Cohen Warns Conservatives Using ‘Purely Overt Racist Approach’ To Attack Rep. Ford

A new right-wing ad targeting African-American Rep. Harold Ford (D-TN), who is running for Senate in Tennessee, features “a scantily clad white woman winking and inviting [Ford] to ‘call me.’” The woman “speaks in a hushed, suggestive tone and says that she met Ford at ‘the Playboy party.’”

Yesterday on CNN, former Republican senator and Defense Secretary William Cohen called the ad a “very serious appeal to a racist sentiment” and said it reminded him “of what happened in North Carolina with Harvey Gantt, a purely overt racist approach.” Watch it:

Some history on Harvey Gantt:

In 1990, locked in a tight race with an African American Democrat, former Charlotte mayor Harvey Gantt, [Sen. Jesse] Helms aired a final-week TV ad that showed a pair of white hands crumpling a rejection letter, while an announcer said, “You needed that job and you were the best qualified. But they had to give it to a minority because of a racial quota.”

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Full transcript:

COHEN: I think the Republicans have to be careful, also, in terms of not engaging in conduct. And I was watching the — the Tennessee race, specifically. It reminded me of what happened in North Carolina with Harvey Gantt, a purely overt racist approach.

BLITZER: You are talking about the new RNC ad which has this white woman talking about Playboy and the — the African-American candidate, Harold Ford Jr., the Democratic candidate.

(CROSSTALK)

COHEN: It’s — to me, at least as I watch that, is a very serious appeal to a racist sentiment.

And when the question is always asked, why — he would be the first African-American since Reconstruction elected to the Senate, you say, well, why is that the case? So, why is the South different? Why would they not elect someone…

BLITZER: So, you’re a former Republican senator. Is the RNC playing the racial card against Harold Ford in Tennessee right now?

COHEN: I think they are coming very close to it, if not doing it exactly. And I think they ought to stop it. I think that they have a candidate, and discuss the — the issues on the merits, and not get into that kind of personal type of an attack.