Madness in Memphis

August 7, 2008

When Rep. Steve Cohen (D-Tenn.) was elected in November 2006, it was rather unusual. There was a four-way contest in a predominantly African-American congressional district, the top candidates generally split the black vote, and Cohen was elected with just over 30% of the vote.

Less than two years later, the freshman is seeking a second term, and is facing some of the ugliest attacks of the 2008 cycle. I would be apoplectic if the attacks were coming from a Republican, so it’s only fair to criticize the Democrat, Nikki Tinker, who’s launching these vicious smears, and who’ll face Cohen in a Democratic primary in Memphis today.

The most jaw-dropping of Tinker’s television ads has been pulled from YouTube, but Eric Kleefeld was right yesterday when he said the spot “just might be the nastiest, most race-baiting (and Jew-baiting) ad of the entire cycle.”

“While he’s in our churches, clapping his hands and tapping his feet … he’s the only senator who thought our kids shouldn’t be allowed to pray in school,” the announcer says, referring to an old vote against school prayer from when Cohen was a state senator. And remember, this is coming from a Democrat.

Cohen is the only white Congressman from a majority-minority district in the South, and was elected largely because of the divided field of black candidates in the 2006 primary, which included Tinker herself. Tinker never really stopped running against him, and has picked up the support of EMILY’s List and a few members of the Congressional Black Caucus.

Furthermore, Cohen is a Jew — which makes the “our churches” line all the more suspicious.

While Tinker’s ad was pulled from YouTube, it’s unclear whether her campaign has also pulled it from the Memphis airwaves.

The message of the ad is patently ridiculous. Cohen opposed state-sponsored prayer in public schools? Of course he did — he’s a Dem; we support the First Amendment and the separation of church and state. Tinker’s ad, of course, had less to do with civil liberties and more to do with transparent Jew-baiting.

Wait, it gets worse.

Josh Marshall noted:

I should add as background that I know from a very reliable source that Nikki Tinker, the candidate running the ad, has said before large numbers of supporters that she planned to make Cohen’s non-embrace of Christianity (i.e., he’s Jewish) a key part of her campaign. And I’m given to understand that this aspect of her campaign is widely understood in Dem circles in DC.

All the more reason for Dems to condemn it. There’s never any reason for a candidate to stoop to this level; for a Democrat to do it is truly outrageous. Why did Emily’s List throw its support to Tinker, and stand by her after her attacks?

And if this were the only offensive ad in the campaign, it would be bad enough. But it’s not.

In the culmination of a racially fraught Congressional campaign in Memphis, a black candidate is linking her liberal-leaning white primary opponent in Thursday’s contest, Representative Steve Cohen, to the Ku Klux Klan in a television advertisement. […]

The advertisement for the challenger, Nikki Tinker, juxtaposes Mr. Cohen’s picture with that of a hooded Klansman, and criticizes Mr. Cohen for voting against renaming a park in Memphis currently named for the Confederate general Nathan Bedford Forrest, a Ku Klux Klan founder.

“This makes you wonder,” a black former county commissioner, Walter Bailey, says in the advertisement. “Who is the real Steve Cohen?”

The brief television spot has provoked an uproar in the already heated primary campaign, with supporters of Mr. Cohen — known for his support of civil rights measures in a long career in the Tennessee legislature — saying it crossed the line.

Though the city’s newspaper, The Memphis Commercial Appeal, denounced the advertisement as a “smear,” the campaign of Ms. Tinker, a corporate lawyer, defended it as legitimate. On Saturday, several prominent black leaders in Memphis, including ministers, officials and activists, held a news conference to speak out against the advertisement.

The primary is today. Here’s hoping Tinker’s tactics are not rewarded.

What Repulicans did Tinker’s campaign consultants work for prior to this?

  • I guess we’ll find out if last minute smears still work. Let’s hope not. A Tinker win would be a very bad omen. A Tinker loss will send the right message.

  • You have to be careful in the South in critizing Confederate general Nathan Bedford Forrest. Yes he established the KKK, but he also later repudiated it. And his war career, while objectively little more than brigandage, is considered heroic by Southerners.

    So Cohen didn’t want to rename a park. That’s pretty lame.

    Tinker sounds like a total loser girl to me. And Emily’s List is showing a bit of moonbattiness on this.

  • Time to write “Emily’s List” a few letters.

    And for any wingnuts dropping by to see how we Dems deal with unpleasant folks on our side, please take note of this episode. There are nasty Dem campaigns too, and the thing that makes us different is that we don’t just sit back and laugh about it, we say so and loudly.

    So the next time someone from your side runs ads like this, and your favorite right-wing bloggers do little or nothing about it, maybe you’ll remember this post, and feel a little bit ashamed.

    Or not.

  • One can only wonder about Tinker’s “thirty pieces of silver” that she’s getting for pushing Pharisee Rove’s envelope….

  • Tinker should be running a Dem 527. She’s literally the only one with the same nasty streak the other side has in abundance. You go, girl! Oops, I didn’t mean the girl part. Sorry.

  • I am from Memphis. I voted for Steve Cohen before these despicable, disgusting, revolting so-called ads came out. Nikki Tinker is the slimiest female creton I have ever seen run for office. Unfortunately, her religion and KKK ads were still running through last night, the 6th. The entire city is appalled and I only hope Mr. Cohen sues that bitch for defamation of character. How sad this whole situation is when a freakish power hungry female stoops into the pig-stye mud to do this to another person. Hillary-esque, it would seem. Oh, by the way – I’m a woman – so I have all the right to criticize her.

  • Today is election day.

    And if anyone supported a 50 state strategy, you have Steve Cohen who is not only competent and respectable but one of the more reliably liberal congressman you can find. And he is in Tennessee.

    This dood, who is jewish, was linked to the Klan and had his religion disparged. It will be a shame if he is defeated by these tactics as the DCCC and national leaders stood aside.

    You know another sad thing, RedState has been all over this story for months while our side of the blogosphere was silent.

  • I wouldn’t call it race-baiting. Jew-baiting yes. Their the same race as everyone I know, human.

  • Their the same race as everyone I know, human. -Rick

    Human (homo sapien) is a species.

    A race is a subset of a species.

  • I worked across the hall from Rep Cohen while he was a state senator and I can’t imagine a stronger advocate for civil rights and equality than this man. Its truly disgusting the depths this “lady” has gone.

  • Why did Emily’s List throw its support to Tinker, and stand by her after her attacks?

    Because, unfortunately, Emily’s List is a “one-issue” organization that supports pro-choice women candidates regardless of their competence, fitness for office, or whether they will actually do good for the country. They are willing to cut off their nose to spite their own face.

  • This just prove that the darkest elements of the human soul reside in all of us, regardless of skin color. Tinker should be ashamed to serve if she wins.

  • If you don’t like Hillaryesque, how about Emilyesque? Emily’s List’s Tinker bio treats the race as if she’s opposing a rightwing Republican, not a successful progressive Democrat. What’s the reason for changing nominees after a single term? Apparently he’s the wrong sex, as well as the wrong race and religion. To say this violates everything the Democrats stand for is an understatement. It violates the standards of everyone in the country who’s not a bigot. http://www.emilyslist.org/candidates/nikki_tinker/index.html

    Emily’s List is a holdover from the Ms. Magazine ’70s mentality that supports every woman candidate regardless of politics. Recall Margaret Thatcher, Indira Ghandi and Golda Meir, neither liberals nor the best candidates their country could offer, idolized by Gloria Steinem and NOW simply for attaining power. While it’s often done some good, support based on anything other than issue positions is unnecessarily divisive, in Emily’s case contributing to the false image of the Democrats as “the women’s party” and the Republicans as “the men’s.” Emily’s success is just another hurdle that candidates like Gore, Kerry and Obama have to clear. If the organization has any standards at all, it will repudiate Tinker and support Cohen. I don’t see that happening.

  • Am not sure whether I’d include Meir, but I won’t fight about that. However, include the sainted Benazir on the list. (People wondered why I supported Musharraf for so long, but he didn’t replace a democracy but two competing kleptocracies. I assure you that neither Benazir nor Sharif would have given the support to the Americans against the Taliban that Musharraf did — even though it didn’t last. And my discussion with Pakistanis — including two members of the most prominent Pakistani rock group, one of whom was a non-Pakistani Brooklynite, who I was lucky enough to talk with — says that the atmosphere of freedom Musharraf brought was amazing compared to the Bhutto/Sharif years.)

    As for Nicky (s)Tinker, I hope she is treated like Trafficant — also technically a Democrat — if she wins.

  • Sounds to me like Tinker’s running to be the next Cynthia McKinney. I guess she’s been studying at the Robert Mugabe School of Ethical Politics.

  • Lance@3.
    Thanks for the background.
    Here’s the Wikipedia data:


    Forrest became associated with the Ku Klux Klan movement, but he officially denied participation. Upon learning of the Klan and its goal to reinstate the “true” Southern leaders, Forrest supposedly remarked, “That’s a good thing; that’s a damn good thing. We can use that to keep the niggers in their place.” (Historians disagree as to whether this quote is real.) Delegates at an 1867 KKK convention in Nashville named him the organization’s honorary Grand Wizard, or leader-in-chief.

    In an 1868 interview by a Cincinnati newspaper, Forrest claimed that the Klan had 550,000 members in the Southern states. He said he sympathized with them and could muster thousands of men himself.

    In the interview Forrest described the Klan as “a protective political military organization…The members are sworn to recognize the government of the United States…Its objects originally were protection against Loyal Leagues and the Grand Army of the Republic…” Historians, however, have classified the Klan as a kind of guerrilla group, insurgents who refused to accept the power changes of defeat, and carried on the Civil War by other means.
    Wikisource has the Text of an 1868 interview with Nathan Bedford Forrest.

    The Klan used Forrest’s name in recruiting. In 1869, Forrest, disagreeing with its increasingly violent tactics, ordered the Klan to disband. He stated it was “being perverted from its original honorable and patriotic purposes, becoming injurious instead of subservient to the public peace.”

    In the Congressional investigation on Klan activities in 1871,[22] the committee concluded that Forrest’s involvement with the Klan was limited to trying to get it to disband. They determined there was no evidence that he had founded or led the Klan.

    For me, the jury is out.
    I wouldn’t name a new park after him, but strip the old? Tough call.

  • The Politico says that Ellen Malcolm, president of Emily’s List, has issued a statement condemning the Tinker ad,

    Thereby locking the door after the horse has left the barn, trained hard for six months, won the Triple Crown, and settled down to a successful career as a stud.

    Politics, like comedy, is 90% timing.

    Thanks a shitload, EMILY.

  • I’m also from Memphis. Cohen is the only politician I’m actually proud is associated with my city.My Congresscritter is the most odious Marsha Blackburn and she’s like 5th on teh crazy/stupid Republican seeding bracket that Benen and Zeitgeist aren’t making.

    Those ads of Tinker’s are horrible. Please remember that in January (I think) there was a really big stink about a flyer handed out in her behalf against Cohen telling folks he was a Jew and they killed Jesus! (Remember that uproar?) But there Tinker had “plausible deniability, it was created and distributed by some minister not in the district. These two new ads seem like she went from the McCain/Rove playbook she personally delivered the slurs and approved the message. I certainly hope she loses big. Even in a Congress after Dems took control, our freshman Congressman has stood out, especially during judiciary hearings.

    Everyone I know is appalled by this and we all wish we could vote for the man today.

    But not one national Dem has defended or campaigned with Cohen this cycle either. Which is quite frustrating, they defended Lieberman in his primary, but not this good liberal man in his. And Emily’s List? Not one penny. I’ll donate through ActBlue instead.

  • toowearyforoutrage said: ““Lance@3. Thanks for the background. Here’s the Wikipedia data [on Nathan Bedford Forrest]:”

    Now if there were every a subject on which I would NOT trust Wikipedia, it is this. It is certainly reasonable sounding, but the conclusion that Forrest WASN’T the founder of the KKK strikes me as rather hard to prove (like Ivins was the only one involved in the Antrax attacks)”

    Thanks for the cite though.

  • Thanks, jett, for the first-hand information.

    I am appalled that Tinker would stoop to right-wing talking points about prayer in school, and the not-subtle jab at his faith. Really appalling. Dems are supposed to be open-minded and accepting of our differences; we don’t use them against each other. Ms. Tinker should be ashamed for running a rethug campaign.

  • Note to Dee/Memphis – yes – I do recall those Jew/Jesus-Killer fliers. Beyond the pale! And you’re absolutely right that no bigtime Democrat has stepped on a Northwest plane to come to the “hub” and help Steve out! But, sure stank when Harold Ford (Junior) rather–his wife–gave $2,300 to the Nikster. I can only hope that this being an open election the Republicans (please, please, please) ask for a Dem ballot and vote for Cohen to drown Tinker permanently in her own muck and mire. Also, thanks to Hannah. Yes, it’s amazing the low level politics and corruption in the quaint city of Memphis. Thank God for Rock N Roll & R&B. Finally, note to Patrick – I could have said Geraldine Ferraro-Esque. Just my opinion-you don’t have to have the same, but keep the scummy part of my character out of it. I’m not running to lead the free world. Kai?

  • FYI, Cohen’s vote on Forrest Park was a vote against not only renaming the park but also against DISINTERRING THE BODIES of N.B. Forrest and his wife and moving them. It was a nutty proposal and was opposed by the city’s black mayor and black majority City Council. The fact that Tinker would use this to slime Cohen and infer that he’s a racist is just vile. I have some inside polling numbers indicating that Cohen will win big today, perhaps even taking a majority of the black voters. I hope so. If Tinker wins, I fear for my city.

  • #29. Wow. Thanks for putting the park vote in context. I’ll be crossing my fingers for Cohen.

  • #24 Dee Loralei said:
    not one national Dem has defended or campaigned with Cohen this cycle either. Which is quite frustrating, they defended Lieberman in his primary, but not this good liberal man in his. And Emily’s List? Not one penny. I’ll donate through ActBlue instead.

    If this is true the Democratic party and the congressional black caucus should be ashamed. Such intolerance and prejudice needs to be knocked down whenever it appears.

  • A minor point, but when the first hearings were held to change the school prayer ruling, it was religious leaders — of all religions and of most Protestant denominations, but including the Baptists that I assume the sTinker is — that were strongest in supporting the ruling, because they knew it could be used against them if they weren’t in a majority in a particular area. (In fact, the history of the Baptists before the recent ‘steeplejacking’ was that they were the strongest Protestant group supporting separation, because they had been the most persecuted Protestant group.)

  • This absolutely makes me sick. If this black woman were attacking a white person or a Christian person the way she is attacking a Jew absolutely nothing would be said about it. Why in the hell can jews not be attacked just the same as everyone else.

    I don’t blame this black woman for being angry. Cohen got into office because he was able to split the black vote in a black district. Of course she thinks a black district should be run by a black person and OF COURSE SHE THINKS the Forest Park should be renamed. Its a black thing. I don’t think it should be renamed.

    Carpetbagger you make me want to puke. You talk about the Democratic party as tho it is one big lump where everyone thinks the same. The only people who think the same as the Liberals and jews out of the Northeast who run the party with their money are lowbrow mimics like you.

    In any political party the people will have different views and nobody thinks alike. There will be efforts at debate and compromise in order to come up with a party platform. Or else certain people can run everything with their money. The people I am referring to are the ones who own Obama’s black ass. If you choose to google it you will find that Jews run the democratic party.

    Furthermore Rahm Emanuel is the democrat who chooses party nominees and the old son of a bitch is an Israeli born and bred and he also served in its military and his father belonged to the Ergun and was an Israeli terrorist. Now Rham is a King Maker in the United States government. Yet you presume that no one is allowed to oppose jews!

    If democrats are so keen for a separation of church and state why is there no attempt to get Jews out of government the same as Christians. Can you explain that.

    This nation for 200 years was an Anglo Saxon Protestant nation and Christians ran every court house in this land and we had prayer and Bible reading in our schools. We had the best schools in the world and the most advanced science.

    It was difficult for John Kennedy to run for office because he was Catholic. In order for jews to have the power in our government that they have today they literally had to destroy our Anglo Saxon Protestant culture, heritage and religion and that is what they have done and when they did it they had no pity or mercy for us.

    Read Leo Struss’s philosophy of how the jews could replace the old WASP ruling elites and take their places. Struass is the philospher of the neocons. http://www.nhinet.org/ryn18-1.htm

    During the last election the liberal moneybags gave al gore the boot and forced John Kerry off on us so that whether a Liberal or a neocon got into the White House our middle east policies would be the same. That is the power that Jews have in our government and yet you think they are sacred and nobody is supposed to oppose them or speak the truth about how they treat Christians.

    You dare to speak about what DEMOCRATS believe. Evidently you don’t know what democrats believe because you speak only the Jewish/liberal propaganda bs that is forced upon us.

    Christianity no longer holds the place it once did in America because it has been replaced by the jew religions of The Holocaust and Antisemitism which are enforced by every editor, politician and educator across this land. You need to figure out how to keep a separation of Jews and state because the rest of us feel like we are having jewish beliefs forced upon us and the fact that both McCain and Obama have declared that they will bomb Iran for Israel is a good indication of that.

    Experts tell us we should have our military in the Pacific because of China and not in the middle east. Not even the Grand Chessboard philosophy calls for us to be in the middle east. That is strictly Zionism. Therefore we need a Separation of Jews and state.

    Jews only make up 1.7% of the population so that over 98% of us have zero vested in a jewish state.

    Whats the difference between an Aryan nation and a Jewish state except one is aryan and the other is jewish.

    I never consented to jews running my country. You make me sick with your talk of separation of church and state. You make me sick acting like its YOUR place to announce what we democrats stand for.

    I don’t stand for the same things that Zionists jews stand for and neither does that black woman in memphis. She has no reason to want Forest Park but white people do. That is the problem with diversity. We are told its a good thing but it seems its only good for those who have enough money to turn themselves into the ruling elites.

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