TENNESSEE DEMOCRAT DEFEATS BLACK LAWYER
By Woody Baird
FinalCall.com
an/publish/article_5136.shtml
Aug 21 2008
IL
MEMPHIS, Tenn. – A racially charged Democratic primary campaign ended
with an incumbent congressman trouncing the opponent who ran an ad
linking him to the Ku Klux Klan.
Unofficial results showed Democrat Steve Cohen with 79 percent of
the vote to 19 percent for Nikki Tinker, a Black corporate lawyer who
was his chief opponent in the district that covers Memphis, with all
precincts reporting.
Rep. 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 results are pretty clear," Rep. Cohen told cheering supporters
July 7 at a victory party. "I’m here to report that Tennessee and
Tennessee (District) 9 voted firmly for the post-racial politics that
has carried a new generation to power."
In the state’s other major congressional primary, Johnson
City Mayor Phil Roe beat Republican Rep. David Davis, giving an
incumbent Tennessee congressman a primary loss for the first time
since 1966. The campaign in the solidly Republican 1st District in
northeastern Tennessee heated up toward the end, moving from joint
stump appearances to negative ads.
In the 9th District, in Memphis, the campaign turned ugly in
its final days, when Ms. Tinker ran a television ad juxtaposing
photos of Rep. Cohen, who is Jewish, and a hooded Ku Klux Klan
member. Ms. Tinker’s supporters argued the district, which is 60
percent Black and 35 percent White, should be represented by a Black
candidate.
The primary will likely decide the next congressman in the heavily
Democratic district, which has returned incumbents to the House since
1974. Rep. Cohen won his first term after a 2006 primary in which a
dozen Black candidates, including Ms. Tinker, split the vote.
Ms. Tinker said her ad linking Rep. 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 drew condemnation from Democratic presidential candidate
Barack Obama. It juxtaposed pictures of a statue of Gen. 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," Mr. Obama
said in a statement.
Rep. Cohen, a former state senator with a long record as a civil
rights supporter, led an effort in July 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 Rep. Cohen’s religion–Jews
are another group targeted by the KKK.
John Geer, a Vanderbilt University political science professor,
said the ad indicated Ms. Tinker knew her campaign was 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," Mr. Geer
said. "Voters are not fools, and they can sort this out."
Rep. Cohen’s opposition to a House resolution labeling the killing of
Armenians in World War I as genocide also came up in the campaign. 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 Rep. Cohen’s home Aug. 6 to call
Ms. Tinker’s ad an act of desperation, a cameraman who identified
himself as working for an Armenian-American citizens’ group
interrupted. Rep. Cohen pushed the man, Peter Musurlian of Glendale,
Calif., out of his house and called police.
Mr. Musurlian said his group supported Ms. Tinker because of
Rep. Cohen’s opposition to the genocide resolution. The district does
not have a large Armenian population.