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Tennessee Democrat Defeats Black Lawyer

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  • Tennessee Democrat Defeats Black Lawyer

    TENNESSEE DEMOCRAT DEFEATS BLACK LAWYER
    By Woody Baird

    FinalCall.com
    http://www.finalcall.com/artm 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.
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