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Harold Ford's NBC Contract Suspended
When Harold Ford Jr. appears on NBC's "Meet the Press" this Sunday, it'll be as chairman of the Democratic Leadership Council, according to a network release. On the show's website, he's listed as a "political insider."
But when he's more recently appeared on NBC and MSNBC programs — such as "Today," "Hardball" and "Morning Joe" — it was as an "NBC political analyst."
An MSNBC spokesperson tells POLITICO that Ford's deal "was put on hold" a few weeks ago, meaning that the network is not currently paying him. "We've still booked him in his capacity as a potential Senate candidate, and he's questioned as such," said the spokesperson.
With Ford no longer getting an NBC paycheck, the network avoids a glaring conflict of interest as he mulls a Senate race in New York. For instance, while on the "Today" show as an NBC analyst Jan. 11, the discussion of Sen. Harry Reid's controversial remarks later turned to Ford's own political positions as a Senate contender. So he's giving analysis of politics while potentially a participant.
Although Ford isn't getting paid right now, there may still be questions about his relationship with the network if he's regularly booked on its broadcast and cable shows, or if it appears he's getting preferential treatment in relationship to Sen. (and possible primary opponent) Kirsten Gillibrand.
MSNBC dealt with similar issues when Chris Matthews flirted with a Senate run while still on the air, as well as Ed Schultz being pitched as a potential Senate candidate.
Ford has also taken leave from his executive job at Merrill Lynch while weighing the decision.
UPDATE: A Ford spokesperson tells POLITICO: "Harold Ford asked for the leave of absence from NBC as a paid analyst while he weighs a run for the U.S Senate. Consistent with that, he also asked for an unpaid leave of absence from Bank of America/Merrill Lynch while he travels the state, listens to voters and weighs an opportunity to serve them in the Senate."
Vito Lopez Likes Harold Ford's Smooth Style
After lunching with Harold Ford Jr. today, an "impressed" Brooklyn Democratic Chairman Vito Lopez seemed to leave the door open to the possibility of an endorsement down the road - assuming the ex-congressman decides to formally challenge Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand.
Asked about the "carpetbagger" factor and whether it would stand in the way of his support for the Tennessee transplant, Lopez replied:
"I supported Hillary Clinton. I've done that before. It's not that much of an issue."
Reporters, including the DN's David Saltonstall, were not allowed to actually watch the two Democrats break bread at Cono's in Williamsburg (a Lopez favorite; he has met there in the past with other senator hopefuls, including Clinton and Caroline Kennedy).
But they were treated to an impromptu press conference outside the restaurant after the meal, which took place in a private room, was over.
"There’s a little of celebrity that he has - certain people have it," Lopez said of Ford. "I was impressed about his style, and he has a certain degree of charisma. I think he would do a very good job of connecting with people. He’s got a very smooth personality."
That "connecting with people" line is a subtle dig at Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, of whom Lopez is not a big fan. The assemblyman/chairman has employed that criticism on the appointed junior senator on several occasions now.
Asked if he had given Gillibrand the "Cono's treatment," Lopez replied: "No, she's never asked to have that." He also said he had invited her to dine with him there over Christmas, but she was in London on vacation and couldn't make it.
Lopez said it's too early to talk in a serious way about endorsements, but added he would likely get there sometime in April.
Harold Ford, Kirsten Gillibrand Go At It Again: Trial Move First
Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand and potential Democratic primary foe Harold Ford both support moving the 9/11 terror trial out of town - but their camps Saturday still managed a scuffle over how they came to agree.
Team Ford questioned why Gillibrand consulted California Sen. Dianne Feinstein, while Team Gillibrand said speaking to Feinstein, chairwoman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, made perfect sense.
Gillibrand said Feinstein told her the trial could mean increased danger to the city, and "based on that advice, I really believe that the trial should be moved."
A spokesman for Ford, who told reporters early last week that he felt the trial should be moved, said, "Harold has been saying that the trial should not be held in lower Manhattan and the money can be put to better use. Now, apparently, Sen. Gillibrand agrees."
A Gillibrand aide, Glen Caplin, retorted that the senator was "among the first public officials to consider other locations."
He said it seemed Ford "strangely" believes Gillibrand shouldn't have consulted Feinstein on a national security matter.
Actually, neither Gillibrand nor Ford were first out of the gate in calling for the trial to be moved: Community Board 1, for example, was very vocal in asking that the trial be moved out of lower Manhattan.
Saturday, after Gillibrand met voters at Fairway market, City Councilwoman Gale Brewer (D-Manhattan) - who accompanied her - lit into Ford, accusing him of "pandering" as he mulls a Senate bid.
"To me, it's not just that he's from another state [and] that he changes his position all the time, but he's one of these guys that as a woman, I wouldn't vote for if my life depended on it," Brewer said. "He's so full of himself."
Ford spokesman Davidson Goldin said Ford is hearing "a very different message from voters across the state who routinely encourage him to run - and they're the 'strategists' he values most."
Gloves Off Gillibrand
It’s getting personal.
One day after Harold Ford Jr. slammed New York’s senators as “parakeets” for always parroting the Democratic Party line, Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand accused the ex-Tennessee congressman of running an “in-the-gutter” campaign, the DN's Dave Saltonstall reports.
“I think it is an insult to New York that he comes and just starts calling names for everyone he feels like attacking,” Gillibrand said.
“It’s unprofessional. And for a man who aspires to be in the US Senate, I think it is unacceptable.”
While Gillibrand and her aides and allies have previously gone after Ford over his voting record in Congress and his out-of-state roots, this is the first time the junior senator has personally shifted into all-out attack mode with lengthy - and personal - jabs at the ex-congressman.
Gillibrand also mocked as “fraudulent” Ford’s attempt to cast himself as an outsider in the race who will bring a more “indepednent” voice to the Senate.
“This guy grew up in Washington D.C. while his father was a congressman,” Gillibrand told the DN.
“He waltzed into his father’s congressional seat after failing the bar. And then he comes to New York City and joins a big bank, and is now running with a few banker buddies and thinks he should be in the US Senate.”
“I mean... he is the farthest thing from an outsider that you could even imagine,” she said. “It's laughable. It is a joke!”
Aides to Ford did not immediately respond to messages seeking comment.
UPDATE: Here's the response from Ford spokesman David Goldin:
"Of course the unelected senator is on the attack: Her approval numbers are rock bottom, unemployment is rising and the economy around the state isn't improving on her watch."
"Voters across this state know Senator Gillibrand's positions are hurting New York - from raising taxes to killing jobs. Her dismal approval ratings say it all. She spent her time as a lawyer covering up for the tobacco industry, and as an appointed senator she caters to Washington insiders instead of putting us in New York first."
Gillibrand Gears Up for Ford Fight
Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) is finally heeding New York Democrats’ advice that she get tough with Harold Ford Jr. — slamming the former Memphis congressman as an anti-gay-rights, anti-abortion, anti-immigrant tool of Wall Street money lords.
The problem for Gillibrand: Ford is embracing New York’s slappy-face politics faster than she can generate the comebacks.
On Monday, Ford dismissed Gillibrand as a party-controlled “parakeet.”
For good measure, his spokesman told POLITICO that Gillibrand is a “desperate liar.”
Gillibrand, Gov. David Paterson’s appointment to fill Hillary Clinton’s vacant Senate seat, has been thrown on the defensive by an aggressive challenger who has embraced New York’s brawling Democratic culture, if not its liberal politics.
The onetime Albany-area congresswoman has begun to mix it up in recent days, but her penchant for measured responses and attacking Ford through proxies hasn’t impressed many in a tabloid media market that rewards the brash and punishes the bashful.
Several Democratic sources told POLITICO that Gillibrand and her team get it — and are now seeking to augment her communications team with a consultant who will more aggressively target Ford, who spent Monday blasting away at the senator and her patron Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) on New York Post columnist Fred Dicker’s radio show.
“One could argue that, to date, she had not been sufficiently aggressive in the New York media market, and that has backfired,” said Hank Scheinkopf, a veteran Democratic operative who has worked for many of the state’s elected officials.
“She cannot hide behind cutout characters. ... She’s going to have to get past him by getting past him,” he said.
“I’ve noticed a change in tenor,” said Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-N.Y.), adding, “I think she should be tougher with him, and I think that she has been.”
“She needs more leg breakers,” said another longtime operative.
Gillibrand’s allies in New York and Washington said it’s now time for her to show her political independence from Schumer and President Barack Obama — who have tried to clear the field for her.
The 39-year-old Ford, who relocated to New York after losing a 2006 Senate race in Tennessee, has repeatedly lampooned Gillibrand as being protected by her “party bosses,” an argument that Ford advisers believe resonates with nationwide anti-Washington sentiment.
Democrats said the effort to brand Ford as out of step with New York’s more liberal primary voters has taken on fresh urgency after they witnessed Republican Scott Brown’s monumental Massachusetts Senate win, in which his Democratic opponent, Martha Coakley, failed to respond quickly to his insurgent campaign.
In a statement, Gillibrand took aim at the Wall Street-friendly Democrats who have pledged to back Ford’s candidacy, including the billionaire husband-and-wife team of Steve Rattner and Maureen White.
Anyone is “more than welcome” to run against her this year, she said, adding:
“That includes a former Tennessee congressman ... and Merrill executive who has an anti-choice and anti-LGBT [lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender] record and whose candidacy is being floated by a few Wall Street insiders.”
As if to demonstrate their differing styles, the Ford campaign responded to that tough statement with the rhetorical equivalent of a two-by-four.
“If the unelected senator and tobacco industry apologist has a new strategy based on distorting Harold’s support for abortion rights and gay rights, then she’s not only a puppet of the party bosses, she’s a desperate liar,” Ford spokesman Davidson Goldin said.
As she’s veered left over the past year to capture downstate support, Gillibrand has won over a number of liberal Democrats, along with members of the House delegation who were initially skeptical.
Still, several top New York Democrats — all supporting Gillibrand — told POLITICO that they have been unimpressed by her first year in office and discouraged by what many see as her excessively deferential style in private meetings with local power players.
That dissatisfaction has only grown in recent weeks, with many wondering why Gillibrand’s team didn’t move quickly to attack Ford in November, when POLITICO first reported that he was polling a possible race against her.
“Too little, too late,” said one Democrat who supports Gillibrand. “She needed to hit him hard and fast.”
Gillibrand’s persistent vulnerability is causing others to reconsider their earlier decisions to clear the field at the behest of Schumer and the White House. And it’s not clear whether Gillibrand’s most powerful patrons, Schumer and Obama, so rattled by the Massachusetts race, have much stomach to stop them.
Steve Israel, the congressman from Long Island and a Rahm Emanuel ally who is considered a leading candidate to replace Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-N.Y.) as chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, is being pressed to enter the race, according to several Democrats with knowledge of the situation.
But Israel, a moderate liberal with $1.8 million in cash on hand for his reelection campaign, told Newsday on Monday that such a run is extremely unlikely.
Gillibrand, 43, who represented a conservative-leaning upstate district for two years before her Senate appointment, so far has been successful at expanding her base. She is the darling of two of New York City’s most powerful special-interest groups — gays and abortion rights groups — who have been vocal and caustic critics of Ford’s record on gay marriage and choice.
If she faces Ford — in a race polls suggest she’d win easily — Gillibrand could neutralize charges that she’s a flip-flopper, since Ford, too, is beginning to reverse his positions on some key social issues.
Some observers said that it makes more sense for some of these new Gillibrand allies to be the ones engaging in the sharply negative campaign against Ford.
Rep. Eliot Engel (D-N.Y.), who has endorsed Gillibrand, said the “surest way to turn people against you is try to negatively define your opponent when you haven’t positively defined yourself,” adding that the senator instead needs to sell herself as a “very capable and effective legislator.”
“I think there is some resonating of outside interference and getting people out of primaries, and I think people don’t like that,” Engel said. “I think that’s one of the reasons why she’s having some difficulty in projecting herself.”
And Ford’s team clearly senses that. Soon after the initial reports of Ford’s potential candidacy, Schumer and Ford met at Schumer’s Manhattan office, where he advised Ford not to consider a race. News immediately leaked out after the two met, and Ford’s spokesman vowed that his boss would not be “bullied or intimidated.”
But Ford has stumbled in some of his early statements to the press, including a widely panned interview with The New York Times, in which he alluded to his ritzy lifestyle, mentioning that his lone stop in Staten Island had been in a helicopter, and indicated he would be an “independent” senator, something that may not play well with Democratic primary voters.
“We are gearing up to explain every bit of his voting record,” a source close to Gillibrand said. “He previewed his opposition research in his brilliant interview with The New York Times.”
Ford Targets Gillibrand, But Takes On Schumer
Harold Ford Jr. today took the fight to Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand - and her political mentor, Sen. Chuck Schumer - in the junior senator's own backyard, slamming his two fellow Democrats for failing to be sufficiently independent and put New Yorkers' needs first.
"I believe both senators should do a better job of putting New York State and New York City first," the former Tennessee congressman said during an interview at the Capitol on Talk 1300 WGDJ-AM.
"I believe that both senators, including Sen. Gillibrand, ought to be more independent, ought to stand up, not only for interests representing...that will put our interests and people in the state first, but understand that you’re not elected to the United States Senate to be a parakeet or to take instructions from the Democratic leadership."
"I’m taking a hard look at this race because I think I could be a stronger, more independent and steadier voice in the Senate - a steadier vote and stronger more independent vote on behalf of New Yorkers."
Asked later by reporters why he isn't challenging Schumer, who is up for re-election this year, too, Ford replied:
"Sen. Schumer is one of the most powerful members of the United States Senate, has represented New York not only in the Congress, but now the Senate, is in a strong leaderhsip position, and has been elected several times."
"Understand, this race is different. Sen. Gillibrand, who is a friend who I hold no ill will towards, was appointed to the seat, has been in the seat now for a year and was appointed by someone who was not elected."
"So when we talk about incumbency, we have to realize if I do decide to run...that Sen. Gillibrand and I would have the unique distinction of being on the ballot for the very first time in an overhwleming majority of the state, if not more than 90% of the state."
Ford vowed that if he's elected, he won't be an automatic "yes" vote for Schumer.
"It was widely known when Sen. Clinton was senator from this great state, that she and Sen. Schumer didn’t always see eye to eye and he didn't always have a rosy relationship with her," Ford said.
"And I imagine if I’m to run and I’m blessed to win that he and I would have the same kind of relationship.”
Ford turned the flip-flop accusation that has been leveled at him on gay marriage and abortion rights back on Gillibrand and Schumer, noting both pols have also changed their minds on the topic of same-sex marriage - in Gilliband's case, he said, "probably more aggressively and more fundamentally than I did.; I've always been for civil unions."
During the roughly half-hour interview, Ford turned on the full Southern charm, repeatedly referring to the Post's Fred Dicker as "Mr. Dicker" despite repeated requests that he drop the formality.
The two bantered about the difference between New York and Tennessee, with Dicker poking fun at Ford for pronouncing "smear" (as in: "I've been the victim of a smear campaign on my position on choice") as "schmear", prompting this exchange:
Dicker: "I think schmear is something you put on a bagel."
Ford: "I'm a little country. I apologize...It's "smear", s-m-e-a-r. Y'all talk funny."
When Dicker pressed Ford on whether he is indeed "80 percent" likely to run, as a source purporting to be close to Ford told the Times, the ex-congressman replied:
"I wouldn’t be sitting here surrounded by all these cameras and getting knocked off radio if I weren’t leaning some way. (Dicker: So, you are leaning?). "I’m standing straight up but I’m thinking seriously about it."
Dicker: "Is that a tap dance? What do they call that down in Tennessee?"
Ford: "They call it thinking seriously about it. I live in New York now."
Leaning or no, Ford said he is "likely" to create an exploratory committee for a potential US Senate run soon, noting his upstate jaunt this weekend has brought him close to the $5,000 trigger point that requires such a move.
"I’d rather be inconvenienced than indicted," Ford joked, adding that he might extend his 30-day leave from Merrill Lynch to continue his pre-decision learning tour of New York.
As to whether he would be able to hit the 25 percent mark of the weighted party vote required to get on the ballot at the state Democratic Convention, Ford said he's "very comfortable" with the petition route, noting that's the only way to run in Tennessee.
Even though he has been slamming party bosses who have tried to prevent Gillibrand from getting a primary challenge, Ford went out of his way to praise Brooklyn Democratic Chairman Vito Lopez, with whom he met last Friday, calling the assemblyman "my new friend."
Ford declined to take sides in the governor's race, but did say he feels Gov. David Paterson has been "dealt a terrible hand." He also refused to be drawn into a conversation about the dysfunction in Albany, saying:
"This is my first visit to Albany, please don’t try to get me in trouble on my very first day here in Albany. I’m looking at a US Senate race...I look forward to going by to see everybody today. I’m a New Yorker. I pay taxes. I’m as concerned about my state government as anyone else."
Ford is scheduled to meet with Senate Democratic Leader John Sampson on Wednesday in Brooklyn. Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver is attending funeral services for Assemblywoman RoAnn Destito's husband, and this isn't available to see Ford during his quickie trip to Albany.
UPDATE: Ford has left the Capitol. The only person with a title he met with was Senate President Malcolm Smith. And Gillibrand spokesman Glen Caplin sent over this response:
"New Yorkers are rightly concerned by a former Tennessee politician and current Wall Street insider whose extreme record in Congress is out of step with New York values."
"Harold Ford Jr. voted twice to enshrine discrimination in the U.S. Constitution by banning gay marriage, and he proudly said he's never been pro-choice. That’s not a smear, it’s his record. Kirsten Gillibrand has aggressively fought to protect a woman's right to choose and establish equal benefits for same-sex couples."
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Sources: MSNBC, NY Daily News, NY Post, NBC New York, Politico, Wonkette, TPM, Twitter, Youtube
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