Young, black, and good-looking, Harold Ford is the kind of comer that the Democratic Party latches onto. But last November, after losing the closest Senate race in Tennessee history to Republican Bob Corker, the 10-year congressman suddenly found himself out of a job. So, many wondered, where would he end up?

Radar has learned that Ford has been offered the chairmanship of the Democratic Leadership Council, the centrist think tank founded in the mid-'80s by Al From and other New Democrats as a tool for cultivating like-minded candidates, particularly at the presidential level.

According to a draft memo that sources provided to Radar, Ford has agreed to replace Iowa Gov. Tom Vilsack as chairman of the influential organization. Vilsack, a centrist with little national name recognition, recently announced that he would run for president in 2008. After interviewing a number of high-profile candidates for the job, DLC honchos decided that Ford would be the ideal choice to run the group. In the Jan. 8 memo obtained by Radar, Ford seemed to eagerly anticipate the prospect. "I have enjoyed our conversations and am excited about becoming the Chairman of the DLC," Ford wrote to Al From, the DLC's CEO. "Your stewardship of the organization over the years has made the DLC one of the premiere Democratic think tanks."

[Full memo after the jump!]

Ford goes on to list some of the challenges facing the DLC and his thoughts on tackling them. Under the heading "Policy Agenda," he writes:

The political climate is right to introduce an agenda that will address the twin challenges of our time: global terrorism and American economic competitiveness ... I think some thought should be given to publishing a booklet similar to the 1992 'Putting People First.'

The memo also contains the surprising suggestion that the DLC is already writing off Vilsack's hopes of winning the White House in 2008 in favor of backing Hillary Clinton, another member of the group's Leadership Team. "I assume there will be an effort to help Senator Clinton's campaign, and I would support such an effort," Ford writes. "But the bottom line is that we will need a competitive candidate to endorse some or all of our policy agenda."

Spokespeople for the former congressman declined to comment, but sources in his camp insisted Ford hadn't yet sealed the deal to assume the chairmanship. They also insisted that Ford had not yet seen this draft of the memo.