AFTER CAMPAIGN FEATURING KKK AD, VOTERS IN TENN. WILL PICK DEMOCRATIC CONGRESSIONAL CANDIDATE
By Woody Baird

Newsday
s/wire/sns-ap-tennessee-primary,0,139703.story
Aug 7 2008
NY

MEMPHIS, Tenn. (AP) _ After a racially charged Democratic primary
campaign that turned particularly ugly in its final days, voters
were to decide Thursday between a Jewish incumbent congressman and
a black opponent who ran a television ad juxtaposing photos of him
and a hooded Ku Klux Klan member.

Democrat Steve Cohen is the first white congressman from Memphis
in more than three decades and one of only two white congressmen
representing a majority black district.

The ad was run by his chief opponent, Nikki Tinker, a corporate
lawyer whose supporters argue the 9th District in Memphis should be
represented by a black candidate.

Low turnout was predicted for the primary, which will likely decide the
next congressman in the heavily Democratic district that has returned
incumbents to the House since 1974. The district is 60 percent black
and 35 percent white, and Cohen won his first term after a 2006 primary
in which a dozen black candidates, including Tinker, split the vote.

Tinker said her ad linking Cohen to the KKK for opposing a 2005 effort
to remove a statue of Confederate Gen. Nathan Bedford Forrest from a
downtown park "merely states the facts. I think the nation needs to
know Steve Cohen’s complete record."

The ad, which ran in the campaign’s final days, drew condemnation
Thursday from Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama. It
juxtaposed pictures of a statue of Forrest, the founder of the KKK,
and a hooded Klansman in front of a burning cross while asking,
"Who is the real Steve Cohen?"

"These incendiary and personal attacks have no place in our politics,
and will do nothing to help the good people of Tennessee," Obama said
in a statement.

Cohen, a former state senator with a long record as a civil rights
supporter, led an effort last month to get the U.S. House to issue
an unprecedented apology to black Americans for wrongs committed
against them and their ancestors who suffered under slavery and Jim
Crow segregation laws.

The ad was also incongruous because of Cohen’s religion — Jews are
another group targeted by the KKK.

John Geer, a Vanderbilt University political science professor,
said the KKK ad indicates Tinker knows her campaign is in trouble.

"Steve Cohen has been very conscious that he’s representing a black
majority district, and he’s not a member of the KKK," said Geer,
who called such tactics risky. "Voters are not fools, and they can
sort this out. They are savvy enough to figure out if the attack is
credible or not. I’d be surprised if she wins."

Another issue has been Cohen’s opposition to a House resolution
labeling the killing of Armenians in World War I as genocide. The House
Foreign Affairs Committee passed the nonbinding resolution last year
despite arguments it would anger Turkey, which allows U.S. military
shipments headed for Iraq to cross its borders.

During a news conference at Cohen’s home Wednesday to call Tinker’s ad
an act of desperation, a cameraman who identified himself as working
for an Armenian-American citizens’ group interrupted. Cohen pushed
the man, Peter Musurlian of Glendale, Calif., out of his house and
called police.

Musurlian said his group supports Tinker because of Cohen’s opposition
to the genocide resolution. The district does not have a large
Armenian population.

In other primary races Thursday, former state Democratic Party Chairman
Bob Tuke and former Knox County Clerk Mike Padgett have been the
most active candidates for the Democratic nomination to challenge
Republican Sen. Lamar Alexander.

Neither has managed to drum up much campaign cash or public attention,
and yet both argue that Alexander is out of touch with Tennesseans
and ripe to be picked off.

In the state’s other major congressional primary, in the solidly
Republican 1st District in northeastern Tennessee, Republican
Rep. David Davis is being challenged by Johnson City Mayor Phil
Roe. The campaign heated up toward the end, moving from joint stump
appearances to negative ads.

Tennessee’s other four congressional incumbents faced no primary
opposition — Republican John Duncan of the 2nd District, and
Democrats Jim Cooper of the 5th, Bart Gordon of the 6th and John
Tanner of the 8th.

Republican Marsha Blackburn faced challenger Tom Leatherwood in the
7th District, while Republican Zach Wamp in the 3rd District and
Democrat Lincoln Davis in the 4th District faced only token opposition.