As Cohen passes landmark resolution, Tinker camp readies attack ad

Memphis Commercial Appeal ^ | 8/3/8 | Zack McMillin

[SmithL]

While first-term U.S. Rep. Steve Cohen was on the floor of the House on Tuesday, guiding passage of a historic resolution apologizing to African-American citizens for slavery and Jim Crow laws, his most prominent and well-funded Democratic primary opponent was out in the Memphis heat trying to win voters.

Nikki Tinker likes to wear a baseball cap and athletic shoes to go with a skirt, giving her the look of a woman hard at work, and she would often show voters the tan line on her arms as evidence of it. She said she worked outside at the early-voting sites from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. each day.

"I'm on the ground out here with the people," said Tinker, a 37-year-old corporate attorney on leave from Pinnacle Airlines. "This is where the rubber meets the road."

And though she seemed to mostly talk about herself and not mention Cohen, the incumbent who defeated her by 4,465 votes in the 2006 Democratic primary, for many voters Thursday's election will be a referendum on Cohen's first term.

What Tinker did not mention was that, behind the scenes, her campaign was producing an attack ad with images of a Ku Klux Klan rally that Cohen's campaign considers inflammatory and a defamation of character.

Late Saturday, Tinker's campaign issued a statement from the candidate defending the ad, saying that it "merely states the facts."

The ad fits a pattern from Tinker, through her own statements but more often those of campaign supporters, to paint Cohen as a political opportunist out of touch with the district.

The power of incumbency and a three-decade-long liberal voting record are the weapons Cohen uses to rebut that message.

Take Tuesday, when Tinker was trying to reach individual voters by leaning into their vehicles with a 60-second pitch while Cohen was commanding local, national and international attention with a resolution he first introduced in 2007 -- and claims he formally requested President Clinton issue in 1997.

While the apology resolution made the biggest splash, Cohen's Congressional office spits out releases nearly every day that seem aimed at justifying his statement in 2006 that his voting more resembles that of a black woman than a 59-year-old white son of a Jewish doctor.

Two days after the resolution came a release heralding passage of an act that would "help end the discriminatory practice of paying a woman less than a man for performing the same job."

Two weeks ago, Cohen's office announced that he had "introduced legislation which will require the Attorney General to create a pilot program to examine racial and ethnic disparities in the criminal justice system."

That advocacy, in part, is how Cohen has lined up support from activists in the black community and influential leaders such as former NAACP head Maxine Smith and Church of God in Christ Bishop J.O. Patterson Jr. -- not to mention such 2006 primary opponents as Julian Bolton, Joe Ford Jr. and Ed Stanton.

However, the statement Tinker's campaign released responding to the apology resolution reveals the bottom-line view she is trying to sell of Cohen's first-term.

"Pure politics," she called it. Another of Cohen's opponents, state Rep. Joe Towns Jr., has gone so far as to say Cohen is pandering.

But are the black voters who make up 60 percent of the 9th District buying it?

Interviews at Bishop Byrne High School's early-voting site Thursday revealed warm feelings for Cohen. Many said they were pleased with Cohen's performance and said they believed that is a sentiment shared among their friends and neighbors.

"So far as his record, I think he's done a heck of a job and he's represented this district well," said James Yancey, accompanied by his wife, Virgie.

Added Emma Wilson, "He has done what he said he would do."

Cohen likes to argue that voters got a change in 2006, when Harold Ford Jr. took his moderate voting record into a statewide campaign for U.S. Senate and Cohen was sent to Washington with a consistently liberal voting record nearly three decades long. And he relishes pointing to a July 13 debate in which Tinker could not name a vote with which she disagreed.

"In the state Senate, I voted against Confederate license plates when African-American senators voted for them," Cohen said. "I stood up and argued almost singularly against payday loans which wreak havoc against black people. I voted for a felon-rights bill in 1986."

Cohen makes a long list of other instances, as well as macro issues such as health care and tax reform, that he believes would help African-American Memphians.

"These are things I have a gut feeling for," Cohen said. "All these issues may affect African-Americans more than others, but it affects everyone."

To Rhodes College political science professor Marcus Pohlmann, a longtime observer of politics in the Mid-South, Cohen's aggressive advocacy on African-American issues reflects "the peculiar" dynamic of Memphis's 9th District.

"You wouldn't have seen Harold Ford Jr. out front on (the apology resolution)," said Pohlmann, and it is true that Cohen's predecessor did not sign on as co-sponsor to similar slavery apology resolutions in 2000 or in 1997.

"I don't think (Ford Jr.) would have felt the necessity to prove himself to the African-American community in the same way."

Is that perceived as pander or purpose? Thursday's vote will be telling.

"Is it sincere? That all depends on how you view the Congressman. People that like and trust him say yes and people that are skeptical about him say no."

[SmithL]

Update

Early voting ended Saturday.

Primary election is Thursday.

For more information, go to shelbyvote.com or call 545-4136.

[montag813]

Jews vs. Blacks in a Democrat primary. I love it! Here’s rooting for the black chick, to sow the seeds of Jewish anger vs. Obama.

[puroresu]

Cohen has set new (and lower) standards for pandering since taking office last year. We’ll see in a few days if it worked.

[RoadKingSE]

When Nikki met Harry

Just another race-hustling, frican-American lawyer looking to join the Obamanation in parcelling out whatever is left of the USA next year to the 50% of voters who live off the other 50% that pay the bills.

[pnh102]

I voted for a felon-rights bill in 1986.

If I was black, I would find this insulting.

[Coldwater Creek]

Steve Cohen is a real moonbat, but he doesn't deserve to be connected with the KKK.

[fieldmarshaldj]

Quite so. After all, not in the wildest dreams of the average single-digit IQ’d Klansman could they have ever killed and inflicted more damage to Black Americans than “well-meaning” liberal policies from mostly White Democrats of the past 4 decades.

[WilliamReading]

Here is the Video of the ad:

http://guerillawomentn.blogspot.com/2008/08/memphis-democrat-runs-nasty-ad-about.html

It implies that Cohen is a secret sympathizer of the Ku Klux Klan.