BESTSALVIA.INFO

With both candidates appearing in East Tennessee today, statistically speaking, the Tennessee Senate race is a dead heat, according to the latest MSNBC Poll:

Tennessee Senate Race

(R) Bob Corker - 45%
(D) Harold Ford - 43%

But realistically speaking, Harold Ford has a lot of ground that he must gain between now and November 7th.  The so called "black tax" in southern states like Tennessee can spell doom for black candidates, as explained by the Christian Science Monitor:

The racial dimension of the Ford-Corker contest looms large. Pollsters speak of a race effect on surveys- that is, shave off a few percentage points from the black candidate's total, since some white voters tell pollsters what they think they want to hear, that they're willing to vote for a black candidate when in reality they're not.

One Republican activist in Tennessee, who asked not to be identified, says he believes the racial aspect will be a wash in this race: Some whites won't vote for a black man, but turnout in the black community, 16 percent of the electorate, will be higher than usual.

So the question then becomes whether or not the so called "black tax" that consists of white southerners refusing to vote for Ford because he is black will end up trumping the high black turnout?  We will find out in two weeks.

Pollsters and all political analysts seem to agree that as of today the race for U.S. Senate majority will probably come down to Virginia and Tennessee.  The Democrats must win at least one of those two races:

``Control of the Senate is going to come down to Tennessee and Virginia,'' said Brad Coker, the pollster for Mason-Dixon Polling & Research Inc. who conducted the surveys for McClatchy-MSNBC in eight states, as well as one in Virginia for several major newspapers there.

Within the last two weeks, the GOP has been focusing a lot of their campaign resources on this race.  At the same time, the campaign rhetoric has been heating up (go figure!).  Late last week, the national Republican Party released a television ad that accused Ford of having connections to Playboy.  Under pressure, Corker finally condemned the ad and requested that it be pulled, but not after the damage had been done.  A Ford Campaign spokesman accused Corker's people of being behind it:

"On one side of the campaign office, Corker sends out a press release that says we don't like this ad, and the other side of the press office, the person stands up and says this ad stays up. I think Tennesseans understand that, I think they know what that is. It's not true," Lee said.

The Ford Campaign is trying to re-shift the focus toward the central issue of Iraq.  Many analysts admit that Ford has something going for him on that matter.  Ford and Virginia Senate candidate James Webb are pretty much the only two Democrats that have specifically outlined their proposals for Iraq.  Ford is calling for the country to be divided up, giving each of the three regions a large degree of political autonomy:

“Give each regional autonomy and help to create a central government with authority over the borders and the ability to divide the oil revenue up equitably,” Ford said in his Oct. 10 debate with Corker.

Agree with the proposal or not, it is still a specific plan, which Republican Bob Corker has yet to formulate.  All of this comes as 87 U.S. soldiers have been killed so far this month in Iraq, on pace to be the deadliest month since the war began three and a half years ago.