A New-Model Ford

The most audacious campaign ad of this topsy-turvy political year is set in the sanctuary of the Mt. Moriah East Baptist Church in Memphis. With a praise song swelling in the background, the camera pans down from sunlit stained-glass windows to a dapper young man striding thoughtfully up the aisle and flashing a Hollywood smile as he says, I started church the old-fashioned way--I was forced to. And I'm better for it.... Here, I learned the difference between right and wrong. But now, he says solemnly, his opponent is doing wrong, telling untruths about...me. He sits in a pew and leans forward prayerfully. With a huge red tapestry with a white cross perfectly positioned over his right shoulder, he dead-eyes the camera and corrects the record. I voted for the Patriot Act, five trillion in defense, and against amnesty for illegals. I approved this message because I won't let them make me somebody I'm not. And I'll always fight for you.

While militant God-talk has long been a staple of Republican campaigns, shooting ads inside the Lord's house has been considered off-limits. But that wasn't the biggest source of surprise when Tennesseans started seeing the now-famous church ad in September. The candidate exploiting his faith was a Democrat--Harold Ford Jr., the 36-year-old Congressman from Memphis. Once considered a quixotic long shot to fill the US Senate seat left vacant by Republican majority leader Bill Frist, Ford has risen from a double-digit deficit in the polls to draw even with former Chattanooga Mayor Bob Corker, a moderately conservative multimillionaire with all the charisma of a tree stump. Ford could deliver the Democrats a majority in the Senate by becoming just the fourth African-American ever elected to that chamber by popular vote, and the first from the South.