In her most seductive voice, the strawberry blonde temptress raised her hands to her ears to mimic a telephone and purred, "Harold, call me."

The image closed one of the most controversial political ads ever made -- one that likely snatched the 2006 Senate race in Tennessee from former U.S. Rep. Harold Ford Jr.

That was the last time we saw Ford, 39, on the national political scene, but it might not be the last.

Now, three years after becoming chairman of the Democratic Leadership Council, getting married, taking a job at Merrill Lynch and moving to New York City, Ford is making noise about taking on rookie New York Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand in the Democratic primary.

The telegenic son of a politically prominent Tennessee family, Ford promises to shake up the New York political landscape if he were to run.

While representing Memphis in the House from 1997 to 2007, Ford was more conservative than most black members of the Congressional Black Caucus, voicing opposition to gay marriage and abortion (under some circumstances).

Those positions might cause problems for Ford with the liberal electorate of New York City. In his first run for statewide office in Tennessee, Ford was locked in a tight race with Republican Bob Corker.

The seat was targeted by the Republican National Committee, which bankrolled an ad that included a wriggling white blonde woman gushing about how she'd met Ford, a bachelor at the time, at "the Playboy party."

The spot ended with the winking blonde whispering the above demand and began an angry debate over whether the ad exploited racist fears among some about race-mixing between black men and white women.

Ford narrowly lost.