McDaniel supporter has Klan past
A supporter and donor to U.S. Senate candidate Chris McDaniel’s campaign is Carl Ford, a former lawyer for and friend of Ku Klux Klan leader Sam Bowers, who died in prison after being convicted of the murder of Vernon Dahmer.
Ford, who practices law in Laurel, has donated $800 to McDaniel’s campaign, The Daily Beast reports. Over the weekend, Ford was quoted in a New York Times article as a McDaniel supporter.
Ford told The Daily Beast that he also supported incumbent U.S. Sen. Thad Cochran in 1978, in his first campaign for the Senate.
Ford has been reported to have been active in the Klan in the 1960s, and to have helped formed a Klan group in back of a newsstand he owned, according to a book by Curtis Wilkie.
The McDaniel campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment about Ford on Tuesday.
Cochran campaign spokesman Jordan Russell said: “This is not an isolated incident, it is part of a pattern of behavior and associations by Chris McDaniel that all Mississippians should find deeply troubling. Thad Cochran has always represented the best of Mississippi and made us proud on the national stage. The same cannot be said of Chris McDaniel.”
Clarion Ledger
6/17/14
Magnolia Tribune
