Betsy Phillips at Pith In The Wind gives New Yorkers a comparison to look at when it comes to Harold Ford Jr.

New York, it’s like this. Imagine you were dating a brash, handsome, charming fellow from Memphis, delightful in every way. You’re starting to really fall in love.

And so you asked him about his last relationship. He tells you he has an ex-wife. A doozy of an ex-wife. As he tells it, she’s racist, homophobic, backwards, just a real redneck. So terrible that he even hates her pastor.

OK, fine. We all sometimes let our hearts (or regions farther down) lead us places our brain knows better than to go.

But after he’s gone on and on about what a terrible, terrible trip his ex-wife is, let’s say that you Google her. And you discover that he asked her to marry him again right after they got divorced (or in our case, that he ran for senator after deciding he didn’t want to be our representative any more). AND that he was considering proposing yet a third time (or entertaining the idea of running for governor) right as the two of you were starting to date.

Wouldn’t that start to throw up some red flags about him?

One thing I know for sure about HFJ is that he won’t ever serve in elected office in this state every again.