Harold E. Ford, Jr., born May 11, 1970, spent a decade as a member of the United States House of Representatives and was a 2006 Senate candidate. Described by President Clinton as "the walking, living embodiment of where America ought to go in the 21st century," U. S. Representative Harold Ford, Jr. (D-Tenn.) has distinguished himself as a charismatic, results-oriented politician with fresh ideas and a pragmatic approach.
Elected in 1996 to Tennessee's 9th congressional district, Ford was re-elected four times by an average of 80 percent of the vote. He built a reputation on Capitol Hill as a consensus builder while serving on the House Budget Committee, the House Committee on Financial Services and the House Committee on Education and the Workforce.
Known to his colleagues as a fiscal watchdog conservative, Ford played an active role as a member of the Blue Dog Coalition, a group of moderate and fiscally conservative Democrats seeking middle-ground, bipartisan answers to the current challenges facing our Country. While in Congress, he was also a member of the New Democrat Coalition, and the Congressional Black Caucus, as well as co-chaired the Congressional Savings and Ownership Caucus and the Community Solutions and Initiatives Caucus, an organization to help faith and community based groups solve social challenges.
With American troops fighting in Iraq, Afghanistan, and in the global war on terror, Congressman Ford believes national security is a top priority. As a member of the Department of Defense's Transformation Advisory Group, he helped to advise the Pentagon on developing a new organizational framework to defend the country and our future.
A gifted speaker and accomplished writer; Ford was the keynote speaker for the 2000 Democratic National Convention, and a frequent guest on popular news and political commentary television. He is the author of Tomorrow's Patriots, a political memoir detailing his forward looking ideas and vision for our country, and his op-eds have been featured in many Tennessee and national publications.
In 2006, Ford lost the closest Senate race in Tennessee's history to Republican Bob Corker, by less than three percentage points. Recently, he was appointed visiting professor of public policy at Vanderbilt University and will teach a class on American political leadership.
Ford received his law degree from the University of Michigan Law School in 1996 and earned a bachelors degree in American history from the University of Pennsylvania in 1992. In 1992, he also served as a staff aide to the U.S. Senate Committee on the Budget and then as a special assistant in 1993 at the U.S. Department of Commerce.
