Newswise — U.S. Rep. Harold Ford, Jr., Democrat from Memphis, stands to become the fourth black U.S. Senator since Reconstruction if he wins election in the U.S. Senate race in Tennessee this November in a race against businessman and former Chattanooga Mayor Bob Corker. Both political parties have poured major financial resources into the race in an effort to achieve victory.
"This promises to be a very close race, and one that has attracted national attention," says Timothy S. Huebner, associate professor of history at Rhodes College in Memphis. "This is by far the most hotly contested race in the South. It's been a dozen years since a Democrat has held a Senate seat from Tennessee, and the climate of the South has become distinctly more conservative since then. As a moderate, Congressman Ford has earned the respect of many throughout the state; he has been making recent inroads into the more conservative parts of the state as the election nears. On the other hand, Bob Corker, a Republican and his main challenger, is credited with the successful revitalization of Chattanooga during his tenure as mayor. Corker has already started to attack Ford, and this is surely a bellwether of what we can expect in the final days of this very tight and decisive campaign."
Timothy Huebner can discuss the following topics:
-The history of Southern politics -Tennessee political history -Key issues in '06 Tennessee Senate race
Timothy S. Huebner, associate professor of history at Rhodes College in Memphis, specializes in the history of the American South and United States constitutional and legal history. He is the author of The Southern Judicial Tradition: State Judges and Sectional Distinctiveness 1790-1890 (1999) and The Taney Court: Justices, Rulings, Legacy (2003). He is currently writing an undergraduate textbook on the Civil War and Reconstruction period. He also serves as director of the Rhodes Institute for Regional Studies.
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