The primary claim in the diary in question is that "Ford lost his left flank." In other words, Ford was so offensive to the liberal population in Tennessee (which, by the way, numbers only around
15 to 20% (Survey USA suggests it's more like 10 to 15%) of the population in the state) that they stayed home. However, I don't think that happened.
First, let's look at the breakdown in the exit poll by ideology:
Liberals (14%)
Moderates (40%)
Conservative (45%)
This isn't an unreasonable ideological breakdown of the state's population. To put another hammer in the coffin of the argument, those liberals that did vote did overwhelmingly - 89% - for Ford. In fact, liberals held to Ford better than conservatives held to Corker (only 80%).
The difference here is that Ford only picked up 64% of moderates, and with conservatives making up 45% and liberals only making 14%, Corker started out with a 38% to 21% lead once moderates started to be counted. Ford needed around 73% of the moderate vote to win and he just couldn't get there.
The next number to look at is the party breakdown:
Democrats (34%)
Independents (28%)
Republicans (38%)
This also does not look like an unreasonable breakdown for the state. The two candidates did about equally well within their parties: Ford won Democrats 93% to 6% while Corker won Republicans 94% to 5%, showing an extreme level of party loyalty in this race.
The problem here is that those labeled as Independents barely sided with Ford - 50% to 49%. This seems to indicate that it's not the left Ford lost, but the fact that he couldn't convince enough independent moderates to vote for him.
The reasons for this aren't exactly clear.
Part of it is that voters in Tennessee gave Bush a 48% approval rating, and those who approved of Bush were more likely to vote for Corker than those disapproving Bush were to vote for Ford. They key statistic here is that Corker won those who "somewhat approved" of Bush by a margin of 85% to 12%, yet Ford only won those who "somewhat disapproved" of Bush 64% to 33%.
This suggests that Ford's attempts to tie Corker to Bush, while succeeding for those who approve of Bush's job, and thus voted for Corker, didn't work so well with those people who opposed Bush, especially those who only opposed him half-heartedly.
The War in Iraq was rated "extremely" or "very important" by 70% of voters, yet only those who believed it was "extremely" important turned to Ford, suggesting that moderates who thought the war was important (but not everything) were not convinced that electing Corker would result in the war continuing as it is.
Two, more odd, stats. Those who rated illegal immigration as important voted for Corker. In fact, the more someone cared about the issue, the more likely they were to vote for Corker, despite the fact that Corker was citied for having hired illegal immigrants and not having, that I can recall, any actual plan on stopping illegal immigration.
Also, Corker won the vote for voters who thought corruption was extremeley, very, or even somewhat important. Ford only won with those who thought corruption was not at all important. This despite the fact that Corker had numerous scandals. This suggests that, even though Corker never really got into specifics about Ford's family, the attack against the "Ford political machine" appeared to work.
Also in an interesting note, those who decided over the weekend before the election broke heavily for Corker - 59% to 41%, yet a majority of those who decided on election day chose Ford.
Also, whatever attacks Ford made on Corker, they appeared to turn off voters more than Corker's attacks on Ford. For those who believed that both candidates attacked each other unfairly, Corker won 58% to 40%
So what does this tell us? Well, nothing difinitive, other than it seems that it was those in the middle, and not those on the left, who Ford couldn't convince to vote for him.
Ford's race against Corker also had additional issues that were different from the other races against republicans.
First, the race was an open seat, so while people like Talent, Dewine, Allen, Burns, and Chafee could be tied to Bush due to their voting records in the Senate, Corker has no such voting record, and thus could better insulate himself against attacks of being a rubber stamp.
Second, the state itself is rather conservative, with Montana probably being the only other state with a competitive senate seat that is more conservative, so Ford had to start with a considerable deficit.
Third, Corker didn't run the traditional Republican campaign. In the sense, he played the DLC card, except as Republican.
Statewide races in Tennessee are generally a battle between Democrats as moderates or moderate-conservatives and Republicans as various shades of conservatives, but typically those harder to the right.
Ford fit in well with the typical moderate and conservative/moderate role that democrats have to play to win statewide office in the state. However, Corker did not run a hard right campaign. In fact, he ran a rather "soft" conservative or even moderate-conservative campaign. This "blurred" the difference between the two candidates, with Corker essentially taking up the same space as traditional democratic candidates take up in the state.
With people in the state typically voting default Republican, Ford had two ways to seperate himself. The first option was move left, which would have resulted in Corker routing Ford. The other option was move to the right of Corker and essentially run as the conservative candidate in the race. Ford didn't really do either and thus wasn't successfully able to show voters why he was different from Corker.
I believe that if Corker was an incumbent, or if someone like Van Hilleary, who would have run a more clearly conservative campaign - and had a congressional voting record - had been nominated, it is quite possible Ford would have won this race.
However, Ford will face a similar problem if he chooses to run against Alexander in 2008. First, Bush will no longer be as effective a boogeyman, given that he'll be leaving office in only a few months after the election. Second, Alexander is also a "soft" to moderate conservative along the same vein as Corker, meaning that there is less room for a democratic candidate to seperate himself without alienating large chunks of the votes they would need to win.
Alexander is extremely popular in East Tennessee, though Ford lost East Tennessee by 20% and still nearly won, showing that a good showing in East Tennessee may, in fact, not be necessary for a democrat to win statewide.
There are still two years between now and 2008, and perhaps Ford has learned from his experience and can challenge for the seat again in 2008.
Update [2006-11-10 22:8:1 by FleetAdmiralJ]: I should add that the gay marriage ban in Tennessee received a horrendously low 19% "no" vote, showing that even the majority of Ford voters voted for the ban.
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