The Latest Numbers on the Senate Race

From the AP via the Tennesseean. The poll was a SUSA automated poll, with a 3.5% margin of error:

Eighty percent of respondents to the survey said they are familiar with Ford, while 78% knew something about Hilleary. [...]

Fifty-four percent said they're unfamiliar with Bryant, who lost to Lamar Alexander in the 2002 GOP primary for the state's other Senate seat. Six in 10 are unfamiliar with Corker. [...]

Only four in 10 know anything about Kurita of Clarksville, according to the survey. The automated survey was conducted Wednesday and has a margin for error of plus or minus 3.5 percentage points.

Thirty percent of respondents gave Hilleary and Ford a "favorable" rating, the highest mark, though Ford's "unfavorable" mark was higher, at 32%. Hilleary's "unfavorable" rating was 20%.

Bryant received a 15% favorable rating while Corker got 7%.

I don't know which number is more important to the Democratic primary, Kurita's 40% name recogntion or Ford's 32% unfavorable rating. Most of the Democrats I've talked to, especially those who view him unfavorably, look at his run for Senate as though he were the incumbent. My verbal polling is completely antecdotal, so slap as big a margin of error on it as you like, but my hunch is that it is best to treat Ford like an incumbent.

So I somtimes get the shaking creeps when I hear Kurita threaten to go easy on Ford:

"There's no reason to exploit someone's weaknesses when I have such a clear strength and ethics is a clear strength."

There's plenty of reason when those weaknesses include outright betrayal of basic party values in the furtherance of a political career that was obtained practically by hereditary birthright. I'll be the first to fess up to it: I voted for him simply because his name was Ford, because at the time, I thought that meant something. I have come to learn that it does indeed mean something, just not what I had previously thought. Among Democrats, there is plenty of anger at Ford here in Memphis, and those who aren't already angry tend to become so once they learn about his record.

Kurita has so far sought to highlight those strengths of hers that compare directly with Ford's weaknesses. She has worked hard for everything she's got, she has life experience in the real world, and she has an unimpeachable Democratic legislative record. But none of that will mean anything to someone who isn't looking, and the only people who are going to search for a Democratic alternative to Ford are those who are already disgusted with him.

I wonder if it isn't possible to use Ford's established name recognition to increase Kurita's. Serve notice on him by name, call him out for what's he's done and what he hasn't done, and see if it makes the papers. As the representative of a city with both the highest bankrupty rate and the highest infant mortality rate in the nation, his vote for a Bankruptcy Bill that was literally written by a corporate lobbyist was simply unforgivable.

There are still plenty of voters out there who simply aren't aware of that vote, for whatever reason, but who care deeply about economic justice. I see them as future Kurita supporters, if only we can somehow get their attention.