Upstairs at Calhoun's

Harold Ford Jr. was late...just Fashionably so. No biggie to the few hundred folk gathered to see the Democrat's Senatorial campaign star.

I just chatted with new friends and watched the crowd. There was a man in overhauls with an orange Jr. sticker on his breast pocket standing beside a man in a very expensive suit with perfect gray hair. There was at least one ponytail (not me anymore) and several shaved domes. Every color of human seemed to be represented, including the obvious Natve American. The obvious Black Preacher was there too, complementing the fact that I was sitting with more than one White Preacher. It was a good crowd.

I watched Ford's advance crew scurry around energetically. Word from the inside is that he expects his people to work as hard as he does and they complain that he never runs out of energy. They were smiling from deep inside and looking folks right in the eye as they chatted and moved on. There was a sparkle to them. I chatted with Johannes, the local point man, about soccer and asked if he had time to play any. He's an ex-MLS professional and exudes an air of powerful fitness that only pros seem to have. "No way" he said, "Harold keeps us hopping. I'll call you in three weeks, maybe.


The election Starts tomorrow.

Early voting is the key. No one knows what will happen on election day in Tennessee. In our local County election in August, about 5000 people were unable to vote on election day. Considering that the winner of the County Mayor's race only got 4700 votes, that is a huge factor. Over half of his votes came from early voting.

Ford's closest people started showing up so we knew he was in the building. There he is and off we go. The introduction is a loser but Ford takes over and it's a show. His message was spot on for a room of such diversity that it even included Republicans. The best line of the evening was about the ads that will blanket the airwaves from now until Nov. 7...

"We don't know everything they are going to say in their attack ads but we do know one thing they aren't going to do...They are not going to talk about what a great job they've been doing since President Bush took office, Bless his Heart!"

Courage,

Steve