FIRST PERSON

Harold Ford on His 2000 Keynote Address

As told to James A. Barnes

Sunday, Aug. 24, 2008


I was nervous right when I first walked out on stage, but once I got to the podium, I wasn't. It was the first time I had given a speech of that magnitude. I'd never spoken other than on a local television station back in my district and had been on some of the cable shows. It was obviously a huge audience. I was really more nervous because I didn't want to let Al Gore down. He'd given me this great chance. As I thought more and more about him, I wanted to make sure that I tried to live up to the occasion.

Once I got to the podium and I saw the Tennessee delegation, which as you can imagine, because it was Gore's convention, was right in the front, ... I recognized faces right away, and the cheering was coming from them in big waves, so it made it a lot easier to relax and get into the speech. There was a line intended early in the speech to gain some applause right at the beginning, and it did. And once that happened, the rest of it just kind of flowed. I just remember getting very comfortable.

I think the speech that some had in mind for me to give was a little more of a civil-rights speech. When I say "civil rights," I really mean kind of their version of civil rights, a little too much of a race component to it, which had never been my politics. Any time you give a speech at that level, there are always ideas that some in the campaign, some in the convention, have. But we worked through all those issues.
Having gone over the speech 20 times before, I knew it. And when I ended, it felt great.

When I walked off the stage, I was more concerned with Gore. I wanted to make sure he liked it. He called about two hours after the speech, once we got over to a party my dad had organized. He called me on my cellphone and had very nice things to say. So that was a big relief. That's what I was waiting on and waiting on and waiting on.

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