me so much is because when I realized that I wasn’t going to be president, I went up to him and told him that he was one of the three legislator’s that I thought would someday.”
The article reminds us who Ford Jr. is:
Ford, a former four-term congressman from Tennessee’s 9th Congressional district, is the current chairman of the Democratic Leadership Council. He also serves as a vice chairman at Merrill Lynch.
He’s also a FOX News contributor and the only Democratic candidate to lose a competitive senate race in 2006 (to the less than formidable Bob Corker). It’s funny because I would have thought Harold Ford Jr. would be all about helping Goldman Sachs Vice-President Jim Himes boot Chris Shays out of Congress. Especially considering this:
Ford was introduced by Peter Otoki ’08, who said “it is an honor and privilege to present some who shows what the American dream can be.”
Ford returned the praise, saying that Otoki, who will be working at Goldman Sachs next year, is someone who “wants an America that he could give to his kids, just like [Ford] does.”
Otoki said that Ford was an inspiration for many in the audience including himself.
“The main reason that people buy into his ideas and the same reason they love Obama, is because they are attracted to the belief of hope.”
The ‘hope’ is presumably the hope that a guy named ‘Otoki’ can land a job with Merrill Lynch or Goldman Sachs, rather then the more run of the mill hopes and dreams most people have. (Full disclosure: I worked in Merrill Lynch’s publishing department back in 1995).
It’s all fine to say a couple of nice words about a Republican now and then, but saying that Chris Shays is the best congressman in Washington is a little much. And this is the guy that Carville wanted to run the DNC after the 2006 midterms.
I am so glad that rank and file Democrats have rejected the Clinton/DLC leadership this go round.
With Democrats like that, who needs Republicans?
Ford should join the Lieberman party. He’s no Democrat.
ford, and the whole dlc crowd, especially the clintons, penns, et al, need to be relegated to the dust bin of history.
they’re a menace and an impediment to progress.
I just “hope” that Ford and his other DLC corporatists don’t bail out Wall Street. The banks are starting to argue that we the taxpayers need to hold the bag on the mortgage crisis. They are struggling to find an easy way out of the mess they created.
Democrats should not fall for the line that bailing out the banks is good for America. We are going to get a lot of sob stories about good people losing their homes so Uncle Sam needs to try to prop up housing prices. This will involve the banks and Mr. Otoki running away with the profits and leaving all the downside risk with the taxpayers. They squak about free markets when they rape credit card holders but when they start to take on losses they become ardent socialists trying to get us to socialize the losses.
It disgusts me and the Democrats better not go there.
FWIW, Obama was here in Corpus Christi yesterday for a rally in the afternoon. It was held a couple blocks from my job, so I went before my shift. He was impressive, eloquent and addressed a number of issues that are important to a great many Americans. What few second thoughts I had about him are gone. Now the good part. After work I stopped off for last call at my local watering hole and the bartender’s husband was there. He’s former military, very GOP, and had just been telling me a few days ago how he thought McCain was the only one of the candidates qualified for president. He walked over to me, told me he had watched Obama’s speech on TV, and had a complete change of heart. One speech and a lifelong GOP voter is going to vote for a DEM. May not seem like much, just one guy, but it gives this old man a little hope that maybe things are changing, maybe people are starting to wake up.
Read Ford’s statement on the Shays comments here: http://haroldfordjr2006.blogspot.com/2008/02/ford-statement-on-shays-comments.html
Read Ford’s statement on the Shays comments here: http://haroldfordjr2006.blogspot.com/2008/02/ford-statement-on-shays-comments.html