When Harold Ford Jr's name began cropping up as someone who may run for the U.S. Senate seat from New York, challenging Kirsten Gillibrand in the Democratic primary, many of us knew it was only a matter of time before this DLC snake would set about re-inventing himself as somehow palatable to a more liberal audience. Though Ford has not formally announced his intentions seem clear.
The Albany Project has the details:
Well, that didn't take long: per the NY Post's Fred Dicker, Harold Ford Jr. now supports marriage equality.
"He supports gay marriage, in the interest of fairness and equality," Ford spokesman Davidson Goldin told The Post.
Ford backed up that statement himself this morning on the "Today Show."
Host Matt Lauer asked, "So you're now in favor of same sex marriage?"
"Civil unions and same-sex marriage, yes," Ford said.
The dexterity of this switch in positions would make any garden snake proud.
Empire State Pride Agenda sums it up:
Ford supports a constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage. In fact, he voted for the Federal Marriage Amendment both times it reached the House floor. He has also gone out of his way to condemn court rulings (New Jersey's, for example) that called for equal treatment under the law for same-sex couples. During his last year in the House, Ford received a 25 (out of 100) rating on HRC's Congressional Scorecard.
But not so fast, lest bad people be tempted to note the flip-flop: Junior has always been on the equality team deep in his little heart. The Post, again:
Saying he supported civil unions when he ran for Congress in Tennessee in 1996, Ford said, "My support for fairness and equality existed long before I moved to New York."
Asked by host Matt Lauer if it was a "change" in position, he invoked Chuck Schumer and Bill Clinton, saying:
"Maybe in the language. But I'm a believer that benefits should flow to same sex partners and if indeed the fiction of the language, the title, should be changed, much like Chuck Schumer who changed his mind on it and Bill Clinton's evolved, I'm of the opinion now that nothing is wrong with that."
Which would presumably explain why Junior came out in 2006 with a completely unprompted and irrelevant statement on the NJ Supreme Court's 2006 decision denouncing it, even if he was at the time pursuing a Senate seat in Tennessee.
So you can pick the Junior you want, I guess.
