Free Republic

The repeated thud-thuds you heard were the wheels of the bus -- driven first by abortion-rights advocates Emily's List. Then by former U.S. Rep. Harold Ford Jr. and then presidential contender Barack Obama himself, all rolling over congressional wannabe Nikki Tinker, who is a black woman. Her offense -- and it was an especially stupid one -- was tasteless attack ads. One linked U.S. Rep. Steve Cohen, a white, Jewish man, to the Ku Klux Klan. (Doesn't she know the Klan hated Jews just as much as black folk?) The other ad charged Cohen was voting against prayer in school...

A racially charged Democratic primary campaign ended Thursday with an incumbent congressman trouncing the opponent who ran an ad linking him to the Ku Klux Klan. Early, 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.

Former Shelby County Commissioner Walter Bailey said Monday that the Nikki Tinker ad featuring pictures of a Ku Klux Klan rally and denunciations of incumbent Congressman Steve Cohen's vote not to remove the statue and remains of Nathan Bedford Forrest from a Memphis park "has nothing to do with race." Asked if injecting the incendiary television images into Thursday's 9th Congressional District Democratic Primary contest would be seen as racially divisive, Bailey said: "That may be an ancillary side of it, but that's not the main focus, and it's not the intended focus." Cohen's campaign pushed back vigorously on the...

In his two most recent campaign commercials, 9th District Congressman Steve Cohen spends valuable seconds of airtime explaining a most mundane electoral process. "You need to ask for a Democratic ballot on Thursday to vote for me," he says in the latest, created especially to run on Comedy Central's satirical late-night show, "The Colbert Report." He said the same thing in another spot, "Greatest Honor," and Memphis radio listeners have heard Cohen provide instructions in even greater detail. In his attempt to run up votes in the Democratic primary contest against Nikki Tinker, Joe Towns Jr. and two other candidates,...

It didn't take long for Sunday night's Congressional debate to turn to race. In a televised debate on WREG-TV Channel 3, U.S. Rep. Steve Cohen and challengers Nikki Tinker and Joe Towns Jr. began by telling viewers why each should be elected to represent Tennessee's Ninth Congressional District. But minutes into the debate, the conversation turned to race, a theme that has been a near-constant in this campaign. Some believe the incumbent Cohen isn't qualified to represent the majority black district because he's white; Tinker and Towns are black. For others, what matters is merit, not pigment. "I have never...