"These incendiary and personal attacks have no place in our politics, and will do nothing to help the good people of Tennessee. It's time to turn the page on a politics driven by negativity and division so that we can come together to lift up our communities and our country."
Predictions? Let's hope this divisive mess will end the right way...
Update [2008-8-7 13:29:48 by Jonathan Singer]: A statement from Barack Obama on Tennessees 9th Congressional District primary:
These incendiary and personal attacks have no place in our politics, and will do nothing to help the good people of Tennessee. Its time to turn the page on a politics driven by negativity and division so that we can come together to lift up our communities and our country, said Barack Obama.
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Ugh, this is disgusting. Tomorrow, on August 7, Tennessee will hold its primaries, and in Tennessee's 9th Congressional district, where Memphis is located, it's gotten ugly. This is the seat that used to belong to Harold Ford, Jr. (D), until he gave it up for a Senate run where the GOP ran that ad with the white woman going, "Harold, call me!" (Harold is black.) Well, when he gave up that seat, it went to fellow Democrat Steve Cohen, who is a white Jew.
And it seems that's become an issue.
In Congress, he's been pretty awesome. He's MUCH more progressive than Ford ever was, scoring a 96.28% progressive rating on Progressive Punch. But it seems certain folks in Memphis do not want them to be represented by anyone other than an African-American. So enter Nikki Tinker ("D"), who's challenging him in the primary. Cohen had already beaten her in a 15-candidate field in the 2006 primary.
Well, Tinker's people (so she can claim deniability) started in fine force back in February, unleashing this beyond disgusting flyer onto Memphis.
And then you get stupid racists spewing shit like this.
"He's not black and he can't represent me, that's just the bottom line," said Rev. Robert Poindexter of Mt. Moriah Baptist Church.
But now it's gotten even worse. This week began with Tinker herself releasing this ad associating Cohen with the KKK.
The local Memphis Commercial-Appeal denounced the ad. (In case you're wondering why he voted that way, RealClearPolitics provides the backstory. It's basically a jurisdiction issue.)
But that wasn't bad enough. Tinker then released this ad just today, and it has drawn so much negative reaction from all over the country, that her campaign has already removed it from YouTube. But we still have the transcript.
CHILD'S VOICE: "Now I lay me down to sleep..."
ANNCR: "Who is the real Steve Cohen anyway?"
CHILD'S VOICE: "I pray the Lord my soul to keep..."
ANNCR: "While he's in our churches, clapping his hands and tapping his feet..."
CHILD'S VOICE: "If I should die before I wake..."
ANNCR: "He is the only senator who thought our kids shouldn't be allowed to pray in school."
CHILD'S VOICE: I pray the Lord my soul to take.
ANNCR: "Congressman, sometimes apologies just aren't enough."
TINKER: "I'm Nikki Tinker, and I approve this message."
The announcer's voice specifically stressed "our" in that ad. That's about as blatant as an anti-Semitic dog whistle you're ever going to hear on TV. For this disgusting ad, Keith Olbermann tonight named Tinker today's Worst Person in the World.
EMILY's List, which had actually endorsed Tinker over Cohen, despite his perfect pro-choice record, back in May, condemned the ad too, as if that's really going to matter less than 24 hours before voting ends. Of course, they could have done what NOW and NARAL did, which was endorse Cohen over a truly despicable person in the first place.
Oh, but that's only half the story. It gets worse. Much worse.
Steve Cohen forcibly removed a cameraman from his house who had barged in uninvited to Cohen's hastily-called news conference at Cohen's house to address the religion-baiting ad... and the cameraman is allegedly pressing 'assault' charges. (Video from the local Memphis Fox affiliate is available here.) The cameraman is an Armenian-American activist and documentary filmmaker who has been stalking Cohen all week; he's not officially affiliated with the Tinker camp, but Armenian groups have given more than $30K to the Tinker campaign because of Cohen's opposition to the bill to call the World War I-era slaughter of Armenians genocide (and thus infuriate Turkey).
Small legalistic note: there's a big difference between some sorehead pressing charges, and the county DA actually following through on them (which I guess we'll find out about that tomorrow). The video shows Cohen escorting the guy out the door with hand firmly on his arm and giving him a shove out the door for good measure; since the cameraman was essentially trespassing, this isn't likely to amount to anything.
Now, it turns out that filmmaker Peter Mursurlian is actually a Republican operative who used to work for former California Congressman Carlos Moorhead (R) of Pasadena. Also, none of the other Tennessee Democrats are co-sponsoring the resolution either, but none of them have been targeted the way Cohen has been.
This week former Rep. Harld Ford, who narrowly lost a race for the Senate in Tennessee in November, was named the new chairman of the Democratic Leadership Council. Somewhat overlooked in the coverage of this story is the very different outlook his successor as Congressman for Tennessee's 9th district takes towards his job on Capitol Hill. Three grafs at the end of a Scripps Howard article penned by Bartholomew Sullivan pretty well exemplify the contrast between the politics of freshman Rep. Steve Cohen and his predecessor Ford.
Meanwhile, U.S. Rep. Steve Cohen, who took the Memphis seat previously held by Ford, said Thursday that the Democratic party "needs to go further" than the moderate views the centrist think tank espouses.
"I'm more progressive than the DLC," said Cohen, a freshman that quickly joined the Progressive and Out of Iraq caucuses when he got to Washington but declined membership in the fiscally moderate Blue Dog Coalition.
"I understand where they're coming from, but I think the party needs to go further, and I think the people want the party to go further," said Cohen. "There are a lot of people issues where we're way behind."
Cohen is a great example of how even a Democrat replacing another Democrat in the House can make Congress more progressive. While in this case the change was not accomplished through a primary, Cohen's statement's and pledge to chart a progressive course as Representative for Tennessee's 9th district -- particularly after the district was represented by the unabashedly centrist Harold Ford -- make a fairly strong case for offering primary challenges Democratic members who are out of touch with their strong Democratic majority districts.
Update [2007-1-27 15:26:29 by Jonathan Singer]: Just to add, this plays directly into the They Work For Us campaign that will, among other things, go after turncoat Democrats representing districts that skew heavily Democratic, Representatives like Ellen Tauscher, Al Wynn, and Henry Cuellar.
by Chris Bowers, Tue Nov 28, 2006 at 06:44:51 AM EST
I had actually expected pretty strong third-party performance in 2006, especially as disgruntled Republicans and Republican leaning Independents sought to take out their frustrations on their own party, but still refused to vote for Democrats. However, Ballot Access News reports that third-party performance in 2006 was only slightly improved from 2004:Libertarians contested 73 particular U.S. House seats in both 2004 and 2006, and the competitive conditions for each of those 73 seats was the same. That is, in all 73 instances, there were the same number of major party candidates in the race both times (i.e., either both times there was both a Democrat and a Republican in the race, or else both times only one major party ran anyone).
In these 73 elections in which the conditions were roughly the same in both 2004 and 2006, Libertarian percentages increased in 42 districts and decreased in 31 districts.
The Constitution Party contested 12 such U.S. House elections in both 2004 and 2006. Constitution percentages were up in 8 of those districts, and down in 4 districts.
The Green Party contested 11 such districts in both 2004 and 2006. Green percentages were up in 4, and down in 7.
This has a couple of implications. First, voters did not just give up on Republicans, as the low performance of third parties shows they actually turned to Democrats.
Second, our current political age is far more polarized than in the 1990's when several third parties were able to make an impact on the national landscape. It is interesting how a more polarized environment actually leads to lower third-party performance, and certainly flies in the face of Unity '08 / Bloomberg Democrats conventional wisdom. Rather than rejecting two supposedly extreme poles in favor of some sort of vital center, in our polarized environment voter turnout is up and third party performance is weak. While it should have been obvious that giving voters a clear choice between the two parties is quite likely to drive up turnout and participation in the two-party system, I imagine it will still take a long time for such a belief to become CW in certain media and lobbyist circles.
Speaking of third parties and LieberDems, from TN-09 comes the tale of the anti-Connecticut, where the progressive Democratic primary winner Steve Cohen crushed Harold Ford's party betraying brother: Steve replaces Harold Ford in this district. I love Cohen because he crushed Harold Ford's brother, Newton. Realizing he didn't stand a chance running in the Democratic primary, Newton Ford ran as an independent in the general. The Ford family ran a dishonest campaign to confuse voters into thinking that Newton was the Democratic nominee. For example, at Harold Ford events in the district, Ford campaign staffers would forbid attendees from wearing "Steve Cohen for Congress" pins or signs. Party loyalty wasn't Harold's strongest suit.
Cohen won the election 60%--22% in Harold Ford's current seat. When the results of open, Democratic held seats are taken into account, the already difficult to swallow notion of a right-ward shift among House Democrats becomes even harder to accept.
jeromearmstrong Our Polarized and Money-Driven Congress: Created Over 25 Years By Republicans (and Quickly Imitated by Democrats http://bit.ly/ewXlXI #bblue
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