Bob Corker’s two-term career as a Republican senator from Tennessee ended Thursday with the swearing in of his successor, Marsha Blackburn. While Corker was one of the few members of the GOP who has publicly attacked Donald Trump, he was frequently criticized for hypocrisy for failing to take any meaningful actions to restrain the president. Such judgements are fundamentally unfair to Corker. He’s acted like this his entire career, not just regarding Trump. Most notably, Corker occasionally murmured about the Republican Party’s most blatant appeals to racism, while doing nothing about it with his power as a senator. This is particularly maddening or hilarious or both because he was elected to the Senate in the first place with the help of a notoriously racist ad. Corker, previously the mayor of Chattanooga, Tennessee, defeated Rep. Harold Ford Jr. in 2006. It was a big year for Democrats: They won 22 out of 33 Senate races, with Republicans taking just nine. In addition, the other two victors — the sole candidate from the Connecticut for Lieberman Party, plus a white-haired independent curmudgeon from Vermont — both caucused with the Democrats. This tipped control of the Senate back into their hands. The blue wave was so big that Corker was the only nonincumbent Republican who won that year. And he almost didn’t pull it off: Ford was from a prominent African-American political family in Memphis, the son of a U.S. representative and the nephew of a state senator. Of the seven polls from the first half of the October prior to the election, Ford was ahead in five, often by significant margins, and tied in one. In the end, Corker won by just 50,000 votes out of 1.8 million cast, or 2.7 percent. What turned it around for him? It’s impossible to be sure of anything in politics, of course. But this ad aired in Tennessee during the second half of October. See if you can spot the extremely subtle racial messaging:

In case you missed it, the ad includes a blond white woman exclaiming, “I met Harold at the Playboy party!” and then winking and whispering, “Harold … call me.” The spot was paid for by the Republican National Committee and produced by Scott Howell, a former employee of Karl Rove. Howell had previously come up with an ad for Sen. Tom Coburn that accused his opponent of mollycoddling welfare recipients, over footage showing the hands of someone black counting money. Corker complained mildly about the ad, calling it “tacky” and “over the top,” and saying it “does not reflect the kind of campaign that we are running.” It was eventually pulled and replaced in most of the state. The holdout was one of Chattanooga’s stations, because it found the new ad even worse: The replacement cheerily explained that Ford “wants to give the abortion pill to our schoolchildren.” Fast-forward 12 years and two senatorial terms to 2018. Corker was retiring, and Blackburn was the GOP nominee for the seat. The Democratic candidate, Phil Bredesen, was close or ahead in several September and early October polls. Then in late October, Blackburn ran this ad about the so-called caravan of refugees headed to the U.S. via Mexico. Again, try to figure out — as the narrator describes the refugees as “gang members … known criminals … people from the Middle East … possibly even terrorists!” — if there’s some kind of racial angle here:

Just as in 2006, Corker was against this vile fear-mongering. He even went so far as to say, “To make pejorative statements about all of them … I don’t approve of that.” Corker received praise from the Washington Post for his bold stand. Then, just as in 2006, the character supported by the grisly, pandering ads won. Sadly, during the decade-plus bookended by these two ads, Corker’s concerned frowns did not translate into any meaningful legislation or leadership.