Good for TN-9

By Fester

Earlier this week, I congratulated Kansas Republicans for nominating non-crazies in their primaries.  I am extending the same congratulations to the Democrats in the 9th Congressional District of Tennessee.  Rep. Cohen is a white Jew in a majority African American district.  He won the 2006 Democratic primary amongst a deep field of candidates.  From everything that I know, he has done a good job in Congress. 

He has been challenged in the primary by Nikki Tinker. I have no problems with challengers in primaries, especially in deep blue districts.  A primary challenge is often the only opposition that has a reasonably probability of success.  I want more primary challengers to good reps, bad reps, competent reps, incompetent reps, and especially to corrupt bastard reps.  A little bit of competition is a good thing. 

However Ms. Tinker has decided that she wanted to polarize the race on race and religion.  She has run a race that is extraordinarily nasty with out even the pretense of dog whistling on explicit Christianism as a neccessary qualification for office.  This is intolerable behavior that I strongly believe should be politically deadly for any Democrat who engages in it.  If Rep. Cohen was to lose the primary tonight, I would have been prepared to fundraise for any challenger in 2010 against Ms. Tinker so that it would be clear that this behavior was neither tolerable nor profitable. 

Thanksfully, the Swing State Project is reporting that Rep. Cohen is crushing Ms. Tinker. So again, good job TN-9 voters.