Joshua Malbin

So demonstrateth Harold Ford in his op-ed declaring his noncandidacy for the Senate in New York. Why isn’t he running? Of course it has nothing to do with not paying taxes in New York until this year, or the fact that he’s now an average of 20 points back in the primary. No, he’s just being a good party soldier.

If I run, the likely result would be a brutal and highly negative Democratic primary — a primary where the winner emerges weakened and the Republican strengthened.

I refuse to do anything that would help Republicans win a Senate seat in New York, and give the Senate majority to the Republicans.

It only makes sense, therefore, to pen a bitter op-ed in the nation’s leading newspaper that takes as many shots as possible at the current Democratic officeholder and the state Democratic party. Nothing says “I refuse to do anything that would help Republicans win a Senate seat in New York” better than, oh:

…The party bosses who tried to intimidate me so that I wouldn’t even think about running against Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, who had been appointed to the seat by Gov. David A. Paterson, are the same people responsible for putting Democratic control of the Senate at risk… Too few in the Democratic Party are really willing to break with orthodoxy to meet these challenges. …Voting for health care legislation that imposes billions in new taxes on New Yorkers and restricts federal financing for abortions is not good for the people of this state. Voting against critical funds necessary to ensure the survival of the financial services industry — the economic backbone of this state — is not good for the people of New York.

Who could be so delusional as to think that standing up for banks and stopping health care reform is Democrats’ best chance for retaining the Senate in November?

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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…

Ford presumably decided that his real home was Tennessee, which conveniently has no income tax. Which means that, despite the fact that New York law requires part-time and nonresidents to pay income tax on money they earn in the state, Ford has shielded his entire Merrill Lynch salary from New York’s tax collectors for the past three years.

Even before this latest carpetbaggery revelation, the guy was averaging over 18 points behind Gillibrand in primary polling. Apart from his being buddies with Mike Bloomberg, is there any reason to take him remotely seriously as a candidate? Who pulls this kind of easily discovered stupid crap and thinks he can win? WTF?

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