Sean Braisted notes the impact of the Ninth District House race on Harold Ford, Jr.’s run for US Senate

Something dawned on me today…Jake Ford’s run as an independent in Memphis could cost his brother Harold the election. Think about it for a second, does anyone honestly think a long protracted race between the Democratic nominee and an “independent Democrat” is not going to get messy? By November, issues such as race and nepotism will be at the forefront of a political race like this, and people are going to be polarized into Pro-Ford and Pro-Cohen camps.

Even if HFJ stays out of this race, anyone with half a brain will realize that at best, Harold Sr/Jr approve of Jake’s candidacy. At worst, they orchestrated it to make sure someone from the “Ford Machine” kept that seat in case their favored candidates didn’t win the primary. Jake was an “in case $h!t happens” candidate, and as such his candidacy will create a lot of ill will (to add onto the ill will that already exists) towards the Ford family.

That’s a reasonable conclusion. I don’t know how the Fords go about running their funeral home / politics business in Memphis, but certainly there was room for a fail safe plan, albeit likely a bad one. I don’t see how Harold is going to be able to stay completely out of this fray. Jake is his brother, after all. The larger issue is how this affects the Memphis media market, and the certain shenanigans that will be reporter fodder with an independent Jake Ford candidacy. Harold needs a bump coming out of the West if he has any hopes of winning the Senate seat.  This extra-curricular activity by Jake will certainly dampen that prospect.

And everyone thought the Congressman from the Ninth got a breather when his uncle’s trial was moved to February.