Harold Ford, Jr.

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HAROLD FORD, JR.

United States Congressman Harold Ford, Jr. is a young rising Democrat who has his eye on the Senate. He is presently serving his fifth term in the U.S. Congress. He is well educated and comes from a controversial family of powerful politicians. He belongs to many Caucuses and Coalitions and sits on the Budget and Finance Service committees. He has formally announced his bid to run for the Senate seat being vacated by Senator Bill Frist. If Harold Ford wins, he will be the first black person from the state of Tennessee to hold that position and the only one of two blacks in the U.S. Senate.

Harold Eugene Ford, Jr. was born in Memphis, Tennessee on May 11, 1970. He is the eldest son of former Congressman Harold Ford, Sr. and Dorothy Ford. He attended and graduated from St. Albans School for Boys in Washington, D.C. He graduated from the University of Pennsylvania in 1992 where he received a bachelor's degree in American History and he received his law degree from the University of Michigan in 1996.

He worked as an aid to the United States Senate Committee on the Budget in 1992 and as a special assistant to the United States Department of Commerce in 1993. He decided to run for Congress in 1996 when his father decided he would not run for re-election to seek a 12th term. He won the primary and was sworn in to represent the Ninth District of Tennessee at the young age of 26. He is presently serving his fifth term in the House of Representatives. He sits on the House Budget Committee and the House Committee on Financial Services.

Ford is a member of the New Democrat coalition, the Congressional Black Caucus and the Blue Dog Coalition. "The Blue Dog Coalition is a group of moderate and fiscally conservative Democrats that has built a reputation for promoting positions that bridge the gap between ideological extremes." (House) "He also co-chairs the Community Solutions and Initiatives Caucus, a bipartisan group of lawmakers that seeks to help faith and community-based groups solve social challenges, and the Congressional Savings and Ownership Caucus, a bipartisan coalition dedicated to advancing policies to build savings and assets for all Americans, and particularly low income Americans." (House)

In 2000 he delivered the keynote address at the Democratic National Convention. He decided to run for the position of House Democrat Leader in

2002. "Ford explained his upstart run by saying that the Democratic "party elders" had failed for five straight election cycles with their old and tired ideas, and that the time had come for a new face with fresh ideas to get the party back in the majority. (Abramson) Although he received a lot of support, he lost to challenger Nancy Pelosi a House Minority Whip. Many thought he was fighting the wrong battle at the wrong time. In 2004, he served as a national campaign co-chairman for John Kerry's presidential run.

In May 2005, U.S. Congressman Harold Ford, Jr. filed federal paperwork to become the second Democratic candidate in the 2006 U.S. Senate race. The only other Democratic candidate running for the position is State Senator Rosalind Kurita. The seat is being vacated by Majority Leader Bill Frist who does not plan to seek a third term. "Republicans running for Frist's seat include former Reps. Ed Bryant and Van Hilleary and former Chattanooga Mayor Bob Corker." " Bob Swansbrough, a political science professor at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, said Ford should easily win his party's nomination, but may lack the statewide name recognition of the GOP front-runners. Hilleary ran for governor in 2002 and Bryant lost the 2002 Senate primary." (Rucker)

To win his run for the Senate, Harold Ford Jr. has several obstacles