Maybe he’s even talked about a few. I don’t know. But how do you mishandle a campaign so badly that this becomes a problem for you?
In the Tennessean today, questions about Ford’s presence at a Playboy party at the 2005 Superbowl continue to linger, in part because the Ford campaign has done a truly miserable job of dealing with the issue.
Can someone fill me in? If you were invited to a Playboy party at the Superbowl, would you be ashamed at having gone? Would you deny it?
I’m pretty sure Ace wouldn’t be ashamed. I’d probably have gotten pictures of me with bunnies and put them in my campaign material.
h/t Tom Bevan at RCP
He’d own up to it, but he’s still trying to figure out how the video of him doing the bunny bop at Hef’s Superbowl party will square with his TV ad showing him standing in the middle of the sanctuary of a Baptist church, acting all pious.
94th rule of blogs: All blogs invariably become Ace of Spades.
I thought Playboy was pretty mainstream these days. I’d be surprised at it being used against you unless you portray yourself as some kind of saint.
I would neither be ashamed about going nor deny it. The best way to approach it would be to cop to it and move on. Then again, politicians rarely seem to have good political instincts. Very strange.
I’d be ashamed that I fell into placating complicity with the leashed parody of masculinity that Playboy and the Superbowl purvey.
I’d maintain to my deathbed that I was so high I thought I was at a Screw party at the Screwperbowl.
What these pictures of me splashing around naked in the grotto can’t show you is my crack-fueled fugue. The whole pennies-in-the-fountain vibe here is bullshit. I thought I was jackbooting through Mothra’s vagina. Followup?
…
No, I’ll do any monster. If it’s a girl. And not, like, shrunken. Cos I ain’t into lube. Next.
Well, even if Playboy is pretty mainstream, if one has a partying lifestyle, one might be less opposed to things like abortion on demand and gay marriage since one might have an easily diverted moral compass? I mean, I know cocaine has never been used at an official Playboy party, and illicit sex in betrayal of marriage vows has never occurred at one, either, but it just seems like it might happen more easily there than at home with the family, ya know?
He’s not owning up to it because the Foley mess has already established a precedent. The Democrats have made it clear they believe Christian conservatives are intolerant of anything that smells of sex.
And last I looked Tennessee was smack dab in the Bible Belt.
I think the press confrenece “party crash” the other day is effecting his campaign more than the sexual angle, but the Left is “reacting” to the latter, rather than the former. The Foley straight jacket angle. Well that’s the price you pay when you have no real convictions, but just use them for political crowbars. You have a hard time keeping it all straight when you try to use “value bashing” with values you don’t understand.
I can’t help it, I love Harold Ford Jr. I have candidate envy that others can vote for him yet I have to choose between DeWine and Brown.
The Playboy Party angle is stupid, even though I find Playboy parties to be skanky and without redeeming qualities. If he had a fundraiser there, I’d care.
I think the Playboy tack is dumb, but I agree Ford’s misplayed it. The Wilson Air stunt will probably hurt him more. Can’t help but like him anyway.
I have a theory that Corker’s people know there’s a psychological barrier protecting Ford from the tawdry antihalo his family gives off (Memphis-born; don’t get me started), and they’re testing its limits. Me, I’m continually amazed he’s not a completely sociopathic race-hustling crook like his father and uncles. I guess he’s a fundamentally good person.
He seems to have gotten over his issues.
“I like football, and I like girls.”
I’ve heard HFJ is a “playboy”, but haven’t
seen any proof. I’ve heard he is a “religious
hypocrite”, but the only “proof” I’ve seen is
a picture of him with a girlfriend on a skiing
trip. It was based on the assumption that the
two spent the nights together having illicit sex.
During the Senate race, the Republicans carpet-
bombed us with fear-inducing accusations of
HFJ being “a Hollywood liberal”, planning to
raise our taxes and of course, being a playboy.
The absence of ANY evidence to these claims
convinces me HFJ is what he says he is. I
believe in him, I voted for him and I will
stand by him no matter where his political path
leads.