You are dead wrong, backwards wrong on many points.

Some big name wingnut media personalities may want Clinton to win because their base really despises her. It'll be more fun criticizing Clinton and over the top misogenist comments don't get you in nearly as much trouble as over the top racist comments. Saying Hillary Clinton pimped out Chelsea gets you a two week suspension. Say that about Michele Obama and getting fired is only a minor part of your punishment.

The RNC and the experts in the Republican party, however, desperately want to run against Obama. That's why national repubs went absolutely ballistic over the Willie Horton ad the N.C. repubs wanted to run to help local candidates' fundraising.

When local repub candidates want to attack their local democratic opponent (see the Mississippi ad) by connecting him/her to a Democratic bogeyman, they use Obama not Clinton. Now for us progressives taking the wingnut bogeyman mantle from its long time holder, Ted Kennedy, is a badge of honor. It is, however, indicative of who the repubs think is going to be easiest to paint into the McGovern, Dukakis, Kennedy, ultra-liberalist corner.

As for Ford, the "wink" ads helped him rather than hurt him. Tennessee is a very red state. Republicans have won every senate race by huge margins. Thompson won two terms without even doing any real campaigning even when he ran against a Democratic incumbent (and seemed to think he could win the presidency the same way). Gore couldn't even carry his own state.

Race relations are better in Tennessee than anywhere else in the country except possibly for Kentucky and the Pacific Northwest. I've lived in several places in California, Vegas and four or five places in the South, but I've never seen as much free socialization as there is in Tennessee. You see blacks and whites freely congregating at every bar, poolhall, private gambling club, cockfighting pit and country club (I'm exaggerating a little; I've never actually been in a country club.) in ways that you would never see in Northern parts of the county. Our students are overwhelming instate, but black athletes from the North or from other Southern states have commented on it. Foreign professors have noticed how much better race relations are and how much less xenophobia there is here.

And people in Tennessee don't like racists. There was a Klu Klux Klan rally a few years ago in a town called Newport that attracted a lot of media attention. When the media came to town they were shocked that the mayor of an 80% white city was African American. When I talked to him before an ED meeting about a year later, he laughed and said, "They were so disappointed that I was black. I ruined their story by telling that 'Nobody takes them seriously. Our biggest problem was keeping other people from beating them up or throwing stones at em.'"

That Ford came as close as he did is really amazing. Gore lost 54-46, Kerry worse, but Ford came within an eyelash of winning. He was never ahead, but he was close and trending positive. He was down 53-47ish (in itself a remarkable figure) a couple weeks before the election and almost won. The most surprising thing was that Ford did remarkably well in the reddest areas (Eastern, mountainous regions) where the percentage of African Americans is lowest.

You, Tweety and the MSM are wrong about the effect of the Wink ad. It was used sporadically over a period of weeks. Though polls fluctuated of course, the 04 elections was remarkable in that most people made up their minds early on. There weren't many uncommitted or independent voters sitting on the fence. There wasn't any momentum stopper or game changer in the Ford-Corker race. That just never happened.