Heated races in Tennessee draw national coverage { Tinker vs Cohen }

Memphis Commercial Appeal ^ | Clay Bailey, Richard Locker, Zack McMillin

[SmithL]

When polls opened at 7 a.m. in precincts throughout Shelby County, coverage of the State and Federal Primary and County General Election had extended to national newspapers and websites closely following Greater Memphis's two contested Congressional elections.

Much of the coverage focused on the 9th Congressional District Democratic Primary, where incumbent Steve Cohen was in a rematch of sorts with corporate lawyer Nikki Tinker in a heated campaign that pushed to a boil in the hours before polls opened. State Rep. Joe Towns Jr. is also on the ballot, as are two others.

The New York Times ran a 700-word story in its A section. A well-followed Washington Post blog had this headline on a lengthy writeup: "Tennessee Primary Gets Nasty". National political publications like The Hill, CQ and Politico.com gave extended coverage to the race. Cohen won the 2006 Democratic primary with 31 percent of the vote to Tinker's 25 percent of the vote and won the general election to succeed 30 years of Harold Fords serving the district.

It was Politico.com that first reported, on Wednesday, that the pro-choice feminist political action committee EMILY's List was distancing itself from Tinker because of two ads her campaign put out in the campaign's final days attacking Cohen.

"We were shocked," said the group's director, Ellen Malcolm, according to Politico.com. "We believe the ads are offensive and divisive. EMILY's List does not condone or support these types of attacks."

MSNBC's Keith Olbermann also weighed in Wednesday, naming Tinker as his show's featured "Worst Person In The World."

"It has no place from a Democratic candidate, nor a Republican candidate, nor a white candidate, nor a black candidate. It is shameful," he said of the ads.

In one ad, Tinker's campaign raised the issue of Cohen's 2005 Center City Commission vote against removing the statue and remains of Nathan Bedford Forrest from a park near the Medical Center. Using images of the Ku Klux Klan wearing robes and hoods and burning crosses, the ad attempted to paint Cohen as a pandering hypocrite whose 3-year-old vote should be weighed against his success last week in pushing Congress to approve a resolution apologizing for slavery.

The other ad, first seen Wednesday, featured the voice of a little girl reciting the prayer "Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep" and attacked Cohen for his 1997 State Senate vote against a bill the ad claims was meant to protect the right of students to pray in school. Cohen is white and Jewish in a Congressional district that is mostly Christian and 60-percent black.

Cohen pushed back hard against both ads, with his campaign organizing a press conference Saturday featuring local black leaders defending Cohen's three decades of liberal public service and successes as a first-term Congressman advocating for African-Americans in his district (60 percent of 9th District voters are African-American). Cohen has said he felt that voting to remove the statue and remains would have been a mistake because it would have unnecessarily stirred racial tensions.

Cohen said Wednesday he is not opposed to prayer in schools but objected to that bill because he considered it meaningless and an attempt by legislators to pander to voters.

Tinker has not responded to numerous requests for comment since the release of the first ad last Friday.

The Washington Post quoted Cook Political Report's David Wasserman, who closely follows House races, as saying: "The final ads of this race seem more like a Hail Mary than a long, well-thought out plan of attack."

Wasserman added that "usually ads as immediately acerbic as these do not play well."

Cohen's press conference, at his Overton Park home, got off to a rocky start when the Congressman's campaign staff refused to allow a documentary cameraman to participate. The staff told the man, an Armenian-American activist named Peter Musurlian, that only invited local media were allowed into Cohen's house. Cohen eventually intervened by saying he would grant an interview outside.

When Musurlian retreated to the door, Cohen grabbed his forearms with both hands and shoved him out. "Outta here," he said.

Musurlian, from Glendale, Calif., said he is in town producing a documentary on the race. Armenian-Americans from around the country have donated between $25,000 and $30,000 to Tinker. Cohen has angered Armenian-Americans because of his opposition to a Congressional resolution that would condemn Turkey for a genocide against Armenians as the Ottoman Empire disintegrated during and after World War 1.

Cohen said his opposition is related to a request received from Gen. David Petraus while on a trip to Baghdad not to pass the resolution because it would result in Turkey cutting off aid to the American forces in Iraq and could harm American troops. That stance is in agreement with all U.S. presidents going back to Jimmy Carter and many former secretary of states.

Whether that incident will have an impact is yet unkown. Polls close at 7 p.m.

The 7th Congressional District Republican primary between U.S. Rep. Marsha Blackburn and challenger Tom Leatherwood, Shelby County’s register of deeds and a former state senator has revolved basically around charges and counter-charges the two have lobbed at each other. Leatherwood first attacked the incumbent for becoming part of a Republican majority that "squandered" its power by failing to accomplish many of its conservative goals and then lost its majority after several ethical lapses.

He repeatedly hammered away at her on media reports that her daughter pocketed over $325,000 in commissions as a paid fundraiser for Blackburn’s campaign, and Blackburn’s son-in-law’s Washington lobbying career that grossed him nearly $1 million in fees since Blackburn took office in 2003.

The Blackburn campaign insisted that daughter Mary Morgan Ketchel’s commissions are not out of line and that Blackburn never discusses issues with her son in law, Paul Ketchel III, that he is lobbying on.

Blackburn returned fire with a barrage of campaign mailers that Leatherwood says are "outright lies," with considerable evidence to back up his claim.

Blackburn’s mail pieces all revolve around the claim that in a Clarksville speech June 3, he said he supported the 2007 federal legislation to expand the State Children’s Health Insurance Program, or S-CHIP. The mailers cite a June 4 Commercial Appeal article as the basis for the charges.

But the article contains no such assertion; in fact, it quoted Leatherwood as telling the Montgomery County audience that opposed illegal immigration. And he never said he supported S-CHIP.

Instead, he used the June 3 speech to attack what he called the "hypocrisy" of Blackburn’s vote against expanded funding for the Regional Medical Center at Memphis while voting for earmarked funding for the Houston zoo. Leatherwood said -- when asked by a reporter after that speech which vote on funding for The Med he was referring to -- that it was the S-CHIP bill.

Blackburn defended the mail piece Tuesday. "It was a legitimate issue.

Leatherwood stayed close to his home base this morning, campaigning in Bartlett. Around lunchtime, he was greeting voters at the Bartlett Elementary School precinct while seeking shelter from the sporadic showers. Like many precincts around Shelby County, the turnout was light where Leatherwood was campaigning.

“We have two more cars coming up,” Leatherwood said by telephone. “We’re having a bit of a flurry here.”

A light turnout is not to the challenger’s favor in his effort to unseat Blackburn of Brentwood, who is seeking her fourth term representing the district that stretches from the outskirts of Nashville to the outer edges of Shelby County. Leatherwood said earlier this week, he needed a strong showing in West Tennessee and a heavy swaying of undecided voters to his side of the ballot if he was to have a chance.

“I would have preferred the heavier turnout,” Leatherwood said. “I’m hearing from people working other polls for me that it’s been kind of a mix. There’s been steady traffic in places like Collierville and Germantown, but still not heavy.”

[SmithL]

Tinker must have gone to the McKinney School of Political Trash Talk to be bold enough to claim a Jew is in the KKK.