The Cupboard Is Bare Ford declines to run, as expected, and the Democrats may have to do without. by JACKSON BAKER McCain Supporters (L - R): Jim Lawrence, Bob Patterson, Denise Jeanette, Kathleen Manning-Mitchell, and Arnold Weiner This weekend's announcement by U.S. Rep. Harold Ford Jr. that he won't take on U.S. Senator Bill Frist this year means, in effect, that no Democrat of currently active substance will oppose the GOP incumbent in 2000. So dire has the Democrats' predicament become that, according to state party chairman Doug Horne, even veteran maverick John Jay Hooker, who was virtually announced for the Senate and is independent of party discipline, has implored Horne to find somebody else. "John Jay practically begged me to get somebody to run," Horne said at a recent state party fund-raiser at the home of prominent Memphis Democrat Bill Farris. But when reciting the names of possibilities for the Democrats in attendance at the affair, Horne had no new suggestions. In the immediate aftermath of Ford's long-expected disavowal -- which surprised observers only in its timing -- Memphis businessman John Lowery was sounded out for his availability once again by state and national party sources. Lowery had wanted to announce a race last year but waited, in deference to Rep. Ford -- whose father, former U.S. Rep. Harold Ford Sr., he had served as chief of staff. Lowery gave the new situation serious thought but has apparently decided against running on the basis that Revelation Corporation, the church-related economic cooperative he supervises, has several new business initiatives under way that require his close attention. Lowery was approached anew over the weekend, however, by Bill Fletcher, a Nashville-based political operative who is currently managing a challenge to 4th District U.S. Rep. Van Hilleary by Democratic challengerDavid Dunaway. The Memphian's response was basically that, at this late date, any Senate run would have to be heavily supported, financially and otherwise, by both the state and local parties, and he set March 24th as a drop-dead date for considering the issue, even theoretically. * A secondary topic of discussion at the recent state party fund-raiser in Memphis had been that of which Democrat might oppose 7th District U.S. Rep. Ed Bryant. A fair bet until recently had been State Senator Pete Springer of Centerville, who is in the middle of his four-year term, but Springer, though expressing confidence that issues exist to use against Bryant, said candidly that money requirements loomed too large for him to make a race. * George D. Harvell, the Millington mayor, is being talked up by some influential Shelby County Democrats as a perfect candidate to vie for the vacated District 32 state Senate seat of Tom Leatherwood, now a candidate for county assessor. The seat -- for years the bailiwick of the late State Senator Leonard Dunavant -- has been reliably Republican for decades, however. * Despite Rep. Ford's long-awaited decision to bow out of a Senate race this year, his onetime target, incumbent Frist, had no plans to limit his campaigning in 2000. Even before Ford's formal announcement, Frist had made it clear that he would run "vigorously and all-out" through the breadth and depth of Tennessee. As the Senator explained it last week, in the course of the annual Lincoln Day dinner activities in Memphis, the potentially close nature of the presidential race -- expected to be between native son Al Gore and Texas Governor George W. Bush -- requires a maximum turnout, and that means full-scale campaigning on Frist's part, even if -- as appears likely -- his only opponent turns out to be the down-at-the-heels onetime Democratic eminence Hooker. A sidebar to Frist's enthusiasm for building up the vote this year on Bush's behalf is the Senator's desire, according to friends, to figure in national politics in his own right somewhere down the line. * Win, lose, or draw in the Republican presidential primaries that are taking place this week, West Tennessee supporters of John McCain will hold a cocktail buffet-rally in the Arizona Senator's honor next Tuesday at the University Club on Central Avenue. Host Committee for the $25-a-head affair are Bob Patterson, John A. Williamson, Denise Jeanette, Robert L. Waggoner, Robert B. Snowden III, James A. Lawrence, Kathleen Manning-Mitchell, and Arnold Weiner. Many of this group joined the 25 or 30 members of McCain's state executive committee in Nashville Saturday to monitor the returns from the South Carolina primary at the state Republican headquarters on West End.