This just gets better and better:
When it comes to his shadow run for Senate, Harold Ford is a New Yorker through and through. When it comes to paying taxes, though, he’s still a Tennessean — he’s never filed a New York return.
Ford claims to have moved to New York three years ago, and says paying “New York taxes” makes him a New Yorker. But his spokeswoman confirms to Gawker that he’s never filed a New York tax return — meaning that he’s never paid New York’s income tax, despite keeping an office and a residence in New York City as a vice chairman of Merrill Lynch since 2007: “He pays New York taxes and will file a New York tax return in April for the first time,” Ford’s spokeswoman Tammy Sun told Gawker. “He will file all necessary personal disclosure and tax forms that candidates are required to file if he chooses to run.” (According to Sun, Ford admitted to the tax dodge yesterday at a press availability in Albany, but we can’t find any news accounts mentioning the remarks.)
The best thin about the Harold Ford nonsense about challenging Gillibrand is that now, outside of Tennessee and in a major media market, he is being exposed for the fraud and bullshit artist that he is. Sure, his rumblings about running may be irritating, but hopefully he will be so damaged it will be at least 4 years before Scarborough and company are able to fluff his reputation back.
And again, the way we know that Harold Ford really and truly sucks? Like Evan Bayh, he was a Democrat who I thought was ok when I was in full koolaid mode.
And my deep apologies for that video. Well. Not really.
Derelict
To the best of my knowledge, failure to file tax returns in New York when you actually earn an income there (even if you’re a resident of another state) is a FELONY.
Hope Harold has fun running his campaign from behind bars.
robertdsc
What a fuckup.
Lee Hartmann
John, that video was awesome. hope you are feeling better.
JK
Harold Ford is so yesterday’s news
Mortimer Zuckerman is now mulling a run against Kirsten Gillibrand
h/t http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/13/nyregion/13mort.html?partner=rss&emc=rss
Lev
Sorry, but I can’t accept your premise.
Evan Bayh is not too bright and plenty annoying, but on almost every big-ticket item he winds up sticking with the Dems.
Harold Ford, um, doesn’t.
Not to mention that Indiana would be a tough lift for anyone other than Bayh. I know who my preference would be.
Surreal American
It’s not too late for him to buy a pickup truck, though.
Stooleo
Maybe he’ll be joining his uncle John Ford. Seems to run in the family.
Violet
That video is teh awesome! I’ve never seen that before. Hilarious.
Harold Ford is a serious douchenozzle. It’s great fun watching him implode on a national level. I kind of hope he gets caught up in some sort of failure-to-pay-taxes quagmire. It’ll be fun to watch him try to talk his way out of that.
jl
Too bad Barney Fife is gone. Was he a Democrat? Nice to run a guy like Barney. The ‘nip it in the bud’ stuff would go down very well with the Very Serious People. He could get thousands of Sunday talkies out of that. McCain and Lieberman would be just cold dropped out the lineup.
Thanks for the video. An apology for it was very appropriate and I appreciate it, but thanks anyway.
Lev
Speaking of Harold Ford, did anyone see his debate with Michael Steele? Is it worth seeking out?
John Cole
@Violet: and @Lee Hartmann: I’ve been saving that video for months for just the right moment.
Violet
@John Cole:
Well timed, sir.
BruinKid
Oh no, there’s been a shooting at the University of Alabama at Huntsville. It looks like 3 biology faculty are dead, 3 others wounded, after a professor was denied tenure.
Already in the comments section of the CNN article are right-wingers saying that on RateMyProfessor, some students had called her a “socialist”, so get ready for Malkin/Republicans/Fox News to politicize this tragedy in 3… 2… 1………
Oscar Leroy
Helicopter Harold should just fly over the IRS. That would be good enough!
Cain
You know, if I had that option and I was a greedy sumbitch I probably would have done it too. I mean who wants to pay New York’s taxes eh? I wonder how many people thought “shit, why didn’t I think of that?”
hah.
cain
General Winfield Stuck
I youst to like Harold, but then I was also an Edwards supporter
Prattlehorn
Are you saying that Ford’s selfish grifterness disqualify him for cable talk shows?
Who’s being naive, Kay?
Mike Kay
@Prattlehorn:
I can see it now: Hannity and Ford
kay
@General Winfield Stuck:
He bores me a little, so I’m sad. I can’t even make fun of him. He’s just a big nothing phony. I’m bored with Palin, too. Where is he from, again?
We need a new jerk. Someone with some heft.
I’m going to wait for Lynne Cheney.
Mike Kay
@General Winfield Stuck:
Digya hear Edward proposed marriage to Rielle Hunter!
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/02/10/john-edwards-proposes-ask_n_457045.html
To paraphrase John Mayer, Rielle’s pussy must be like sexual napalm.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/02/10/john-mayer-jessica-simpso_n_456566.html
Mike Kay
@General Winfield Stuck:
Digya hear Edward proposed marriage to Rielle Hunter!
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/02/10/john-edwards-proposes-ask_n_457045.html
To paraphrase John Mayer, Rielle’s snatch must be like sexual napalm.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/02/10/john-mayer-jessica-simpso_n_456566.html
General Winfield Stuck
@Mike Kay: I just want to see the sex tape, just to make sure it’s all true, of course./
Bad Horse's Filly
Never any need to apologize for a good Barney Fife vid, Mr. Cole.
Randy G
One of the few things I regret from the 2006 election season was donating to that felonious jackass’s Senatorial campaign.
Dan Robinson
Both Harold Ford and Michael Steele think that they can get elected because they are black. Steele is trying to raise his profile nationally and use that to launch a run for president in 2016.
Mike Kay
@Dan Robinson:
President? Of which country?
eemom
people who have seen the video say that Edwards has a great, big……..ego.
Comrade Mary
Aw, great Barney vid. I’ll be good and hold off on posting a smutty Canadian version.
Tax Analyst
@Derelict:
Pretty much, at least if they can show it was WILLFUL. If not there are still penalties and interest. I guess it’s possible a former Member of the House wouldn’t be smart enough to be aware of their Income Tax filing requirements, and we are, after all, talking about Harold Ford here.
This should really boost his NY Senatorial run. I’m sure the rank and file voter who has been regularly paying their rather high NY State Income Taxes all these years would be thrilled to pull the lever for someone hasn’t been carrying his share of the load and wouldn’t have bothered if no one had brought it up.
Mike Kay
@eemom:
I was surprised to hear that, considering he grew up in a small town.
mr. whipple
Most awesomest campaign rollout ever.
What a douchbag.
gogol's wife
The video is fantastic.
mr. whipple
@eemom:
There is really a video? I thought that was a joke.
Jim
How long (if at all?) did Hillary pay NYS taxes before her run in 2000? Ford is a worthless douche regardless of whether or not he paid any NYS income tax. This is fun and all, but let’s not act like carpetbagging is new to this particular seat.
Skepticat
Well, Willard was a resident of Utah when he ran for governor here in Massachusetts.
Chad N Freude
Re the video (which is beyond hilarious): What do you suppose is the significance of the photograph of Rock Hudson at 40 seconds in?
Chad N Freude
@Mike Kay: Berzerkistan.
Warren Terra
@Jim:
You’re conflating two issues, carpetbagging and tax paying.
Hillary probably didn’t pay NYS taxes prior to her run, on the grounds that she neither lived in New York nor earned money there. Whether someone with so few ties to the state should be allowed to run there is an interesting question, but it’s a question about carpetbagging.
Ford both lived in New York and earned money there. That makes his nonpayment of taxes an issue separate from his carpetbagging. Indeed, he’s actually spent a few years in NEw York State, so would be much less a carpetbagger than was Hillary – if apparently infinitely more of a felon.
Chad N Freude
@Mike Kay:
Fixed, by the liberal PC Language Police
Quaker in a Basement
That video needs a re-edit with this from the B-52’s.
Warren Terra
In case readers are in a situation similar to what I often am when I’m reading on my phone (an oldish Samsung, and less of a Smartphone than a Moderately Intelligent Phone), and can’t see plug-ins but can follow direct links to YouTube videos (that then play via YouTube Mobile), here’s a direct link to the video.
Faux News
Maryland.
josefina
Memphis is about as corrupt as New Orleans but a lot less flamboyant. Boss Crump ran the city for the first 50 years of the 20th century, and the Fords were his lackeys.
Crump died in 1954. Did the Fords exercise their political power in any way that was useful to anyone other than the Fords? Nope.
When MLK was murdered fourteen years later, he was in Memphis to support this strike. [Scroll down or search for (28)—so worth it.] The strike was prompted by horrible, even lethal conditions the Fords had done sweet fuck-all to correct.
I’ll vote for Harold Ford right after I purchase Genital Cosmetic Colorant.
rikyrah
keep on researching Ford.
he STILL hasn’t answered the very simple question:
Harold, did you or did you not, receive a GOVERNMENT FUNDED BONUS while at Merrill Lynch?
simple question – yes or no.
AnotherBruce
Ah you youngsters who are new to Fife Filosofy. It’s kinda touching. Barney was both behind and ahead of his time. No easy feat.
Quiddity
But Harold Ford is such a nice, polite young man. Surely he would be a good senator. Good posture, crisp haircut. What’s not to like?
bob h
I have friends who divide their time between Arizona in the Winter and Manhattan in the Summer. New York State offers a better deal on income tax, so they are very careful to spend exactly 6 months + 1 day there, with airplane tickets to prove it, when the inevitable tax audits are done.
If Ford has been spending more than 6 months in New York without filing taxes, he is guilty of income tax evasion. This could and should kill his Senate effort.
sheiler
My siblings and mother and I used to call each other and quote Andy Griffith show lines and then hang up. We loved that show. For mother’s day one year I sent my mom some flowers with the note: “Barney’s in jail.” She called me back and said that that episode had played that day.
Thanks for the memories.
I supported Harold Ford in the psychological way that I do when I want the Republican in the same race to lose. I thought the ads against Ford in the Tennessee race were sleazy and despicable. But I never once thought of him as a candidate (no matter what state he wanted to represent) that I would actually give money to, or support in any meaningful sense.
dino goposaur
Wait ’till they find out he tried to get a Ham and Swiss from Katz’s.
Anonymous At Work
John,
Harold Ford in Tennenessee was the Democrat you voted for so that Democrats in general had more committee seats in the Senate. If you weren’t voting in Tennenessee, just don’t vote for him. But the type of Blue-Dog Southern Democrat just doesn’t fly outside the South.
Will
I’m far more concerned about the possibility of billionaire media mogul Mort Zuckerman entering the NY Senate race:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/13/nyregion/13mort.html?hp
The guy is a complete asshole. A self-described “Democrat” who campaigned for Bush in 2004 and McCain in 2008. He has unlimited pockets like Bloomberg. Luckily, he has none of the likeability and/or people-skills.
But still. He’s a threat. A douchebag threat.
CalD
Oh, Ford’s probably harmless. I really think he’s just comic relief at this point.
Death Panel Truck
@sheiler:
Fave Fife quote:
Dave
I mean, let’s be honest. No one could have known that he was this much of a wanker. I knew he was the political version of a “trust fund” baby, and that he enjoyed tacking right, but didn’t really have a problem with him, especially in Tennessee. In fact, I thought he had a decent future in politics. Who could have known he would be such a buffoon?
mandarama
Harold Ford and John Edwards in the same thread…it’s like a Douchebag Gold Medal Competition!
Phoebe
That video made my day/month/year. God.