HEATED RACES IN TENNESSEE DRAW NATIONAL COVERAGE
Memphis Commercial Appeal
ug/07/heated-races-draw-national-coverage/
Aug 7 2008
TN
When polls opened at 7 a.m. in precincts throughout Shelby County,
coverage of the State and Federal Primary and County General Election
had extended to national newspapers and websites closely following
Greater Memphis’s two contested Congressional elections.
Much of the coverage focused on the 9th Congressional District
Democratic Primary, where incumbent Steve Cohen was in a rematch of
sorts with corporate lawyer Nikki Tinker in a heated campaign that
pushed to a boil in the hours before polls opened. State Rep. Joe
Towns Jr. is also on the ballot, as are two others.
The New York Times ran a 700-word story in its A section. A
well-followed Washington Post blog had this headline on a lengthy
writeup: "Tennessee Primary Gets Nasty". National political
publications like The Hill, CQ and Politico.com gave extended coverage
to the race. Cohen won the 2006 Democratic primary with 31 percent
of the vote to Tinker’s 25 percent of the vote and won the general
election to succeed 30 years of Harold Fords serving the district.
It was Politico.com that first reported, on Wednesday, that the
pro-choice feminist political action committee EMILY’s List was
distancing itself from Tinker because of two ads her campaign put
out in the campaign’s final days attacking Cohen.
"We were shocked," said the group’s director, Ellen Malcolm,
according to Politico.com. "We believe the ads are offensive and
divisive. EMILY’s List does not condone or support these types of
attacks."
MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann also weighed in Wednesday, naming Tinker as
his show’s featured "Worst Person In The World."
"It has no place from a Democratic candidate, nor a Republican
candidate, nor a white candidate, nor a black candidate. It is
shameful," he said of the ads.
In one ad, Tinker’s campaign raised the issue of Cohen’s 2005 Center
City Commission vote against removing the statue and remains of Nathan
Bedford Forrest from a park near the Medical Center. Using images of
the Ku Klux Klan wearing robes and hoods and burning crosses, the ad
attempted to paint Cohen as a pandering hypocrite whose 3-year-old
vote should be weighed against his success last week in pushing
Congress to approve a resolution apologizing for slavery.
The other ad, first seen Wednesday, featured the voice of a little
girl reciting the prayer "Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep" and attacked
Cohen for his 1997 State Senate vote against a bill the ad claims was
meant to protect the right of students to pray in school. Cohen is
white and Jewish in a Congressional district that is mostly Christian
and 60-percent black.
Cohen pushed back hard against both ads, with his campaign organizing
a press conference Saturday featuring local black leaders defending
Cohen’s three decades of liberal public service and successes as a
first-term Congressman advocating for African-Americans in his district
(60 percent of 9th District voters are African-American). Cohen has
said he felt that voting to remove the statue and remains would have
been a mistake because it would have unnecessarily stirred racial
tensions.
Cohen said Wednesday he is not opposed to prayer in schools but
objected to that bill because he considered it meaningless and an
attempt by legislators to pander to voters.
Tinker has not responded to numerous requests for comment since the
release of the first ad last Friday.
The Washington Post quoted Cook Political Report’s David Wasserman,
who closely follows House races, as saying: "The final ads of this
race seem more like a Hail Mary than a long, well-thought out plan
of attack."
Wasserman added that "usually ads as immediately acerbic as these do
not play well."
Cohen’s press conference, at his Overton Park home, got off to a
rocky start when the Congressman’s campaign staff refused to allow
a documentary cameraman to participate. The staff told the man,
an Armenian-American activist named Peter Musurlian, that only
invited local media were allowed into Cohen’s house. Cohen eventually
intervened by saying he would grant an interview outside.
When Musurlian retreated to the door, Cohen grabbed his forearms with
both hands and shoved him out. "Outta here," he said.
Musurlian, from Glendale, Calif., said he is in town producing a
documentary on the race. Armenian-Americans from around the country
have donated between $25,000 and $30,000 to Tinker. Cohen has angered
Armenian-Americans because of his opposition to a Congressional
resolution that would condemn Turkey for a genocide against Armenians
as the Ottoman Empire disintegrated during and after World War 1.
Cohen said his opposition is related to a request received from
Gen. David Petraus while on a trip to Baghdad not to pass the
resolution because it would result in Turkey cutting off aid to the
American forces in Iraq and could harm American troops. That stance
is in agreement with all U.S. presidents going back to Jimmy Carter
and many former secretary of states.
Whether that incident will have an impact is yet unkown. Polls close
at 7 p.m.
The 7th Congressional District Republican primary between
U.S. Rep. Marsha Blackburn and challenger Tom Leatherwood, Shelby
County’s register of deeds and a former state senator has revolved
basically around charges and counter-charges the two have lobbed at
each other. Leatherwood first attacked the incumbent for becoming part
of a Republican majority that "squandered" its power by failing to
accomplish many of its conservative goals and then lost its majority
after several ethical lapses.
He repeatedly hammered away at her on media reports that her
daughter pocketed over $325,000 in commissions as a paid fundraiser
for Blackburn’s campaign, and Blackburn’s son-in-law’s Washington
lobbying career that grossed him nearly $1 million in fees since
Blackburn took office in 2003.
The Blackburn campaign insisted that daughter Mary Morgan Ketchel’s
commissions are not out of line and that Blackburn never discusses
issues with her son in law, Paul Ketchel III, that he is lobbying on.
Blackburn returned fire with a barrage of campaign mailers that
Leatherwood says are "outright lies," with considerable evidence to
back up his claim.
Blackburn’s mail pieces all revolve around the claim that in a
Clarksville speech June 3, he said he supported the 2007 federal
legislation to expand the State Children’s Health Insurance Program,
or S-CHIP. The mailers cite a June 4 Commercial Appeal article as
the basis for the charges.
But the article contains no such assertion; in fact, it quoted
Leatherwood as telling the Montgomery County audience that opposed
illegal immigration. And he never said he supported S-CHIP.
Instead, he used the June 3 speech to attack what he called the
"hypocrisy" of Blackburn’s vote against expanded funding for the
Regional Medical Center at Memphis while voting for earmarked funding
for the Houston zoo. Leatherwood said — when asked by a reporter after
that speech which vote on funding for The Med he was referring to —
that it was the S-CHIP bill.
Blackburn defended the mail piece Tuesday. "It was a legitimate issue.
Leatherwood stayed close to his home base this morning, campaigning
in Bartlett. Around lunchtime, he was greeting voters at the Bartlett
Elementary School precinct while seeking shelter from the sporadic
showers. Like many precincts around Shelby County, the turnout was
light where Leatherwood was campaigning.
"We have two more cars coming up," Leatherwood said by
telephone. "We’re having a bit of a flurry here."
A light turnout is not to the challenger’s favor in his effort
to unseat Blackburn of Brentwood, who is seeking her fourth term
representing the district that stretches from the outskirts of
Nashville to the outer edges of Shelby County. Leatherwood said
earlier this week, he needed a strong showing in West Tennessee and
a heavy swaying of undecided voters to his side of the ballot if he
was to have a chance.
"I would have preferred the heavier turnout," Leatherwood said. "I’m
hearing from people working other polls for me that it’s been kind
of a mix. There’s been steady traffic in places like Collierville
and Germantown, but still not heavy."