I think you have to compare the 2006 data to the 2004 presidential exit polls. In 2004, non-white women were 8% of the electorate in Tennessee and favored Kerry over Bush 86-14. In 2006 non-white women were 9% of the electorate and favored Ford 91-9. In addition, blacks in Tennessee favored Kerry 91-9 in 2004 and Ford 95-5 in 2006. It's hard to look at those numbers and see anything but an improvement in both relative turnout and Democratic performance among black women. I suppose it's possible that Ford could have done still better still for turnout, but the percentage of black women voting for him must already have been pushing 98%.

Thanks for the explaination...

Hi,

I am the person who wrote the Harold Ford post which triggered the discussion by Ms. Dickerson and Mr. Roth.

Actually, you would have to compare 2006 with **2002** - another mid-term election - and not 2004. Turnout is always higher in presidential election years, such as 2004. What was Ford's black female vote percentage and turnout percentage, in relation to the last mid-term election. This info was not available yet when I wrote my commentary on Tuesday.

I ask that in a tight race such as the one in Tennessee, how many black women (who comprise the majority of black voters, by the way) who could have perhaps reversed that slim lead of 48,495 votes that Mr. Corker possessed at the end of this political race - did not turn out to vote or left the ballot for this particular race blank because they were turned off by what they saw in the "Call Me" ad?

Ford lost by only 3 percentage points. That "Call Me" ad hurt him with enough voters (black, and definitely white) to shift things to Corker's advantage late in the game.

Zach,
Are you surprised to find that most black females aren't anger, spiteful and bitter and electorally support a black man who allegedly dates outside of his race. Seems like you were expecting to see that trend ("I'm prepared to believe that notion" you said).

How pitiful!

Yes, it's pretty retarded that a so-called black conservative site like Booker Rising should essentially support the KKK, Aryan Nation, and National Front's position that black men should "stay in their place." Ripe enough for a Dave Chappelle skit (oops, I think he already did that one) ...

I can't believe the monumental stupidity and childishness of judging a man by who he dates rather than his character or record. So, in other words, Martin Luther King should have said "Judge a man by the content of his character ... unless the content in his bedroom is non-black, then join the Klan and hang his ass!!"

How mighty white of you, Shay ...

Between the whole homophobic "down low" phenomenon which finds angry, bitter black women trying to invent an epidemic that doesn't exist, to judging black men not on character but on White Supremacist terms (I guess that means that Thurgood Marshall and Earl Woods weren't "real" black men because they married Asian women), it appears that a helluva lot of black women need to grow the you-know-what up.

Actually, my site is for black moderates as well as black conservatives.

Second, my position on interracial unions is hardly an uncommon position in black communities, as many blacks have - especially black women - have issues with it. In listing various groups who aren't keen on interracial unions, it is not surprising that Madscribe conspicuously failed to point out that this position is ALSO shared by the Nation Of Islam, as well as many if not most black nationalists on the left side of the political spectrum.

There is nothing wrong with the position that black men should be dating and marrying black women instead of using white women as tropy wives and sexual playthings, especially given the state of today's black families. Madscribe ignores that many prominent black men fail to judge black women by the content of **their** character, instead choosing to go white because they equate it with success.

By the way, I supported Harold Ford's candidacy for the U.S. Senate on my blog for nearly a year **before** he formally announced his candidacy in Summer 2005. So I clearly value other policy positions above who he dates. Yet that doesn't mean that I won't tell it like it is re: how his impulsiveness to attend a Playboy Super Bowl Party when he is a black man running for the U.S. Senate in a state like Tennessee and trying to make history in the process cost him votes.

Madscribe can get mad as hell about how some black women may not have shown up at the polls because of Ford's dating choices. Yet it was Ford who allowed his impulsive love for white women to override his political sense by attending said Playboy party in the first place, thus giving the Republican Party ample "where de white women at?" political ammunition to undermine his political goals. They took it and ran with it in the "Call Me" ad, near Election Day. Although I certainly agree that the RNC ad race-baited him, Ford must take some responsibility for how his choice cost him - and Black America - a U.S. Senate seat.

Had Ford not been trying to act like a stud, but had taken a page out of the playbook of Barack Obama - who is married to a black woman - that would've sealed the deal and we would be talking about a U.S. SENATOR ELECT Harold Ford right now.

Yet it was Ford who allowed his impulsive love for white women to override his political sense by attending said Playboy party in the first place, thus giving the Republican Party ample "where de white women at?" political ammunition to undermine his political goals.

WTF?!?!? "Impulsive love for white women?" Since when did Harold Ford become some interracial porn stud muffin, or is the color of the sky different in your world than mine?

I just find it hilarious that a so-called black Republican, moderate or conservative, can justify her own racism and hatred, yet turn around and castigate Dems and liberals for "playing the race card," etc.

So, does your hatred for Black Men With Miz Anne also extend to your fellow Black Republicans like Thomas Sowell and Clarence Thomas? For a Republican, you come off a lot like Anita Hill.

"If dat boy, Harold, had jus' stayed in his place, we'd be done had us a black senator!"

Sorry, no matter how you try to justify it, you, and all the black women like you who would diss Harold Ford over dating not issues or ideology, sound as irrational on the issue of race and interracial relations (platonic or otherwise) as Prof. Griff and Leonard Jeffries on Jews.

there is no evidence presented that Ford's attendance at that party cost him votes. there is ample evidence that the voters of his state, however, were unable to see past his race, and that THAT cost him votes.

why would you bother trying to mitigate the racism of white tennessee voters?

Nads makes a very good point. Despite Shay's contention that the Angry Black Womenfolk Vote is some new political bloc to be contended with, Ford DID NOT lose as badly to Corker as, say, Blackwell to Strickland in Ohio (being from the Buckeye State, THAT was a "THUMPIN'" if I ever saw one!).

Funny how she can zero in on something as meaningless as Ford's alleged "Jungle Fever," yet bypass the bigger subject of why the Republicans ran such a racist ad in the FIRST place, or the numerous and documented dirty and illegal tricks that Republicans ran in the Steele campaign (mailings threatening those with parking tickets, etc.) and other races.

Her so-called Party threw Blackwell under the bus early on (guess her fellow white Republicans couldn't bring themselves to vote for their House Blend). But, hey, at least he's got a black wife! (**groan**)