Tag: Cohen

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Cover Feature News

The Third Man

In the mob they call it “Omerta.” It’s a word of Spanish origin that can be defined more or less as, “Don’t mean nothing.” The Sicilians, however, adopted the word and gave it its darker current meaning: “The family doesn’t talk about family business.” If there’s a word that sums up why Democratic Congressman Harold Ford Jr., the national media darling of the 2006 elections, lost his senate bid to a weak Republican candidate like Bob Corker, that word is Omerta.

In an attempt to reinvent himself as a Bible-thumping good ‘ol boy, Ford consistently voted — and ran hard — against his party’s mainstream and even harder against its left flank. He sided with the Republicans on such controversial issues as the bankruptcy bill, the Schiavo bill, the torture bill, and the wiretapping bill. Ford never missed an opportunity to crow over his ability to frustrate and confound fellow Democrats. At a Monday night campaign rally in Memphis — the last official function of the political season — he underscored his personal distance from both parties and unwittingly spelled out the very reasons his campaign strategy would ultimately fail him.

“There’s no Democrat or Republican way to get a knock on your door and [hear that] a loved one was killed in Iraq,” he said. “There’s no Democrat or Republican way to pay too much for gas. There’s no Democrat or Republican way to learn that we are more dependent today on the commodities that landed us in Iraq than we were on September 10, 2001. There’s no Democrat or Republican way to learn prescription drug costs are going up. There’s no Democrat or Republican way to see kids who’ve lost hope.”

The rally, stage-managed by Ford’s lobbyist father, former Congressman Harold Sr., centered around Junior’s much ballyhooed bipartisan appeal and touched on subjects near and dear to conservative hearts. While Junior delivered what must have been the most pro-Republican speech in the history of Democratic rallies, his brother Jake watched from the crowd.

Ford Jr.’s fall from grace began in full when Ford Sr. left his cushy compound in Florida to help his unqualified, ill-tempered son Jake run as an independent candidate in the 9th Congressional District race against Democratic nominee Steve Cohen. Senior’s campaign rhetoric flirted with racism and smacked of family entitlement. His activities on Jake’s behalf were a reminder that papa Ford makes his cheese based on what does and doesn’t get done in D.C.

Jake Ford’s most vociferous support came from members of Memphis’ black clergy, who claimed Cohen, a white Jew, couldn’t properly represent the majority-black 9th District. In an interview with The New York Times, Reverend LaSimba Gray went so far as to speculate about whether Cohen was a homosexual. But no matter how dirty the attacks became, Harold Ford Jr. kept his mouth shut. Even when Jake caused a stir by calling Matt Kuhn, the chairman of Shelby County Democrats a “piece of shit,” Junior kept Omerta.

When Junior’s poll numbers began to slip below Corker’s, the national media blamed it on a white-racist response to the shady “Harold, call me” commercial produced by the RNC. Throughout the controversy, there was nary a peep from the national press about Jake or Harold Sr. or the bitter race- and faith-based campaign they were running against Cohen. There was no speculation as to how the Yid-bashing might impact Tennessee’s Jewish vote or how progressive Democrats might recoil from Junior’s conservative rhetoric. Tennessee was simply red, and red hates black. And that was that.

It’s easy for the national news media, in the absence of detail and context, to cling to traditional narratives about race and the South. But in order to fully grasp what actually happened to Harold Ford Jr., you must consider the scene going down at Memphis’ Bayou Bar & Grill on Tuesday night after the election was over and the candidates had gone to bed. The Midtown watering hole was packed with serious, dyed-in-the-wool Democrats who danced and sang, “Hey hey, goodbye,” every time Harold Ford Jr. appeared on television. A casual survey of the room suggested that most of the celebrants had actually voted for Ford but only because they wanted a Democratic majority in the Senate. Nobody at this party — all stragglers from Cohen’s victory celebration next door — mourned the outgoing congressman’s defeat.

There can be no doubt that Tennessee, like much of the South, still has plenty of problems with race. But when the election dust finally settles over Tennessee, Harold Ford Jr.’s Senate loss may say less about the Volunteer State’s confederate past than it does about its progressive future.

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Editorial Opinion

The Road Not Taken

Congratulations are in order today for two of Memphis’ most highly regarded political figures. After two-plus decades of service in the Tennessee Senate, Congressman-Elect Steve Cohen will be moving from Nashville to Washington, D.C., where his considerable legislative experience, we are certain, will make him an effective representative of our city’s interests in the House.

Meanwhile, despite his narrow defeat in the Senate race, outgoing Congressman Harold Ford Jr. ran a remarkably successful campaign as the first significant African-American candidate for statewide office in well over a century. The target of scurrilous political attacks from the national Republican Party, Ford took a licking and kept on ticking, winning widespread support in every corner of the state. His charisma and his undeniable brilliance as a campaigner catapulted Ford to national prominence. For our outgoing Congressman, still only 36, this three-point defeat will no doubt prove but a temporary setback.

The tragedy for Memphis is that there are indications that this setback was unnecessary. Preliminary election returns show Ford capturing 63 percent of the Shelby County vote. If one assumes the congressman garnered nearly unanimous black support, that figure suggests that he won perhaps only a third of the white vote cast in the county. For a candidate who routinely garnered majority white support in his congressional races, such a low figure for a “favorite son” Senate candidate seems at first puzzling.

Puzzling, until one considers the special circumstances of the race in Ford’s own 9th District, where Cohen won the Democratic primary last August. Jake Ford, the congressman’s brother, entered the campaign as an “independent,” with the full support of his father, Harold Ford Sr., and the tacit support of Harold Ford Jr., who declined to endorse the Democratic nominee. The fact that Jake Ford was singularly unqualified for that position was not lost upon the people of the 9th District. He got only 22 percent of the vote. Also not overlooked was the fact that his sordid congressional campaign — reeking of racist and anti-Semitic overtones — was coordinated by his father, a man who once characterized his own non-black constituents as “East Memphis devils.”

Perhaps we will never know why Harold Ford Jr. chose not to dissociate himself from his brother’s campaign and chose not to endorse Cohen, despite the fact that the latter endorsed the Senate candidate early and often. What we do know is this: His decision to go it alone in Memphis — alongside the farcical campaign efforts of his brother — cost Harold Ford Jr. thousands of votes, both here and across Tennessee, perhaps enough votes to cost him the Senate election itself.

How different this could and should have been. Ford and Cohen might have formed a near-perfect, “ebony and ivory” coalition, a black Senate candidate in a white state alongside a white Congressional candidate in a black city. Perhaps the staunchest civil rights advocate in the state Senate, Cohen might have brought even more national attention to a Ford candidacy already awash in pundit adulation. Instead of becoming an unwitting and unnecessary thorn in Ford’s side, Cohen might have helped him protect his political base in Memphis, a base that surely wavered on this Election Day. Our city and state could and should have been better served.

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Politics Politics Feature

Cutting to the Chase

Mayor Willie Herenton for Harold Ford Jr. Governor Phil Bredesen and Commissioner Sidney Chism for Steve Cohen? Say it ain’t so!

Fact is, it is so. Really.

None of the endorsers mentioned above were exactly jumping through hoops or shouting “Hallelujah!” but they made firm commitments of support, all the same.

Most forthright was Herenton’s endorsement of Ford, made after the mayor’s attendance at last week’s prayer breakfast for Senate candidate Ford at The Peabody.

“At the urging of a group of clergy and business leaders, I agreed to endorse Congressman Harold Ford in his bid for the United States Senate,” said the mayor in an interview with the Flyer. “I can look at the big picture,” maintained the frequent Ford-family foe. Herenton said his decision had been made “in the interests of Democratic Party solidarity,” and “in the context that I have previously endorsed Governor Phil Bredesen for reelection and state senator Steve Cohen for Congress.”

The mayor said he had “deliberated for the last two weeks” on the matter of an endorsement and noted that, while Ford had requested an endorsement “in passing,” there had been “no Memphis conversation” at which the congressman had sought his support.

Herenton contrasted that with the fact that former Chattanooga mayor Bob Corker, the Republican candidate, had “appropriately and respectfully” requested his support and discussed with the mayor his plans regarding Memphis, if elected. “In that sense, I might have had a greater respect for Mr. Corker had an endorsement of him been possible.”

But, said Herenton, he had made it clear to Corker that no such endorsement would be forthcoming and that for reasons of local unity and party solidarity the choice for him came down to either non-endorsement or endorsing Ford. He said that his endorsement was not a “left-handed” one and that he was at Ford’s disposal for campaign appearances.

Meanwhile, Cohen, the Democratic nominee for the 9th Congressional District, got a stamp of approval from two major politicians with whom his relations have been, to understate the case, something other than sunny.

During a visit to Memphis last week, Governor Phil Bredesen confirmed that he intended to support every statewide Democratic nominee, “and that certainly includes Senator Cohen.”

Also acknowledging his support for Cohen was former interim state senator and current Shelby County commissioner Sidney Chism, who expressed himself similarly, saying, “I am going to vote for every Democratic nominee, including Senator Cohen.”

Memphis became the center of the state’s political consciousness — and, in the case of one race, the nation’s — last weekend as debates were held here for the contenders in three major races: the United States Senate, the governorship, and the 9th District.

First was a Saturday-night showdown on WREG-TV between Ford and Corker.

In an affair that was widely commented on thereafter in the national media, both contestants in a potentially pivotal race for control of the Senate continued to hew to the same generally centrist (or mildly rightist) themes.

Considering that Corker, by virtue of a clearly overdue staff shakeup, had just stabilized what had been a disastrous decline in the polls (and was lucky to come into this event more or less even), it was surprising that he started out playing the political equivalent of a prevent defense.

Perhaps, as one observer suggested, Corker just wanted to get safely through this first encounter on Memphian Ford’s home turf and save his real game for a later debate elsewhere, where a good performance might put him over the top.

Maybe. But that assumes Corker can keep it close until then, and on the strength of Ford’s energetic performance Saturday night, that can’t be assumed.

Ford was having a fine time exhibiting his performance skills — a little too fine in that once in a while his adrenaline seemed to be getting the best of him. His penchant for flip asides, delivered via casual moves on and off his stool, reminded some viewers of Bill Clinton and others, longer of tooth, of the first Kennedy-Nixon debate, back in the summer of 1960 — although Kennedy was a much more controlled, less hyper presence, and Corker was on point and poised enough not to be Nixon.

If Ford seemed somewhat over-active and glib, that may have been merely the boil-over of a very self-assured presence — the same one the state’s viewers have seen over and over in Ford’s TV ads, most of them stressing themes of national security and patriotism — de facto rebuttals of Corker’s disastrous early “Ford’s a liberal” attack ads that have now been shelved in favor of a more personal approach by the GOP candidate’s new campaign manager, political vet Tom Ingram.

Corker warmed up to a little direct action himself midway into Saturday night’s debate, taking a shot at the “Ford political dynasty,” one which Ford rebutted by the kind of “I love my family” response that, artfully and simultaneously, establishes distance between the congressman and his kindred.

Failing receipt of a “recipe” for picking one’s family, the Memphis congressman advised his opponent to “be quiet, and let’s run for the Senate.” But the Corker team afterward left no doubt that further attacks on the Fords as a political clan would be heard from in the last month of campaigning.

The next encounter, televised via WKNO-TV on Sunday afternoon, was a League of Women Voters forum featuring Bredesen and Republican opponent Jim Bryson.

The most remarkable aspect of that one may have been Bryson’s success in getting to the governor’s left on the issue of health care.

Bryson said that the programs Bredesen put in place as partial substitutes for TennCare, notably the “Cover Tennessee” plan of insurance supplementation, were “bare bones” solutions that would not resolve the issue of uninsured and uninsurable patients the governor had cut from the program, many of them, Bryson said, with “terminal” illnesses.

Bredesen countered by suggesting that his disenrollment effort had been aimed primarily at aspects of TennCare most subject to fraud and other abuses and said the program, instituted by former Governor Ned Ray McWherter and continued under former Governor Don Sundquist, had been “over-blown and over-bloated.”

Other points of divergence were: Bredesen’s defense of the jury-trial system of deciding medical-malpractice issues vs. Bryson’s call for caps on punitive damages; and the GOP challenger’s call for using the state surpluses accumulated under Bredesen to pay for elimination of the sales tax on groceries.

Finally, there was a sometimes stormy three-way debate Sunday night on WREG-TV featuring 9th District candidates Cohen, Republican Mark White, and “independent” Democrat Jake Ford.

Ford, first up, characterized himself as a champion of “working-wage Americans.” Next, primary winner Cohen expressed solidarity with his fellow Democrats for conferring the party’s nomination on him and promised he would “never turn … my back” on them, meanwhile chastising Ford for avoiding the party primary. Finally, White argued for a “coming together” of “new people, new blood” to create a different political reality in the traditionally Democratic district.

Thereafter, the genial White became something of a bystander as favored veteran Cohen and newcomer Ford scrapped for bragging rights.

The exchanges between Ford and Cohen became ever brisker, with Ford characterizing Cohen as “too liberal” on the issues of “gambling” (Cohen is the acknowledged father of the state lottery), marijuana (the senator has proposed legalizing medical marijuana), and, most controversially, same-sex marriage (Cohen opposes what he calls “constitutional tampering” to deal with the matter).

At one point, Ford went so far as to say that Cohen’s position on gay marriage was “certainly, I hope, not for personal reasons.”

Meanwhile Cohen made a point of stating for the record that he had never been arrested, “nor has Mr. White,” leaving it to Ford to acknowledge, without specifiying, that he might have had such trouble between 1990 and 1993, when his father, former Congressman Harold Ford Sr., faced federal indictments.

These and other heated exchanges between Cohen and Ford suggest that, as this race continues, there will be further trouble between the two, right here in River City.

Note: complete accounts of the three weekend debates may be found in the “Political Beat” section at MemphisFlyer.com.

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Politics Politics Feature

Roadblock

“It was a technical knockout, no contest. It was embarrassing,” said erstwhile Democratic primary candidate Tyson Pratcher about the first real debate Monday night between the three remaining candidates for the 9th District congressional seat — Democratic nominee Steve Cohen, Republican nominee Mark White, and independent Jake Ford.

In the judgment of Pratcher (and almost every other unbiased observer), Cohen, an experienced state legislator with a quarter-century’s worth of experience, was the “winner” of the hour-long encounter at the Central Library, sponsored by the League of Women Voters. And there was no doubt who the loser was, at least relatively speaking — first-time candidate Ford, who needed only a credible outing, on top of two prior strong performances, to be able to mount a serious challenge for the seat being vacated by his illustrious brother Harold Ford Jr.

The GOP’s White had his moments, especially at the close when he uttered a passionate call for partisans of all causes to dissolve their differences in a common effort to find solutions to basic problems — including, presumably, the educational deficiencies and high mortality rate of the district that White had been previously emphatic (and empathetic) about.

And there was no doubting White’s sincerity in expressing such home truths as “A country without borders is not a country” and “We need fathers in homes.”

But it was Cohen who best articulated specific answers, as when, in response to a question about Iraq, he deftly communicated a sense of domestic urgency: “We had shock and awe. … We destroyed their country, and now we’re spending our time rebuilding that country when our country needs rebuilding. … Memphis has places like New Orleans. They just haven’t been exposed by the awful hurricane that New Orleans suffered.”

There are two kinds of people, Cohen said. “There’s one kind, the ruling class, that sends people to war and another kind that goes to war, and the kind that sends people to war don’t seem to think about it or see and hear those people.”

The veteran state senator also made proposals for an uncompromising ethics code at the federal level and denounced both the Patriot Act and a proposed constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage as doing damage to the Constitution.

There were times Monday night when Jake Ford seemed the self-assured, even eloquent candidate who, in the preceding several days, had deftly fielded questions during a radio interview with friendly host Jennings Bernard and then later had seemed both knowledgeable and compassionate at a public seminar on health care.

He had even sounded worldly-wise, as he periodically did Monday night. Answering a question about ethics reform, Ford said, “As we all know, we live in a system that operates under capitalism. People are always going to find a way to advance their agenda.”

And Ford’s opening and closing remarks were fluent enough. It’s what came in between that was problematic. Here and there he was admirably to the point — expressing support for civil unions, for example, and for a timetable for extricating American forces from Iraq.

What was most dumbfounding about his performance Monday night was not just that, on three separate occasions, he was forced to confess that he had no answer to the rather basic question being asked but that one of those questions concerned itself, in the most general possible sense, with Medicare — a subject area clearly and directly related to things discussed in last week’s health-care forum, when the candidates (excluding Cohen, who was being feted by Cybill Shepherd at a fund-raiser) had been presented the questions ahead of time.

Ford’s response: “You would almost have to know a lot about the system itself, and at this time I do not have all of the answers here.”

Though that was a non-answer to the question at hand, it seemed a possible answer to something various observers had been speculating on last week: Were Jake Ford’s smooth performances on the radio and at the health-care forum dependent on his having foreknowledge of what he was going to be asked and time to prepare an answer?

In answer to another question Monday night, Ford said, “I don’t know the solution right now. I don’t have the answer right now. I want to go to Congress to learn.” More than once, he deferred answering something, promising in apparent good faith to research an issue so as to come to grips with it later in the campaign.

Well and good, but it didn’t square well with the candidate’s answer as to why it was he chose to run as an independent rather than competing in the Democratic primary.

Ford’s statement about that was complicated and hard to parse. If he hadn’t done so, he said at one point, “I don’t think this forum would even have been held.” That was either a truism or an attempt at denying that several comprehensive forums were held during the primary season. Bottom line, one that was ironic under the circumstances: His independent candidacy presented “an opportunity to discuss the issues in an informed way.”

The best-case scenario for Ford: He will have other opportunities to do so. His father, former Congressman Harold Ford Sr., was talking up his abilities over the weekend, making a case that his second son had been widely underestimated.

Meanwhile, Jake Ford’s celebrated older brother, the congressman whose job he now seeks, Harold Ford Jr., was having a big-time week, surging ahead of Republican rival Bob Corker in a couple of mainstream polls taken on their U.S. Senate race and reportedly opening up a 46-to-39 gap in one of his own.

Tracking the congressman on Sunday, it was easy to see why. His first public appearance that day was at Centenary United Methodist Church, where he functioned as a de facto preacher, bringing a sermon on public stewardship that neatly walked the line between the secular and the divine, yet was rousing enough to draw frequent “Amen” choruses from the congregation.

Later in the day, Representative Ford presided over a well-attended, near-ecstatic rally at his headquarters, one in which he cited new polls showing his edge over Corker growing and noted that Newsweek magazine had elevated the Ford-Corker race to “number one” in the nation. The congressman invoked the spirit of Democratic solidarity, saying of Corker, “If you want somebody who votes with Bush all the time, then he’s your man!”

At one point earlier Sunday, Ford had also dropped in on an NAACP forum that was being held at Mt. Olive CME Church for candidates in various races. Brother Jake was not there, but White and Cohen were, and the latter, in answer to a question, made a point of yoking it to his support for “my candidate for the U.S. Senate, Harold Ford Jr.” Pointedly, the congressman did not respond in kind.

A question that has vexed any number of Democrats in the weeks since the August 3rd primary is this: What has prevented a joint embrace of support between Democratic nominees Cohen and Harold Ford Jr.?

Former Congressman Ford was candid about some of the reasons on Sunday. “What kind of father wouldn’t support his own son?” he said at one point. At another, he acknowledged a further reason: Memphis mayor Willie Herenton’s combination of public support for Cohen with derogatory remarks about Jake Ford and the Ford clan at large.

But, maintained the senior Ford in something of a revelation, he had, immediately after the primary, sent the victorious Cohen a message through Shelby County mayor A C Wharton, who would later join Herenton in a public endorsement ceremony for Cohen.

“I said let’s all get together and do this thing,” Ford said, evidently meaning a unity proclamation. “I gave it 36 hours, and I never heard anything back from Cohen.” The implication was that the newly nominated Cohen had not answered the feeler by touching base with him.

For the record, Cohen — who had gone so far on election night as to suggest that his defeat in the 1996 9th District race by Harold Ford Jr., “a great charismatic congressman,” might have been a good thing — denies having received any such communication.

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Politics Politics Feature

Brother Act

Say this about Harold Ford Sr.: The former 9th District congressman hasn’t lost his appetite for political combat. He made that clear last week when he accepted co-billing with his son Harold Ford Jr. at a Friday-morning rally at the Park Place headquarters of the current congressman, now a candidate for the U.S. Senate.

A “reception” for the two Harold Fords, it was called, and it drew a goodly crowd. With some time to kill, the senior Ford shared some thinking about his son’s campaign as he awaited the arrival of Representative Ford’s campaign bus. (Yes, if earlier that morning you were watching hometown idol Justin Timberlake on ABC-TV’s Good Morning America, that was the selfsame bus that just happened to have pulled up behind the stage, flashing its Ford For Senate logo before the eyes of the nation.)

Nor has the old warrior lost his sense of strategy. It was clearly a mistake, the former congressman said, for his son’s Senate rival, Republican nominee Bob Corker, to have invited President Bush to Memphis for a fund-raiser next week — the second such occasion in Tennessee, following a public embrace between the two the week before last in Nashville.

“That’s the trouble with those millionaires. They don’t want to spend any money, especially none of their own,” Ford Sr. — a seven-figure type himself these days as a well-paid Florida-based consultant — said of the former Chattanooga mayor, an entrepreneur whose considerable fortune has derived from low-income housing projects.

As the elder Ford explained it, Corker’s misplaced frugality was making him over-dependent on a president with sagging polls and presumably frayed coattails. As a piece of analysis, it made sense. It was certainly true that his son’s campaign seemed to be spending more money than his rival’s just now — mainly on a recurring and well-crafted series of TV ads that made the most of the younger Ford’s mediagenic looks and reassuring stage presence.

Those commercials — the most recent one made in a church! — featured the same right-of-center rap (pro-Patriot Act, pro-curbs on immigration, etc.) that has driven the left wing of the congressman’s party bananas. One effect of this approach has seemingly been to prevent Corker, fearful of being out-flanked on his right, from coming to the political center as newly minted party nominees usually do.

The audience for Representative Ford’s typically rousing and generalized remarks at the Friday-morning rally included a generous collection of Democrats — senior citizens, business types, Midtown Democrats, suburban types, etc.

Subsequent to the event, the impression got out in some quarters that it had been an affair for College Democrats (it wasn’t — though they, like other Democrats, had been invited and responded) in which, according to a widely circulated e-mail from a University of Memphis student: “Apparently, after Junior was done speaking, his fucktard brother got a chance to speak to the volunteer base that we acquired for Junior.”

Hearsay of this sort begat further hearsay, and soon an honest blogger or two had picked up on a gathering outrage among supporters of 9th District Democratic nominee Steve Cohen that the “fucktard brother” (i.e., independent congressional candidate Jake Ford) had benefited from what had now, in some tellings, become a “handoff” at the rally from Representative Ford.

Actually, nothing of the sort occurred. Jake Ford had been no more than one member of the large and milling crowd. He had no role in the proceedings, which ended after his congressman brother left to go join the Rev. Ben Hooks for the dedication of a Whitehaven Job Corps center in Hooks’ honor.

If Jake Ford “worked the crowd” afterward (as a revised version of the ever-shifting story had it), then so did anybody else who had been in the throng. It was just a case of a large gathering breaking off into isolated conversational clumps as people made their way out the door.

That so much was later made of a non-event merely served to underscore the existence of a very real schism in local Democratic ranks — one that was bound to be exacerbated by Jake Ford’s own claim in a radio interview this week.

Asked by a caller on a show hosted by Jennings Bernard why Representative Ford had not publicly endorsed him, Jake Ford maintained that his brother had in fact done so and, to further that contention, availed himself of the same rumors that were already in play concerning last week’s Friday-morning rally.

“Quite simply, he [Representative Ford] endorses me every day,” said Jake Ford. “I endorse him every day.” As for why his brother hadn’t “officially come out,” Ford said, “I think most people should realize he does endorse me. I was just with him on Friday at his campaign headquarters for a rally. Make no mistake about it, he’s my brother, and I love the guy. It’s just two different races. He’s running for the Senate and I’m running for Congress.”

The bottom line was that now people were prepared to believe what they wanted to believe. When Jake Ford’s radio remarks are carefully parsed, they don’t authenticate the fact of an “endorsement” that, ultimately, could only come from Representative Ford himself. But they certainly put Ford Jr. in the position of having to speak to the issue himself, something he ultimately will be under great — perhaps unavoidable — pressure to do.

Understandably, proponents of state senator Cohen are vexed at Representative Ford for the statements of neutrality he has made so far concerning the race to succeed him. They, too, tend to regard the congressman’s posture as indicative of de facto support for brother Jake.

In the long run, some believe, that feeling could grow in Democratic circles, even at the statewide level, and cost Representative Ford enough votes at the margin to threaten his chances in the Senate race. Right now, with Corker running like a dry creek and losing momentum in all the polls to Ford, it may not seem so to the congressman.

And his ex-congressman father has made no secret of his intention to pull out all the stops for both of his sons.

Meanwhile, Cohen continues to be regarded as the front-runner. He, after all, is his party’s nominee, made what has to be regarded as a substantial primary showing in black precincts (17 percent overall), is regarded by many Democrats, especially liberal ones, as a longtime champion of their causes, and even has boosters in Republican circles.

That last fact, based on some isolated conservative positions (e.g., on gun control and the death penalty) as well as a general admiration for his legislative service and tenacity, is cause for some concern in the camp of Republican nominee Mark White, who has devoted much attention in his own campaign to social issues like abortion and gay marriage. It is areas like those where he perceives Cohen to have possible weaknesses.

In an address to the College Democrats at the University of Memphis Monday night, Cohen maintained that “both of my opponents” hoped to undermine him in such areas. He defended his opposition to constitutional amendments against gay marriage — jesting, however, that he was firmly opposed to “intergalactic” marriage.

Cohen told the College Democrats that Jake Ford in his radio appearance had implied Cohen was a homosexual, a racist, and “a crook.” In all fairness, the first two allegations derived more from innuendoes and more from callers than from anything Ford said. But candidate Ford did seem to be doing his best to nudge home the last charge.

“I think he’s stepped over the line a couple of times, and we still cannot get the attorney general to be responsive to some of the allegations that we have become aware of pertaining to some dealings that he has had himself,” Ford said on Bernard’s show without elaborating further.

The very fact that he said something like that was taken by many Cohen supporters as ample confirmation that Jake Ford was intimately bound up with the appearance of a new Web site called CrookedCohen.org, which makes the very unspecified allegations alluded to by Ford. Blogger Derek Haire (rivercitymud.com) painstakingly traced that site and Jake Ford’s own campaign site back to the same IP address.

No sign, by the way, of Ophelia Ford, unseen on the campaign trail during this entire season but still, for demographic and party reasons, the favorite in the District 29 state Senate race over the relentlessly campaigning Republican Terry Roland.

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Cover Feature News

The Big One

CREDIT: Jackson Baker

Early voting for the August 3rd Shelby County election ballot has been brisk, and the news has been good for some candidates — for example, state senator Steve Cohen, whose 9th District congressional candidacy is surely profiting from a disproportionate turnout of white Democrats at Poplar Corridor and East Memphis sites (See also Politics, p. 15). The same figures may not be so comforting to other candidates — like Division 5 General Sessions judge Betty Thomas, a vigorous campaigner who, as a first-time judicial candidate, won her seat on the bench eight years ago in a multi-candidate field. She now finds herself matched one-on-one against newcomer Evan Nahmias, who could well draw heavily from the same precincts.

Many a presumed sure-thing outcome could be imperiled if the demographics of that early-voting trend continue to and through Election Day, which will still be the occasion for most of the voting. Rarely has so much advance fear and trembling attended an election as is the case with the mammoth August 3rd ballot, with its well-over-100 races to decide no matter where one lives in Shelby County. Everybody, it seems, has heard the horror stories about misadventures, delays, and errors connected with the new Diebold machines that are being employed for the first time (see “Vote Early and Often,” p. 25). Such problems, along with long lines at the polls, could well be a disincentive for working-class voters who don’t have the available time to vote at odd hours or endure lengthy delays.

Other factors that could affect the voting include two big races of transcendent interest. One is the 9th District congressional race where presumed leader Cohen faces a field of 14 other Democrats, four or five considered capable of catching up or coming close with a final spurt. The other is the Republican U.S. Senate primary, in which both local longtime favorite Ed Bryant, a former 7th District congressman, and newly ascendant Bob Corker, the deep-pocketed former mayor of Chattanooga, will be working at revving up their strength in Shelby County. (A third candidate, former 4th District congressman Van Hilleary, was largely confining his efforts to Middle and East Tennessee.)

Local Republicans had been at least as grateful as was Democrat Harold Ford Jr. in April for the last-minute withdrawal of Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Rosalind Kurita, a state senator from Clarksville. The departing 9th District congressman thereby became this party’s de facto nominee and could husband his resources for the fall instead of working overtime to boost primary turnout.

That fact meant that Republicans, who have predominated among local countywide officeholders since the advent of partisan elections in the mid-’90s, had a fighting chance to hold on to their gains against what has been proclaimed for two full decades as an inevitable demographic tide favoring Democrats. To be sure, a steady out-migration of the white (and black) middle class had, at least in theory, diluted the Republican share of the total Shelby County vote. But the GOP has so far managed to prevail, at least in countywide elections, by superior turnout on Election Day.

It won’t be so this year, insists veteran Democratic activist David Upton, who points to a contrary trend that has seen black inner-city turnout rise somewhat disproportionately in city-wide and presidential elections.

Jackson Baker

Happily locked in a Wharton sandwich recently was judicial candidate Janet Lansky Shipman, endorsed by the county mayor and his wife, lawyer Ruby Wharton

“[D]isgraceful and shameful disgraces … ”

Turnout is only one factor to reckon with. A number of races seem unusually responsive to the nature of the coattails that this or that candidate happens to be attached to. This is especially the case with the ostensibly nonpartisan judicial races.

As an example, former prosecutor and current county personnel director Janet Lansky Shipman, one of four unusually qualified candidates in the race for the open Division 7 Criminal Court seat, was boosted by an unusual twofer. Hers was the only radio ad of the political season that could legitimately summon up the spirit of the King, Elvis Presley himself, who had famously purchased his threads at the Lansky family’s Beale St. clothing store. And she also claimed support from the mayor — Shelby County chief executive A C Wharton, who pointedly endorsed her late in the campaign.

Not bad, although rival Lee Coffee, an assistant district attorney, also has a number of high-profile endorsements, and the two other candidates, attorney Larry H. Nance and federal public defender Doris Holt, also are well regarded.

This year’s judicial races were unusually dependent on other people’s say-so, with two bar associations, two political parties, innumerable ad hoc groups, and several private individuals offering up a confusing mélange of slates and endorsement tickets.

In previous years, judicial contests, conducted according to official canons that would have put the Marquis of Queensberry to sleep, had been staid, formal, and not terribly revealing. But this year’s have been characterized by an unprecedented degree of invective, involving not only quarreling blocs of backers but intramural animosities within political organizations and occasional name-calling between the competing candidates. The most glaring instance of the latter came early on when Deep Throat-era prosecutor Larry Parrish decided that his political comeback effort required a full-scale verbal assault on his opponent, Division 8 Circuit Court judge D’Army Bailey, a former Berkeley radical turned establishmentarian.

Parrish contrived to append to a routine legal pleading a direct attack on Bailey, an occasional actor in movies (including The People v. Larry Flynt, a biopic about the publisher of Hustler magazine). “As part of my campaign,” Parrish suggested in a confusing (and perhaps confused) passage of his affidavit, a link was made from Bailey to the pimp/hustler problem manifested in another Memphis-made movie (apparently last year’s Hustle & Flow, which the thespian/judge had in fact not appeared in). Said Parrish: “I will reiterate how disappointed I was in being told that in May 2006 Judge Bailey appeared in public (at a Memphis In May event) wearing a T-shirt on which the word ‘Mafia’ was printed and garbed in flashy jewelry typical of Memphis pimps, giving dignity and legitimacy to two of the more disgraceful and shameful disgraces this city must bear.”

Yes, this really happened. Bailey’s only recorded response at the time was to say, “This guy is going to make the lawyers love me.” And, sure enough, the incumbent, who had always taken his lumps in annual Bar Association ratings, easily outdid Parrish in this year’s published evaluation of candidates by members of the Memphis bar.

But nonfederal judges in Shelby County are elected, and it clearly would take more than approbation by lawyers, official or otherwise, to put a candidate over in this year’s highly politicized atmosphere (For a commentary on judges and politics in the context of the election process, see retired Judge Robert Lanier‘s Viewpoint column, “Judging the Justices,” p. 17). Politics being politics, personal characteristics count for something. One of the most closely watched races is that for Chancellor, Part 2, which matches incumbent Arnold Goldin, well-regarded across partisan lines, against newcomer Carlee McCullough, currently a contract-compliance officer for the city of Memphis. Both contenders possess more than their share of charm, but Goldin is more heavily credentialed.

Gale Jones Carson, head of this year’s Democratic countywide coordinated campaign, discounts the importance of credentials, noting that many of the judges now officiating in Shelby County lacked a lengthy resume but have performed well once on the bench. It’s the ultimate learn-by-doing job, she maintains.

Credentials were certainly not the only issue back in June, when a lawyer-dominated screening committee proposed a slate of judicial endorsees to the Shelby County Democratic Party’s executive committee. That meeting descended into chaos as epithets were exchanged and several of the screening committee’s recommendations were undone.

In many cases, race was suspected as a motive. Committee members and onlookers at the rowdy Democratic endorsement meeting resorted frequently to accusations of that sort — and that debate continued in the public prints, or at least in the blog portion of it, where the debate continues to rage.

Jackson Baker

Judicial-race rivals Deborah Henderson (left) and Regina Morrison Newman (right) flank Charter Commission candidate Sharon Webb.

Blog Warfare, Internal Threats, and a Showdown or Two

An intriguing footnote to that Democratic meeting: One of the interested bystanders was lawyer Richard Fields, who was overheard observing to longstanding party man (and fellow lawyer) David Cocke: “Y’all ought to get rid of Del Gill.” Gill is the professionally obstreperous party gadfly whose sting usually ends up being turned on himself. At that moment, he was interrupting proceedings every 30 seconds with this or that motion or complaint. When Cocke merely shrugged and said, “He keeps getting elected!” Fields persisted. “Y’all ought to kick him off the committee.” What made that exchange both interesting and ironic was that Fields, a maverick in his own right, had been the only committee member kicked off in recent memory — for having been one of Republican Terry Roland‘s litigators in legal actions opposing Democrat Ophelia Ford‘s election last year in a special state Senate race.

In any case, Fields was not through with the matter. He promptly circulated copies of a letter to members of the Memphis bar containing his own judicial endorsements — as well as embarrassing information about the professional and personal affairs of candidates he disapproved of. (This exhibit, too, may be perused atMemphisFlyer.com.) Fields’ letter galvanized blogger Thaddeus Matthews into turning the tables on several of Fields’ picks, outing some of their own previously closeted skeletons. Nor did Fields himself escape retribution, as Matthews’ blog went on to charge the lawyer himself with grievous private misdeeds. (In this Google-happy age, readers interested in the further details of this and related controversies will have no trouble locating them on the Internet.)

Republicans, meanwhile, experienced their own internal frets. One of them concerned the activities of one Angelo Cobrasci (see “Right of Right,” p. 21), who has displaced longtime party maverick Jerry Cobb as the chief irritant to the local GOP establishment. But whereas Cobb has long been considered a nitpicker, Cobrasci was suspected of wanting to turn a blowtorch on the party’s thin-skinned sensibilities. Not only was he a campaign manager for the independent gubernatorial candidacy of Minuteman leader Carl “Two Feathers” Whitaker (whose earlier effort to run as a Republican had been cold-shouldered by the party brass), but Cobrasci, as impresario of the Shelby County Coalition of Conservative Republicans, saw fit to put out his own sample ballot of endorsement choices in competition with the official Republican one.

Although there are big-ticket races for governor, senator, and Congress on the ballot, an unusual amount of attention has been focused on the District 5 race for the Shelby County Commission. That race, for the seat being vacated by Republican Bruce Thompson, features Democrat Steve Mulroy versus Republican Jane Pierotti, and it is regarded as decisive in the matter of which party controls the commission. (Republicans have predominated over Democrats by a 7-6 majority for the last several terms.) A victory for Mulroy would reverse that ratio.

In a year’s time, Mulroy, a law professor at the University of Memphis, has become widely known for his involvement in the cause of voting-machine reform, in local attempts to salvage the Libertyland amusement park, and on behalf of Ophelia Ford in her attempt to hang on to the District 29 state Senate seat. Pierotti has the advantage of a notable last name (hers by virtue of a since-dissolved marriage), and she is known as a successful business consultant. Turnout will clearly loom large in the outcome in a district which voted 63 percent for Democrat presidential candidate John Kerry in 2004.

Jackson Baker

Henri Brooks is wearing more than one candidate hat this year.

One other commission race of interest is that for Position 2, in District 2, between Democrat Henri Brooks and Republican Novella Smith Arnold. This race was reviewed in last week’s Politics column, which (mea culpa) omitted the salient fact that Brooks is simultaneously running for reelection to her District 92 seat in the state House of Representatives (See Editorial, p. 16). Though clearly an underdog, Arnold is well known as a longtime social activist and former broadcaster and has some degree of support among Democrats. Her chances were further boosted over the last week by endorsements ranging from The Commercial Appeal to the Stonewall Democrats, a gay/lesbian activist group.

Other Important Races

Governor — In theory, both parties have gubernatorial primaries on the ballot, but for the Democrats that’s really just a figure of speech. And the Republican race, too, is largely pro forma.

The GOP party brass didn’t get down on their knees and plead with first-term state senator Jim Bryson of Franklin to forgo his reelection race and run for governor without making sure he would have such support as can be mustered up. (Lawyer Mark Albertini somehow didn’t grasp this. Chattanoogan Albertini, who was arrested at a Knoxville intersection last weekend for campaigning while intoxicated, has been the most active of six other Republicans who are at least nominal opponents for Bryson.)

Jackson Baker

GOP gubernatorial candidate Jim Bryson greets a small band of the faithful

But one had to wonder about Bryson’s establishment support when he came to town on a fly-around a couple of weeks ago and the only press that was at the Wilson Air terminal to greet him was … moi. And the only reason I was there was because someone from the state Democratic Party in Nashville called me up with an advance retort to Bryson. Nobody acting on Bryson’s behalf ever got around to notifying the Memphis media he was going to be here.

Governor Phil Bredesen, on the other hand, is always well advanced and attended to by Democrats when he comes to town, and not just because he’s an incumbent. The last Zogby poll showed him up over Bryson, 58 percent to 22 percent. For the record, the old warhorse John Jay Hooker is one of three nominal primary opponents for the governor.

Estimated financial resources on hand show $4.5 million for Bredesen, $500,000 for Bryson, and zilch for anybody else.

U.S. Senate — Hooker has his (somewhat frayed) hat in the Democratic Senate primary, too, along with four others. But only one of those four, Memphis congressman Ford, is really in the race. For all practical purposes, Ford has the nomination in hand.

There are enough Republican candidates to make a foursome at bridge, but the unknown Tate Harrison will just have to be the dummy. Active hands are held by former Chattanooga mayor Bob Corker and former congressmen Ed Bryant and Van Hilleary. The well-heeled Corker probably has most of the trumps. (See recent Flyer story, “Senate 2006: It’s Crunch Time!” in “Political Beat” at MemphisFlyer.com.)

Shelby County Mayor — The simple facts of the matter are that Democrat A C Wharton is the closest thing to an invincible candidate in Shelby County government, and though mayoral opponent John Willingham, the Republican nominee, can make a substantial case for mismanagement and duplicity by a generation of “good ole boys,” the simple arithmetic of politics (as well as a charm quotient that is unexcelled by anybody else running locally) weighs heavily in favor of Wharton, who has been dexterous in distancing himself from Willingham’s bill of particulars.

Sheriff — Incumbent Mark Luttrell is a smooth customer and a genius at public relations. The former chief of county corrections, who seems to attend every available political venue, makes a convincing case that he has rendered both the county jail and the corrections center more efficient at less cost and has removed the jail from federal supervision. He is also quick enough on his feet to have disengaged himself from the contentious issue of privatization.

Surprisingly smooth in his own right, Democrat Reginald French makes a plausible criticism that Luttrell is concerned more with “locking them up” than with crime-prevention per se or with intervention programs. It remains a fact that Luttrell has very serious crossover support from influential Democrats and that French has some baggage he hasn’t quite disposed of — notably a tire-slashing incident several years ago. Deputy John Harvey, who has uncovered beaucoup voting abuses, is running as a write-in and could make waves.

District Attorney General — Even more so than Luttrell, incumbent Republican Bill Gibbons has across-the-board support that includes several prominent Democrats. Gail Mathes, the Democratic nominee, is making a spirited challenge, however — one based on what she sees as ineffective law enforcement behind a public-relations facade.

Juvenile Court Clerk — One of the most watched races features a rematch between Republican incumbent Steve Stamson and Democratic challenger Shep Wilbun, a former clerk who was defeated by Stamson four years ago.

Stamson is well liked and respected, and his claims of running an efficient, less costly operation ring true, but Wilbun acquired a martyr’s mantle, especially in the African-American community, after a 2002 election-year prosecution for “official misconduct” was dropped, presumably for lack of evidence. Stamson has to hope that a recent burst of Tennessee Waltz publicity about malfeasance by some of Wilbun’s former employees will curb some of the Democrat’s momentum.

Shelby County Clerk — Republican Debbie Stamson, wife of the aforementioned Steve Stamson and a longtime deputy administrator under outgoing clerk Jayne Creson, has Creson’s blessing and a presumed edge over gracious Democrat Otis Jackson, who has promised, if elected, to consider re-employing Stamson.

Circuit Court Clerk — Another Republican with an apparent leg up is incumbent clerk Jimmy Moore, who has the support of the Democratic Ford clan (county commissioner Joe Ford Sr. is his campaign chairman!) against one Roderic Ford (no relation), who is widely regarded as little more than a stand-in for maverick Democrat Del Gill‘s personal ambitions.

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Criminal Court Clerk — The issue between GOP incumbent Bill Key and Democratic challenger Vernon Johnson Sr. will be resolved by turnout numbers, pure and simple.

Probate Court Clerk — Turnout will also be a key factor in this race between longtime antagonists (who have had issues both in the courts and at the ballot box). Republican incumbent Chris Thomas‘ incumbency will be weighed against Sondra Becton‘s lengthy former experience as an assistant in the office.

Register — This nondescript (if, like other clerkships, well-paying) job will most likely come down to turnout, though incumbent Republican Tom Leatherwood, who is opposed by Democrat Coleman Thompson, boasts that he has reduced overhead in an office that is, in any case, run on the basis of fees collected, not out of the county’s general fund.

Juvenile Court Judge — This race has been a dogfight between four of the five candidates. City judge Jayne Chandler has been largely a no-show (though she did pick up the endorsement of TV judge Joe Brown, a former Criminal Court judge). The favorite is outgoing Republican state senator Curtis Person, who has served for some years as a chief aide to retiring Judge Kenneth Turner. Person, whose friendships range across party lines, is backed by Turner and has the local GOP’s endorsement, as well. His chief competition may come from Democratic endorsee Veronica Coleman, the former U.S. attorney who has crossover potential herself, although another city judge, Earnestine Hunt Dorse, aided by the capable campaign efforts of her husband, longtime activist Fred Dorse, has significant support, too — especially in the black community. Not to be overlooked either is lawyer William Winchester, who, along with African-Americans Coleman and Dorse, has levied reasoned complaints about several issues that all these candidates perceive as incompletely addressed by the court, like its recent tendency to remand more and more juvenile cases to one of the county’s criminal courts.

Jackson Baker

Juvenile Court judicial candidate Earnestine Hunt Dorse (left) with friends

(Note: For more complete information on these and other races on the August 3rd ballot — including those for the Charter Commission — consult “Political Beat” at

MemphisFlyer.com, where updates will appear until Election Day.)