This week’s coup: getting a picture of Tennessee Senate candidate Bob Corker’s daughter Julia making out with another girl into the Memphis Commercial Appeal. Now we’re just working on getting Pierce Bush and Leslie Cochran into a Frank Rich column. MORE »

The Tennessee Senate race between Democrat Harold Ford and Republican Bob Corker is really damn close. Ford, unmarried, does have a bit of a thing for white girls. But because both candidates are pretending that this is about Iraq or some other bullshit like that, Corker has to pretend to “distance” himself from ads like the one above, in which, yes, the terrifying spectre of Harold Ford cavorting with dangerously pale models and strippers is suggested — briefly, but a little too obviously.

Ford responded by crashing Corker’s press conference, which is pretty cool. Ford was ostensibly upset because of Corker’s ad trashing Ford’s family (which painted the other Fords as somehow lazy gadabouts and hard-working corrupt lobbyists). Because everyone’s more comfortable talking about the suggestion of familial impropriety than the race-baiting thing, we’ll compare the Ford and Corker families’ embarrassment potential after the jump.

MORE »