John Geer and Jimmie Franklin are kindred spirits.

The two men are “new South” Tennesseans. Geer, a political scientist, is white. Franklin, a retired historian, is black. Like many others in their region of the country, they want to distance themselves from the South’s ugly past. But they worry that the sexually suggestive attack ad targeting Democrat Harold Ford Jr.’s Senate campaign will make that goal harder to reach.

Ford is black and the scion of Tennessee’s most politically prominent black family. He’s in a tight race with Republican Bob Corker for the Senate seat being vacated by Majority Leader Bill Frist. And this race may have been influenced by a television ad funded by the Republican National Committee.

In that ad, a scantily clad white woman says she met Ford at a party hosted by Playboy at the 2005 Super Bowl. Then, as the ad closes, this fictitious character says with a salacious wink, “Harold, call me.”

Geer and Franklin worry that this 30-second spot, which has been pulled from the airwaves, was a not-too-subtle appeal to racial bigotry – and might undo years of racial progress in Tennessee. I worry that it signals a resistance to change that is much more far-reaching.

“Is the ad playing the race card?” Geer asked. “I certainly believe that it is.”

He should know. Geer is an expert on the use of negative advertising in political campaigns.

Negative ads are “dangerous to the well-being of our society,” Geer wrote in his recent book, “In Defense of Negativity: Attack Ads in Presidential Campaigns.” That publication has made Geer one of the “go to” guys for journalists reporting on the use of mean-spirited ads in this year’s midterm elections.

Franklin doesn’t have Geer’s platform. A former president of the Southern Historical Association, he relies on e-mail, not the press, to disseminate his views on the attack ad used against Ford.

“I am fully aware that I am more sensitive on this racial matter than most,” Franklin said in an e-mail to friends. “But my views are grounded in what I know about the recent political history of the American South. I hope I am dead wrong, for if I am we would have come a long way toward getting beyond the narrowness of race in Southern life.”

The outcome of the election contest between Ford and Corker could determine whether the GOP retains control of the Senate. So the Tennessee Senate race is getting a lot of attention far beyond the borders of the Volunteer State.

If Ford wins, he would become the first black from the South to be elected to a Senate seat since Reconstruction. And a victory would make him the second black to win election to the Senate since 2004, when Barack Obama won an Illinois Senate seat. Already, Obama is being touted as a serious contender for the Democratic Party’s presidential nomination in 2008.

“If Harold Ford can win, it might bode good things for Obama,” Geer said. Maybe.

But if Ford is defeated due to the GOP’s race-baiting attack ad, that could have implications far beyond the next presidential election.

“I think they’re playing with fire. We’re not out of the woods yet when it comes to race,” Franklin said of the effect the ad could have on the Tennessee Senate campaign.

By the middle of this century, minorities are expected to comprise a majority of this nation’s population.

How this transition will affect America’s body politic will depend largely on the willingness of white voters now to ignore such racist appeals.