Tag: Ricky Wilkins

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Politics Politics Feature

Ricky Wilkins, battling cancer, to Head “Mem-Power Conference”

In the same week that one victim of a malignant brain tumor, U.S. Senator John McCain, was somehow managing to go hiking on his home ground and planning a return to his U.S. Capitol workplace, another so stricken public figure, attorney and former congressional candidate Ricky Wilkins, was up and going and advertising a new public venture here in Memphis.

Wilkins, who has been undergoing treatment for his illness for months, is the featured personality in an event billed as the “Mem-Power Conference,” billed as “an economic, life, and game-changing opportunity for Memphians to rise up and fight the status quo.”

The event is to be held on Saturday, August 5th, at 873 Vance, under the auspices of “the Honorable Louis Farrakhan’s Mid-South representative, Minister Anthony Muhammad,” according to an emailed notice.

Farrakhan, of course, is best remembered for having led the Million Man March, a mass assembly held in Washington in 1995 of advocates for civil justice and economic rights for African Americans.

Asked for further information on the event, Minister Muhammad deferred to Wilkins, who was reached by telephone late Monday and confirmed his participation as a way of “giving back to the community” that had nurtured him during his personal and professional career, and of encouraging under-served Memphians to take steps to address long-standing issues of a political and economic nature.

Before Wilkins, who was addressing both the facts of his illness and the “Mem-Power” event forthrightly, could elaborate further, he was compelled to deal with a law client with whom he had a prior appointment, he said. (More details about the forthcoming event will be published by the Flyer as they are learned.)

Former Mayor Willie Herenton, a long-standing friend and political ally of Wilkins, told the Flyer that he was frequently in touch with Wilkins and was well aware of both the severity of his illness and the seriousness of Wilkins’ treatment regimen but had been encouraged by his friend’s determination and noted, “Every time I talk with him, he sounds strong.”

Wilkins had indeed sounded alert and focused over the telephone on Monday night, and he has made a point of attending some public events in recent weeks. Before his illness became known, the possibility of his renewing a Congressional bid in next year’s Democratic primary or of making a mayoral bid had been much discussed locally, but reports of his medical circumstances have dampened such speculation.

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Politics Politics Feature

Insularity Breeds Defeat for the Democrats

CREDIT: JB

JB

Last March the Shelby County Democrats’ executive committee formally censured several party members for consorting with Republicans.

“I wish those Democrats would go ahead and just sign up and be Republicans. Go ahead and join the party because we don’t need you. You don’t support us.” — Bryan Carson, August 8, 2014

Sure, this day-after-election statement about Democratic crossover voters by the youthful Shelby County Democratic chairman — quickly withdrawn and apologized for within a day — reflected the strain and frustration of a losing race. But it also contained evidence of the virus that has infected the local party for years — and that reached the life-threatening stage this year.

The fact is that, over the past generation, many a Democrat has gone ahead and just “signed up” to be a Republican. The throngs that swell the annual functions of the local GOP — the Lincoln Day Dinner, the Master Meal, and the other large-scale affairs that require significant ballroom space — are loaded with former Democrats, many of them office-holders.

The crowds that attend the Kennedy Day Dinner and other gala functions of the Democrats — the same Democrats who used to number most of the county’s movers and shakers — grow smaller year by year, as do the venues rented to put them on.

Four years ago, Shelby County’s Democrats, conscious of demographic population numbers that seemed to guarantee them an electoral majority, girded for a sweep in the August county election and got one; only it was they who were on the losing end of it.

What happened? One explanation, still popular among the party’s strategists, was that Republican turnout was inflated by the intensely competitive race going on that year among Republicans in the 8th Congressional District and, even more so, by a governor’s race featuring three GOP candidates who spent large and seemed to be making Shelby County a second home.

Another explanation, still widely accepted among Democratic activists and on the street, was that fraudulent or incompetent oversight of the election by the GOP-dominated Election Commission had cheated Democrats out of several possible victories.

 In the election just concluded on August 7th, neither of these conditions applied: It was the Democrats who had competitive races — for the 9th District congressional seat between victorious incumbent Steve Cohen and challenger Ricky Wilkins and for the U.S. Senate nomination between impressive newcomers Gordon Ball, the winner, and Terry Adams, the near-thing loser.

Thanks to significant pressure from local Democrats and their governmental allies, federal monitors were on hand to prevent any possible hanky panky at the polls.

Yet it was the same old same old when the votes were counted. Republicans had won everything except for the assessor’s race, won by respected  Democratic incumbent Cheyenne Johnson, who kept her campaign mostly separate from the “coordinated campaign” run by the Shelby County Democratic Party and who was, in effect, having to reenact her off-year victory of two years earlier, thanks to a change in the state election calendar.

Of course, the outcome could be partly explained by an apparently disproportionate turnout, especially in early voting, by white suburban Republicans and a lesser-than-expected turnout by inner-city black Democrats. But that argument amounts to what logicians call a tautology, which is a rhetorical first cousin to circular reasoning — as in: “The reason for the lower Democratic vote was that fewer Democrats came to the polls.”

And the fact is, there was more to it than that. Of the Democrats who did come to the polls, it is estimated that perhaps 20 percent of them cast their votes not for party mates but for Republican candidates on the ballot.

These are the ones — the difference-makers castigated by Chairman Carson the morning after — who swung the election. His implication was that these voters were disloyal, and demands for absolute loyalty had all too clearly dominated local Democratic proceedings in the lengthy run-up to the August election.

“Disloyalty” by party members had in fact become a third reason cited by disgruntled Democrats for the election debacle of 2010 — and grounds for punitive action.

Last September, the device of censure was trotted out by the party executive committee to stigmatize James Harvey, chairman of the county commission, for allegedly colluding with GOP commissioners on committee assignments.

Then, in January, at what was a reasonably successful Kennedy Day Dinner, Carol Chumney, the former state representative and city councilmember, delivered an impromptu oration against what she called “Republi-Democratic” behavior — specifically the refusal of “one of our congressmen” to support her in a losing special election race in 2012 for district attorney general.

The congressman in question was Cohen, who had stayed out of that 2012 race. Other prominent Democrats — notably City Councilmen Jim Strickland and Shea Flinn — had actively backed Republican Amy Weirich. In any case, the applause for Chumney’s remarks seemed to transcend particular cases.

Then in early March, several prominent Democrats — former Chairman Sidney Chism, state legislators Reginald Tate and Joe Towns, and well-known Whitehaven activist Hazel Moore — were formally censured by the local party’s executive committee for “disloyal” actions.  

Chism’s offense was that of being partial to Republican Sheriff Bill Oldham and discouraging a run for sheriff by eventual Democratic nominee Bennie Cobb. The other three were cited for courtesy visits to a fund-raiser for Republican Circuit Court Clerk Jimmy Moore. 

Moore, a onetime Democrat noted for his friendships (and campaign donations) across party lines, was a case in point — a nominal Republican who, like other elected county officials, was forced to choose a party label after the advent of local party primaries in the early 1990s.     

The Republican Party, which had already swelled its ranks statewide by attracting erstwhile Democrats to the fold, had begun doing the same thing locally — actively soliciting Democrats and pointedly discounting their former votes and political activity.

For whatever reason, Democrats had taken the opposite course, erecting rigid obstacles to potential members and party candidates with even a hint of Republicanism in their past. 

When, in the wake of the Tennessee Waltz scandal of 2005, Matt Kuhn was elected local Democratic chairman at the head of a reform slate, he was forced by a vocal minority to rescind invitations to interested Republicans who wanted to attend that year’s Kennedy Day Dinner.

And that attitude has persisted and even hardened in the exclusionary actions of election year 2014 — one manifestation of which was the embarrassingly rowdy session in which the Democratic Executive Committee voted its endorsements for judicial candidates, making choices so exclusively based on hearsay claims of Democratic loyalty that numerous deserving candidates vetted by a party screening committee were summarily rejected.

That most of these endorsees went down to defeat in the election was consistent with the fate of the party’s nominees in other races, which, more often than not, were based on insular thinking and devoid of significant efforts at outreach.

It is no coincidence that the series of self-destructive actions that damned the once-promising election hopes of Juvenile Court Clerk candidate Henri Brooks began with a County Commission session in which Brooks brow-beat an Hispanic witness and seemed to impute Klan membership to a white colleague.  

 Then there was the promise of “Judge” Joe Brown, the party’s candidate for district attorney general, to teach the the county’s white population, now out-numbered by African Americans, “how to be a good minority.”

That was actually one of the least impolitic of Brown’s presumably well-intentioned off-the-cuff public remarks, but it reflected a reliance on sheer census numbers that seemed to infect the whole Democratic ticket.

Democratic mayoral candidate Deidre Malone, who resisted such thinking, lacked the funding to escape the back-wash of it and lost by a larger margin than need have been to the GOP’s placidly centered Mark Luttrell. Ditto with Juvenile Court judge candidate Tarik Sugarmon in his formally nonpartisan race with Republican Dan Michael.

Other Democratic candidates —  Wanda Halbert, Rhonda Banks, William Chism — fell just short.

One highly tempting conclusion is that the 20 percent of Democrats who forsook the ticket included significant numbers of African Americans as well as whites. But that’s another story.

To be continued.

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Politics Politics Feature

A Curb on “Anything-Goes” Politics?

CREDIT: Jackson Baker

M. LaTroy Williams, who has registered the names “Shelby County Democratic Club” and the “National Democratic Party USA,” both of them shell organizations without real function or current membership, became, as of Monday, the subject of a far-reaching temporary restraining order from Circuit Court Judge Karen Williams.

In the waning days of a summer election season that has seemed, almost in a biblical sense, to have been always with us, that ruling could have repercussions beyond the tawdry machinations of Williams’ cynical efforts to aid in the long-odds, insurgent effort of lawyer Ricky Wilkins to oust four-term 9th District Congressman Steve Cohen.

And it could transcend the results of the election itself.

Judge Williams (no relation) has enjoined M. LaTroy Williams to cease and desist in relation to several outdoor signs blatantly and falsely indicating that candidate Wilkins has been endorsed not only by the Democratic Party nationally, but by President Obama.        

The judge went further, ordering Williams to cease and desist with a variety of printed hand-out materials as well, and her ruling could strike at the heart of a lucrative local election-year “balloting” racket, which has several well-known practitioners who charge candidates huge fees to appear on glossy sample ballots bearing their photographs — or, alternatively, to keep their opponents off such ballots.

Jackson Baker

Wilkins chats with reporters in a WDIA holding room

Most of these ballots bear some variation of the word “Democratic” in conjunction with official-sounding names of groups, which, in most cases, are either moribund or never existed in any real sense. Williams’ vehicle is the “Official Ballot” of the “Shelby County Democratic Club.” Other ballots put out by competitors bear such names as “The Official Shelby County Coalition of Democrats Ballot” and the “Official Ballot of Greater Memphis Democratic Club.”

None of these ballots is issued by, or reflects the actual choices of, the Shelby County Democratic Party, which has just published its own ballot guide under the name, “Official Shelby County Democratic Party Ballot,” bearing the seal of the State of Tennessee and a few words of text from SCDP Chairman Bryan Carson.

That the only hand-out ballot reflecting any live, functioning, official local version of the Democratic Party could get lost in the plethora of so many fake versions was sufficiently worrisome to Carson that he issued a public warning about “rogue ballots” prior to this year’s first major election, the May 6th party primaries for county offices.

M. LaTroy Williams doubles as a perennial candidate, having waged — and lost — several campaigns in his own right, most recently in the Democratic primary for Shelby County Trustee in May. He is the leading bogus-ballot entrepreneur in Shelby County, with rake-offs that handily lead the pack, according to a study done earlier this year by political blogger Steve Ross of vibincblog.com.

And now he has transcended mere paper balloting — taking his fool-the-eye arts into the realms of TV commercials and free-standing political campaign signs. Last week, local TV viewers were treated to a political commercial featuring a make-believe news announcer bringing “breaking news” — namely, that the “National Democratic Party, U.S.A.” had endorsed Ricky Wilkins for Congress.

Then came the outdoor signs, communicating the same message, with the additional fillip of symmetrically matched portraits of President Obama and Wilkins, divided by the official symbol of the Democratic National Committee (DNC)and the words “has endorsed,” constituting a clear visual indicator that the lucky congressional challenger had earned the nod of both the president and the Democratic Party at the highest level.

The realities are that the “National Democratic Party, U.S.A.” bears no relation to the real DNC or to any legitimate Democratic Party organization in Tennessee, as a spokesperson for the DNC and Roy Herron, state Democratic chairman, made abundantly clear in statements on Monday.

As for Obama, the president long ago endorsed not Wilkins but Cohen’s reelection bid, a fact newly confirmed by the actual DNC and by a formal statement released by the president back in April.

As Representative Cohen noted in a press conference Monday morning, the sign was not only designed to “deceive the voters,” it was illegal, bearing no indication of who paid for it, as required by election law. Cohen made a conspicuous effort not to link the sign, with its false message and false credentials, to his primary opponent and, in fact, invited Wilkins, perhaps with tongue in cheek, to join with him as a “fellow Democrat” in renouncing the faux organization, the bogus message, and the whole tawdry make-believe.

Within the hour, both Wilkins and Cohen appeared, sequentially, on WDIA on a call-in show hosted by Bev Johnson. After his turn in the studio, Wilkins chatted with reporters in an adjoining holding room.

The challenger quickly dispatched with the idea that he might join Cohen in renouncing Williams’ activities, commenting acidly, “It sounds to me like Mr. Cohen is now being the crybaby that he accuses me of being.” That was in reference to Wilkins’ charge that Cohen had interceded with national officials of the AFSCME governmental workers’ union to inhibit Local 1733 of AFSCME from endorsing Wilkins.

“I’m not going to join him in doing anything,” said Wilkins, who called Cohen “hypocritical” for raising questions about “campaign pictures” featuring himself and President Obama. And he took the opportunity to repeat previously stated doubts about the genuineness of Obama’s endorsement of Cohen.

“The only voice we’ve heard is Steve Cohen’s voice. Everyone in the media accepts it as true because Steve Cohen said it. It has not been verified.”

Wilkins acknowledged that he had been the beneficiary of some of M. LaTroy Williams’ faux ballots but categorically denied having anything to do, financially or otherwise, with the TV commercial or the outdoor signs. “It didn’t come from my campaign,” he said.

Wilkins later issued a hands-off statement about Williams:

“As for the individual groups supporting Ricky Wilkins For Congress, we do not control nor manage their activities. We welcome the free expression of supporters and have no involvement in the preparation or placement of their materials,” read the statement, which continued, “When you are trying to defeat an incumbent Congressman, you need a diverse and wide-ranging group of supporters. We welcome and appreciate all supporters.”

As it happens, Judge Williams had already made her own statement with the restraining order, directing defendant Williams to “take immediate action to remove from public view and/or access all items identified to be restrained in this pleading.”

Those “items” included far more than M. LaTroy Williams’ outdoor signs. The order contained language both precise and far-reaching in defining the impermissible (e.g., “[d]istributing literature, disseminating information or in any way communicating or implying any misleading information regarding the political party affiliation of a candidate or group”).

The order is, indeed, so broadly stated that, if sustained in a subsequent hearing, it could literally transform the local political landscape — one littered by long tradition with so much indulgence of false and disingenuous claims that a legitimate and credentialed claimant to high political office could actually profess to “welcome and appreciate” it.

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Letter From The Editor Opinion

Letter From the Editor: Endorsement Gate

“Lamar was proven right.” That’s the tagline at the end of one of Senator Lamar Alexander’s political ads. It follows a clip of Alexander and President Obama arguing over the cost of the Affordable Care Act. Alexander says premiums will go up. The president says it’s “not true.” So who’s right?

The Congressional Budget Office report on the health-care law says that premiums have gone down under Obamacare for comparable health insurance to that available before the law was passed. However, when you factor in people who didn’t have health insurance and therefore were paying nothing prior to the law’s passage, then yes, their rates have gone up — from nothing to something. In states that have opted in to the federal plan, rates have gone down, and the number of people who now have health insurance has dramatically risen. In other states, not so much.

So Lamar wasn’t “proven right.” In fact, a Washington Post “Pinocchio Test” of the ad says, “Alexander mixes up so many apples and oranges here that the ad is a virtual fruit basket,” and gives Lamar “two Pinocchios.” Meaning the ad has a high bull caca quotient.

Meanwhile, Alexander’s primary opponent Joe Carr is running ads condemning Alexander for supporting Obamacare. Oy.

And then there are Lieutenant Governor Ron Ramsey’s well-funded attack ads on three Tennessee Supreme Court justices, ads that link them to supporting, yup, Obamacare. The Tennesse high court has never issued a ruling of any kind on the subject. It’s a lie so blatant and low-down I’m amazed Ramsey can look at himself in the mirror.

Obama and Obamacare have become the ultimate stinkbombs for GOP candidates. Want to smear your opponent? Accuse him of supporting the president and/or the Affordable Care Act. It’s the new “He wants to take away your guns.”

And let’s not forget the “endorsementgate” brouhaha, as Flyer writer Chris Davis dubbed it. Ninth District Democratic congressional candidates Steve Cohen and Ricky Wilkins have spent the past two weeks sniping at each other over who is endorsed by the ACSFME union. This week, the ante was raised when a rogue fake “ballot” emerged wrongly suggesting Wilkins was endorsed by President Obama. The Democrats, unlike the Republicans, are actually seeking to be connected with the president.

I’m beyond weary of seeing and hearing this stuff. Thursday can’t come soon enough. No more signs, at least until October. No more duplicitous, hateful ads for a blissful couple of months.

I’m so confident that the entire electorate shares these sentiments, that I’m preparing a bumper sticker: “Bruce Was Proven Right.”

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Politics Politics Feature

Larry Pivnick: An Underdog With Bite?

CREDIT: Jackson Baker

Larry Pivnick is a retired University of Memphis law professor, and he looks like a retired law professor — academician’s trimmed beard, thin-rimmed glasses, neat, muted suits, and all. He is one of four candidates for the Democratic nomination in Tennessee’s 8th congressional district, and the only Memphian.

He was aggrieved at what he saw as my summary dismissal last week of his chances of ultimately triumphing over the 8th District two-term incumbent, Republican Stephen Fincher of Frog Jump in Crockett County, and I can understand that. It’s flattering, in a way, that Pivnick thinks I have any great ability to advance or retard a political person or cause on the basis of what I have to say. I am, as they say, a messenger.

The reality is that the same partisan sea change has occurred in the nooks and corners of the sprawling and very rural West Tennessee terrain that makes up the 8th District as has occurred in the rest of Tennessee. It’s a red state, all right, and the 8th District is red, too — as was made clear by Fincher’s convincing 2010 margin over respected Democrat Roy Herron, now the state Democratic chairman.

And a further reality is that folks in the 8th aren’t inclined to change much once they’ve settled on somebody. They had Ed Jones for a long time until he retired, and after him they had John Tanner for a long time until he retired.

So is Pivnick, well regarded as a former assistant dean at U of M, wasting his time by running for Congress? He doesn’t think so, and I don’t think so, either. I’ve looked over his political raw material — including a set of policy positions and a nice-looking website, complex but accessible — and it is clear that Pivnick isn’t a mere eccentric who collected enough signatures to get himself on the ballot and is hoping for a miracle on the scale of the one that happened in the Red Sea in biblical times.

He has articulated positions on a range of issues, from education, health care, and jobs, which together constitute what he considers his “primary focus,” to defense and foreign policy, matters which today’s headlines tell us are rising in importance to the voters. Pivnick also tells me that he’s made several forays up and down the district, both listening and talking.

Does that mean he can beat Fincher? Now, I’m responsible for perspective as well as newsbreaks, and I don’t think I can say anything like that if I want to keep my columnist’s license active. I know too much about the political trends of District 8, the congressman’s funding, and the strength of his organization.

And there are other Democrats making valiant efforts to get the Democratic nomination in the 8th District, for that matter — Wes Bradley, Rickey Hobson, and Tom Reasons. The latter two — from Somerville and Dyersburg, respectively — have made conspicuous Memphis appearances, and whoever emerges from the pack will have the opportunity to turn the Democratic Party nomination into a bully pulpit — to articulate the party cause, as well as his own, to make such inroads as he can right now and more later on.            

The political process thrives on — nay, requires — candidacies such as those of Pivnick et al.

• Speaking of bully pulpits, Terry Adams and Gordon Ball, the two Knoxville lawyers who are vying for the Democratic nomination for the U.S. Senate, continue to run hard — against each other and against the legacy of incumbent Republican Senator Lamar Alexander. Alexander has his own party opponents in Joe Carr of Lascassas and George Flinn of Memphis but is expected to prevail in the GOP primary.

Ball, who is largely self-funded and who has begun a fresh round of television advertising, and Adams, who has embarked on what he bills as a 100-stop statewide tour and has a TV spot up himself, are in agreement on most issues, including Medicaid expansion in Tennessee, expanded veterans’ benefits, and increasing the minimum wage.

Last week, the two shared a forum stage in Bolivar. They disagreed on matters such as the Keystone pipeline and the concept of a flat tax (Ball for and Adams against, in both cases), but they walked off the stage together, arm in arm. Either will make a solid general election candidate.

• What had started out on Monday evening looking like a potential embarrassment to the reelection campaign of 9th District Congressman Steve Cohen may have turned out on Tuesday morning to be a boomerang impacting the campaign of Cohen’s Democratic primary opponent, Ricky Wilkins.

A press release circulated Monday night by the Wilkins campaign had said that Local 1733 of AFSCME intended to hold a press conference on Tuesday morning to announce its endorsement of Wilkins.  

To most observers, including Cohen himself, that news came as something of a surprise. After all, as the press release noted, the congressman has been including the union local on his fairly lengthy endorsement list and did so as recently as last week.

Cohen could not be reached for a reaction late Monday night but was contacted early Tuesday morning as he was heading out for several votes on the floor of the House.”We don’t know what’s going to happen,” he observed about the then-pending press conference at local AFSCME headquarters.

The congressman said that, in any case, he had the endorsement of the national AFSCME union and had been reassured of support by leading figures in the union, both locally and nationally, with whom he has worked over the years.

Cohen said the union, which “used to be a strong voice,” had declined somewhat from its peak of local strength and influence, but that he had consistently bent his efforts toward keeping it strong. “I’ve always supported their aims,” the congressman said. “One reason I didn’t support the move to school consolidation back in 2010 was because of AFSCME’s opposition to it.”   

He termed the prospect of a Wilkins endorsement by Local 1733 “disappointing,” but he noted the widespread endorsements he had received from labor organizations at large and said, “It’s not going to make any difference in the long run. We’re going to win.”

As it happened, reporters who turned up at AFSCME headquarters on Beale for the advertised press conference on Tuesday were greeted instead by Wilkins and a team of campaign supporters, who’d set up outside the union building. Candidate Wilkins angrily lashed out at Cohen for “bullying” and for efforts he had allegedly applied to the leadership of the AFSCME local and others of the challenger’s supporters.

The upshot was that officers of Local 1733 had advised Wilkins that they were unable at this point to make any announcement. Wilkins insisted that he had been assured of the local’s support but would not forecast when or whether it might now be coming under AFSCME auspices.

Meanwhile, Cohen was publicizing endorsements of his own in new mailouts conveying his support of Assessor Cheyenne Johnson’s reelection campaign, the campaign of former school board member Freda Garner-Williams for Position 1 on the Shelby County Schools board, and that of David Upton for state executive committeeman in District 31.  

• The name of Herman Sawyer was inadvertently omitted last week from the list of Democratic candidates in the state Senate District 29; and Scott McCormick should have been listed as a school board candidate in District 5.

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Cover Feature News

Gripes, Groans, and Grudge Matches in Shelby County Elections

CREDIT: Lauren Rae Holtermann

The mid-summer election cycle of 2014 began July 18th, with a stronger than usual turnout for an early voting period that will last through Saturday, August 2nd.

When the final votes are tallied late on the evening of election day, August 7th, several factors will no doubt have affected the outcome — ranging from dissension among Democratic activists regarding party endorsements for judicial candidates to controversies surrounding key campaigns to candidate matchups that will either settle old scores or create new ones.

It is no accident that ferment among Democrats is a key factor in what happens in the run-up to August 7th and beyond. The Democratic Party began the campaign year with something to prove.

In 2010, all Democratic candidates for county office were defeated by their GOP counterparts, and the scope of that defeat, in the face of what had seemed a formidable demographic edge for the Democrats in a majority African-American county, occasioned a reaction among local party cadres that was equal parts chagrin, disbelief, suspicion of being cheated, and a resolve not to let it happen again.

But Shelby County’s Democrats, who in theory should have a more pronounced demographic advantage than even four years ago, are in fact threatened with the prospect of another Republican sweep. This is due more to a series of Democratic misadventures than to any artfulness on the part of the Republicans, though the GOP’s substantial edge in financial resources is a factor to be reckoned with, as well.

As one indication of just how wide that gulf is, Mark Luttrell, the Republican incumbent in the race for county mayor, arguably the premier race on this year’s county ballot, ended the second quarter of 2014 — and began the stretch drive of his campaign — with a balance on hand of $132,417, while his Democratic opponent, former County Commissioner Deidre Malone, by contrast, could boast of only $38,914. 

And even those figures did not hint at the actual disproportion. During the second quarter of 2014, from April 1st through June 30th, Malone had spent $25,172, while Luttrell had put in play the whopping amount of $290, 210 — money which, among other things, paid for a series of seemingly nonstop TV ads featuring the telegenic incumbent. Meanwhile Malone was largely dependent on free media, which was hard to come by.

Similar discrepancies exist among the parties in other county races that occupy a relatively small but crucial portion of a long ballot that also includes state and federal primary races and school board elections.

Here’s a preview of some of the key races. Others are in the article “No ‘Down Ballot’ in Shelby County This Year” in this week’s “Political Beat”.

Lauren Rae Holtermann

Deidre Malone Vs Mayor Mark Luttrell

COUNTY MAYOR — Not only does the GOP’s Luttrell have the advantages of incumbency and funding, he has a public persona that is likable enough that even opponent Malone has been forced to acknowledge that “Mark is a nice guy.” 

She has a case to make that Luttrell has been indifferent or worse in matters ranging from Head Start, from which he extricated county government, or Title X funding for women’s services, where he acted to defund Planned Parenthood, or that he is overcautious in general. But such matters are hard to dramatize to a general public. Meanwhile, Luttrell is adept in seeking compromise, which he did this week in agreeing with Democrats to establish a county pre-K program.

Clear advantage to Luttrell.

SHERIFF — Bill Oldham, the GOP incumbent, has attracted no criticism to speak of in his workman-like first four years, and it is hard to see how deputy Bennie Cobb, the Democratic nominee, who, like other Democrats, has had limited exposure, can draw the contrast he needs to interest swing voters in making a change.

Advantage to Oldham.

Lauren Rae Holtermann

D.A. Amy Weirich Vs Judge Joe Brown

DISTRICT ATTORNEY GENERAL — At the beginning of the campaign year, D.A. Amy Weirich, a surprisingly easy victor over underrated Democrat Carol Chumney four years ago, was anything but a household word, and was potentially vulnerable to an adroit campaign by former Criminal Court Judge Joe Brown, a bona fide celebrity from 15 years as TV’s “Judge Joe Brown” and the possessor of democratic (small ‘d’) instincts and a real, if fitful, craftiness.

But Brown also possesses an impulse to implode, something he had telegraphed via some rash statements in pre-campaign public appearances.

An early tangle in Juvenile Court, which earned him a contempt citation, may actually have benefited Brown, who assumed the role of a champion of the downtrodden. But his recent intimation that his opponent was a lesbian, an adulteress, and an exploiter, utterly without evidence, and sticking to it, was the kind of mistake it’s hard to recover from, though Brown has made strenuous efforts since — seeking to conciliate (and even champion) the LGBT constituency.

(For comparison, though, here was Brown ad-libbing at large last fall at a Democratic Party “roast” of former Mayor Willie Herenton: “I’m damned if I’m going to get all worked up about this stuff coming out of San Francisco, when gay rights are more important than people having employment rights!”)

Weirich, meanwhile, has raised ample money to publicize her image as a public-safety pro, even if detractors see her as an overzealous prosecutor more interested in winning cases than seeking justice. That, indeed, is where her own version of I-make-no-apology comes in.

Jackson Baker

Brown (top) and Brooks (bottom) found themselves immersed in controversy, to the detriment of their campaigns and the Democratic ticket.

Judge Joe, the wannabe party “boss” (a boast of his from early in the campaign) still has an undefinable amount of grass-roots appeal in the inner city, but, tied up apparently by his ongoing divorce, the money Brown was going to bankroll the party ticket with never showed, and his GOTV efforts may be working more for the other side at this point.

Weirich.      

JUVENILE COURT CLERK — This is the other race where a Democratic Party advantage seems to have morphed into its opposite. Outgoing County Commissioner Henri Brooks began the campaign year as the recipient of public honors. By her steadfast persistence she had, virtually single-handedly, forced the U.S. Department of Justice to mandate overdue reforms at Juvenile Court (though, in fairness to outgoing Juvenile Court Judge Curtis Person, some of these may already have been underway).

Brooks not only had Ruby Wharton, wife of the city’s mayor, as her campaign chair, she was the winner of the Ruby R. Wharton Award for her court-reform efforts. Essentially, all she had to do to coast to victory over the low-profile Republican incumbent, Joy Touliatos, was to make nice and exercise a modest amount of outreach to constituencies other than the African-American one she claimed as her own.

Somewhat famously, she didn’t. Within a two-month span, Brooks overplayed her hand at a commission meeting, publicly brow-beating a Hispanic witness and insulting two of her colleagues; then got herself charged with misdemeanor assault and lost her Methodist Hospital job after witnesses described her as the aggressor in an altercation with another woman in the hospital parking lot; and finally was revealed not to be a resident of the district she served and had to fight off colleagues’ efforts to unseat her.

Meanwhile, Touliatos’ placid personality and stable service began to look better and better.

 Advantage, Touliatos.

COUNTY TRUSTEE — Republican incumbent David Lenoir has generally impressed neutral onlookers as having done a good job and has raised oodles of campaign cash to boot. Democratic nominee Derrick Bennett has done little campaigning and has made minimal impact.

Advantage, Lenoir.

ASSESSOR OF PROPERTY — Even among Democratic pessimists, this is the one county office that still seems winnable. The party nominee, Cheyenne Johnson, is a respected and experienced incumbent who won reelection handily two years ago and was unkindly forced to do it all over again this year after a legislative act forced the assessor’s four-year term into the same cycle as other county offices.

Johnson is running a determined race and has abundant support, some of it crossover, but her relatively nondescript opponent, Republican Keith Alexander, can boast some basic credentials and hopes to ride the Republican ballot into an upset.

Still leaning Johnson.

CRIMINAL COURT CLERK — The illness of Republican incumbent Kevin Key elevated his major assistant, Richard DeSaussure, into his de facto replacement, and though City Councilwoman Wanda Halbert, the Democratic nominee, appears to be working hard and should not be underestimated, DeSaussure appears to have a firm hold on other GOP coattails.

Advantage, DeSaussure.

CIRCUIT COURT CLERK — Republican incumbent Jimmy Moore is well-connected across party lines, while his opponent, Democratic nominee Rhonda Banks, is a neophyte without any connections at all.

Moore, easily.

PROBATE COURT CLERK — Republican Paul Boyd, who has the distinction of being his party’s ranking African-American official in county government, rode the GOP tide to an upset win four years ago and has worked hard to build his public image, even to the point of turning up at Democratic Party events this year. (“I just want them to know I’m their clerk, too,” he explained.)

Meanwhile, Democratic nominee William Chism may have won his primary mainly on the strength of having the same last name as outgoing County Commissioner Sidney Chism, a well-known party presence but no relation. He remains someone most of his party mates could not pick out of a lineup.

Advantage, Boyd.

COUNTY CLERK — Republican incumbent Wayne Mashburn, son of longtime independent clerk Sonny Mashburn, carries the family mantle, while Democrat Charlotte Draper has to overcome her party’s doldrums and a reputation as a perennial candidate.

Advantage, Mashburn.

REGISTER OF DEEDS — GOP incumbent Tom Leatherwood, once a hot-blooded GOP state Senator, has long since rounded off his edges and settled into the role of an experienced and respected administrator. Democrat Coleman Thompson is likeable, but he, too, has become something of a perennial.

Advantage, Leatherwood.

If you’re keeping score, that’s a Republican lead in nine of the 10 offices on the countywide general ballot, with an outside chance of finishing 10 for 10. Going into the stretch, it would appear that the Democratic effort to recoup for the local party debacle of 2010 is doomed to fall short — and this despite an ever-widening African-American predominance in the county population as a whole, the demographic fact that was supposed to insure long-term Democratic superiority.

And there is the example of Boyd to suggest that Republicans, whose efforts at outreach to minorities have been on again, off again, have an opportunity to make real inroads if county government follows the lead of state government in establishing the GOP as the official party of choice.

 THE SHELBY COUNTY COMMISSION — The one aspect of county government where Democrats have an edge at present and can be expected to keep it is on the county’s 13-member legislative branch, currently containing seven Democrats and six Republicans.

The new commission that will take office in September is basically already formed and will likely have the same seven to six ratio. Democrats could fare even better in the future if current demographic trends continue, as seems likely. And the commission’s adoption of 13 single-member districts to replace the old system of large, multi-member districts should reinforce and enlarge their majority.

Here is the rundown on the 13 Commission seats on the ballot:

District 1 (North Shelby County): Incumbent Republican Terry Roland of Millington is unopposed for a second term. 

District 2 (Collierville): Republican George Chism is unopposed.

District 3 (Bartlett): The GOP’s David Reaves, currently a member of the Shelby County Schools board, is unopposed.

District 4 (Germantown): Republican incumbent Mark Billingsley is opposed by a game Democrat, Jackie Jackson, but should prevail.

District 5: This East Memphis enclave is in theory contested by GOP incumbent Heidi Shafer and Democrat Taylor Berger, but Berger discontinued his campaign efforts months ago and Shafer will walk in.

District 6: Democrat Willie Brooks is highly favored over Republican David Shiffman in this Frayser-based terrain.

District 7: Democratic incumbent Melvin Burgess is unopposed.

District 8: Incumbent Democrat Walter Bailey, a lion of the commission, is highly favored over Republican Julie Ray.

District 9: Democrat Justin Ford has this South Memphis terrain to himself.

District 10: Democrat Reginald Milton has an able Republican newcomer, Geoff Diaz, to contend with, but the odds are well in his favor.

District 11: Democrat Eddie Jones, unopposed in this Whitehaven-based district, hits paydirt after several previous tries for public office.

District 12: Democrat Van Turner, the lawyer and former local Democratic chairman, is unopposed.

District 13: Republican incumbent Steve Basar would seem to be well ensconced in an East Memphis/suburban district with an ostensible Republican majority, but Democratic nominee Manoj Jain, a physician, is working hard, showing up everywhere, including Republican Party events, and has an outside chance of pulling off an upset.

Likely upshot: New commission, new faces, new directions, but the same old seven and six.

STATE AND FEDERAL OFFICES:

Governor: Republican incumbent Bill Haslam is slated for a slam-dunk win over several nominal candidates in the GOP primary and will be heavily favored in November over the victor in a nondescript Democratic primary field, likely to be former Sullivan County Commissioner John McKamey, an amiable yellow-dog Democrat who has visisted Memphis several times from his East Tennessee bailiwick.

U.S. Senator: Incumbent Republican Lamar Alexander started getting ready for a likely Tea Party challenge to his renomination two years ago, sewing up all the party endorsements that counted and most of the loose change that was available, too, amassing a campaign war chest that, as of now, stands at well above $3 million.

Often considered a moderate, Alexander has adjusted his rhetoric in a more conservative direction and remains a clear favorite over a large GOP primary field that includes only two opponents with even an outside chance to challenge his dominance. 

One is Joe Carr, an eccentric right-wing state representative from Lascassas in Middle Tennessee who has some appreciable Tea Party support and has mustered campaign help from the likes of former Pennsylvania Senator and 2012 presidential candidate Rick Santorum and talk show host Laura Ingraham. 

The other Alexander foe, perhaps a graver threat to Carr’s hopes than to Alexander’s, is deep-pocketed Memphis physician/businessman George Flinn, the former Shelby County commissioner and frequent candidate who began his race by focusing mainly on a health-care plan he offers as an alternative to the Affordable Care Act (aka Obamacare). But Flinn, like Carr, responded to the stunning defeat of GOP House majority leader Eric Cantor in Virginia and the near defeat of Mississippi Senator Thad Cochran and upped his ante with a $2 million dump of his own cash into a race that now features several TV ads aimed at Alexander.

There’s a race on the Democratic side as well, with the leading contenders being two Knoxville attorneys, Gordon Ball and Terry Adams, both of whom have made frequent stops in Memphis during an all-out statewide competition that hearkens back to the old days of the solid Democratic South, when victory in a Democratic primary was, in the phrase of the time, tantamount to election.

That is no longer the case, of course, but Ball and Adams sense an opportunity to make at least a respectable dent in Alexander’s totals or, if the unthinkable should happen and Carr should overcome the incumbent Senator on a Tea Party surge, to have a legitimate chance at victory.

Ball and Adams are both solid campaigners, and they represent the poles of current Democratic thought. Adams was first in last year, having been recruited by the state party establishment. He focuses on the issue of economic inequality and is a rousing speaker on the stump. Ball, a multi-millionaire from his legal victories (including several over large corporations), is capable of self-financing and blends support of Democratic social policies with centrist political positions like his advocacy of a flat tax.

Adams never fails to note that Ball has in the past supported Republican political figures like Haslam and Alexander. Ball responds that some degree of political cross-pollination has historically been necessary in East Tennessee but is willing to write off his past backing of GOP figures as mistakes.

9th District, House of Representatives: Though there are nominal races on both the Republican and Democratic sides in the 8th Congressional district, which juts significantly into eastern Shelby County, it is all but a given that incumbent GOP Congressman Stephen Fincher of Frog Jump in Crockett County will triumph in his primary and in November.

Cohen brain trust at a recent event. From left: strategist Jerry Austin, campaign treasurer Henry Turley, campaign manager John Marek

It is probable, too, that 9th District incumbent Democrat Steve Cohen will emerge the winner, as usual, in a Democratic primary where, also as usual, he faces an opponent — this year’s version being lawyer Ricky Wilkins. It is unlikely, however, that Cohen will prevail with the 4-to-1 margins he has grown accustomed to against such prior primary rivals as Nikki Tinker, former Mayor Willie Herenton, and Tomeka Hart.

Wilkins’ cash on hand as of the June 30th reporting period was $87,034, no match for Cohen’s total of $887,251, but the challenger is running what seems to be a credible grassroots campaign and was able to boast the backing of 21 current and former elected officials at a press conference last week, though Cohen’s campaign has secured statements of disavowal from two of those, City Councilmembers Janis Fullilove and Edmund Ford Jr., neither of whom attended Wilkins’ press conference.

Even Cohen supporters concede that this year’s race will be a closer affair, however, and current estimates by neutral observers are in the range of a 70 to 30 percent edge for Cohen, with the possibility that the gap could close tighter than that, which gives the current race the sense of a grudge match that could continue in future campaign years.

In seeming acknowledgement, Cohen has mocked his opponent’s billboard slogan, “Ricky Wilkins, Your Next Congressman,” with the jibe that Wilkins can use it “over and over and over.”

There are no great issues dividing the two candidates, though Wilkins has made much over what he says is Cohen’s disinclination to get involved in “local” matters, like the running school-merger controversy of the past few years, while Cohen responds that his job is to defer to local officials, not to dictate to them.

Cohen is running on what he and his supporters regard as a considerable record of achievement in Congress, and even Wilkins plays off that sense with his frequently uttered tagline, “If you liked Steve Cohen, you’ll love Ricky Wilkins.”

Wilkins with supporters at a press conference.

Wilkins is African American, as all of Cohen’s previous primary opponents have been, and as something like two-thirds of the district’s voters are. Cohen has garnered significant majorities among black voters in his previous reelection efforts and hopes to do so again.

There is a Republican candidate, too. Charlotte Bergmann, a sacrificial victim two years ago and likely to undergo the same fate again. 

Categories
Letters To The Editor Opinion

What They Said …

CREDIT: Greg Cravens

Greg Cravens

About “Labor of Love” cover story on home birth …

I am glad this subject is being given interest. I am planning my second home birth this fall with Full Circle Midwifery. Most women do not realize how advanced midwifery has become as well as continuing to honor such a life-changing experience in a person’s life.

Christina Miller Art

About the Politics blog post “Current, Former Officials Back Wilkins; Cohen Responds with Own List”

Dang, looks more like a eulogy than a campaign presser.

tomguleff

About the Fly on the Wall story on the Washington Post‘s reaction to barbecue spaghetti …

What sources did the writer cite as his primary research? The annual Memphis Italian Festival would be a dandy place to curl his condescending tongue around that elusive tricky balance.

Virginia Davis

About the News Blog post “Memphis Animal Services May Cut Hours” …

Tap-dancing razzle dazzle! No matter how you twist it, the new schedule will be NINE hours less per week for the possibility of adoptions. Thirty-six hours less per month for the public to adopt. More restrictive time does not mean more access or more adoptions.

Linda Baxter, Memphis Pets Alive

About the Supreme Court/Hobby Lobby decision …

What I don’t get, and perhaps one of you perverted libtards can try to babble out an answer, is how in the heck is a birth control pill in any way shape or form related to health care? It is fornication care, and nothing more.

It makes complete sense that antibiotics, blood pressure medicine, allergy medicine, and similar products should be a part of health-care coverage. Those things actually do contribute to a woman’s health. But birth control pills? When a woman wakes up in the morning, how is her physical health in any way infringed upon buy not having birth control pills?

Tommy Volinchak

About the Beyond the Arc post “Are the Grizzlies Getting Better?” …

Anyone who thinks the ZBo contract is a bargain is thinking of 2011/12 ZBo not this past season. He is not a $16 million player. Nor is he going to get better over this coming season and the two extended seasons thereafter. But we believe we need him and signed him. If Marc walks next season for nothing, Zach will be the second-best player on a 35-win team.

Spike

About Addison Engelking’s Obvious Child review …

Everybody reading this knows a woman who has had an abortion, or has had one herself. One in three women has chosen to terminate an unwanted and/or unplanned pregnancy. Just as Jenny Slate’s character, Donna, says in Obvious Child, none of those women is alone. So why is Addison Engelking afraid to mention that plot thread in his review of the film?

Maybe he’s trying to imitate Hemingway in “Hills Like White Elephants,” another story in which the word abortion is never mentioned in a single terse sentence. Such a performance of masculinity — never saying it — is no small part of what perpetuates the “tightness” Bruce VanWyngarden ponders in his Letter from the Editor. …

Politics is downriver from culture, and changing popular opinion is the first step in effecting large-scale change and defeating draconian legislation like the Tennessee General Assembly’s proposed amendment that would allow legislators to repeal state statutes protecting a woman’s right to a safe, legal abortion. Running an interview with Planned Parenthood leadership does not mean you have tidily fulfilled your liberal journalistic responsibility. If abortion remains unutterable in an indie movie review in an alternative weekly, then the Flyer should perhaps acknowledge its own complicity in tightening the corset strings on Tennessee’s minds, lips, and women’s bodies. Jayne Gipson

Categories
Politics Politics Feature

Dotting the ‘”I” in Memphis Politics

CREDIT: JB

JB

Sidney Chism and small fan at last year’s picnic.

Attendees at the Sidney Chism political picnic, held two weekends ago at the usual stomping grounds on Horn Lake, would have observed this scribe doing his annual duty there for several hours, and may have since wondered if and when I would publish an account.

For a variety of reasons, I have delayed posting my observations. I do indeed have some, along with a variety of interesting photographs from the event, and I’ll be putting samples of both online shortly, along with snapshots and notes about other aspects of the recent political season.

There has been what the late poet T. S. Eliot would call an “objective correlative” to my wait on dealing with the picnic. On the day of the event, Saturday, June 21st, I was leaving the picnic when my left foot sank deep into a perfectly disguised hole on the property, a good foot deeper than its surroundings but topped with the same deceptive flow of green grass.

I thought I’d wrenched a knee but was able to walk out on my own, and, since nothing except a little soreness occurred over the next few days, thought I must have gotten off light. Last Thursday night, however, after I’d been to two political events (moderating one), I started feeling punk enough to beg off on a third.

Starting about nine o’clock Thursday and continuing through the weekend, the left knee gave me its delayed constituent reaction, swelling up to double its usual size, hollering at me vigorously through the available nerve circuits and stiffening up so as to make me bed-ridden even before I got doctor’s orders to that effect.

I got the knee drained of fluid and shot with cortisone on Sunday, and that seems to have restored me to the ranks of the ambient. Knock knock.

And, being a respector of what may have been a karmic message, I shall delay no longer in shedding some light on what happened at the picnic (though the balance of my observations will be published in the “Political Beat Blog” online).

The most remarkable single circumstance was the apparent endorsement by host Chism of several candidates — two of them outright: Democratic nominee Deidre Malone and, most vociferously, Sheriff Bill Oldham, the Republican nominee for a position also sought by Democrat Bennie Cobb.

It will be remembered that Chism was actually censured some time back by his Democratic Party mates at a meeting of the party’s executive committee for his support of Oldham. Chism was not bashful about giving Oldham his best shout-out at the picnic, and he — the county commissioner who was given so often to denouncing Republicans as marching always “in lockstep” — was now boasting defiantly about his having “friends” in both parties.

On the congressional scene, Chism gave Ricky Wilkins, the Democratic challenger to incumbent Steve Cohen in the 9th district, what seemed to be at least an indirect nod, allowing (or encouraging) event emcee Leon Gray to introduce the challenger with Wilkins’ own billboard slogan, “our next congressman.”            

• The current congressman, Cohen, was conspicuously absent from the Chism event, but he is making his presence felt in other ways.

Undeniably stung by this past weekend’s announcement of a Wilkins endorsement by the Memphis Police Association, Cohen, who early in his career was the legal adviser to the Memphis Police Department, put on a show of force on Monday, backed by almost a score of union representatives trumpeting their own or the Memphis Labor Council’s endorsement of the incumbent congressman, who has normally enjoyed wall-to-wall support from local  unions.

• For the record, there’s been some feedback about that August 2013 letter (see Politics, June 26th) from Imad Abdullah, the then president of the Ben F. Jones chapter of the National Bar Association (NBA), to chapter members soliciting “attorneys of color” to come forth as candidates in the 2014 judicial election with the goal of running “one member per race.”

There were numerous reactions to the premise of that item — especially from current office-holders irked at having to devote a summer to running against what they consider to be premature or unqualified candidates. One comes from Criminal Court Judge James Beasley (who is himself unopposed in this election) in this week’s Flyer Viewpoint, p. 12.

Another came from David E. McKinney, the current president of the Jones chapter of the NBA. In a letter notable for its courtesy, McKinney insists, “I vehemently reject the notion that this chapter is engaged in endorsing judicial candidates in the upcoming election based upon their race or ethnicity.”

And, indeed, as he and others have pointed out, there has of yet been no slate of endorsees released by the Ben F. Jones chapter. One who has made this point was lawyer/congressional candidate Wilkins, who (with Charles Carpenter) was mentioned as follows in Abdullah’s letter:

“Thus, to keep us on an organized path, we have established a separate committee that is co-chaired by Charles E. Carpenter and Ricky E. Wilkins. This committee has been hard at work establishing a mechanism to reach a consensus candidate for each race.”

Wilkins spoke to the Flyer on Thursday and strongly denied that he had been part of any action to prepare a black candidates’ slate for this year’s election, though he acknowledged he had been briefed in general about plans to interest African-American lawyers in seeking judicial office and had responded with encouragement.

Whatever the case, the number of contested races in this year’s judicial election is reasonably high (though maybe not unprecedentedly so), and it would seem that incumbents, for the most part, are getting the better of it so far — at least in the Memphis Bar Association’s lawyers’ poll of judicial candidates, released on Monday.

(Those recommendations are available online at memphisflyer.com‘s “Political Beat Blog” and will be available in their entirety in future print issues.)

• Note to judicial candidate Alicia Howard, who has asked me for a retraction of my report last week, based on public commentary by former Democratic Chairman Van Turner and on a citation from the state Board of Professional Responsibility regarding her erstwhile suspension: 

It is a matter of record that the board in 2011 gave attorney Howard an 18-month suspension for “signing and notarizing her client’s signature to [a] petition without indicating the client’s permission to do so” and for submitting “applications to the AOC [Administrative Office of the Courts] billing for work not performed.” 

Those two findings were the heart of the case against her and the reason why Howard was cited by the board for seven separate breaches in categories ranging from “truthfulness” to “fairness” to “misconduct.”

Howard objected to my saying that she “was held liable for forging a client’s name to a document without authorization” and for “obtain[ing] payment from the state Administrative Office of the Courts under false pretenses.” I will gladly withdraw that attempt at layman’s summary in favor of the Board’s carefully parsed statements quoted above.

She points out also that she “practiced for over twenty years with absolutely no discipline history,” that she “disagreed with certain findings” and accepted “the harsh nature of the penalty” only after “considering the expense of prolonged litigation and the toll on my family and my personal health.”

Howard also contends that 12 months was lopped off her suspension time and that she was able to resume practice in January 2012.

 

• The Master Meal of the East Shelby County Republican Club, which normally has some out-of-county designate as its featured speaker (past example: former Arkansas Governor/TV host Mike Huckabee) got by on local talent this year — the party’s major county-wide candidates on the August election ballot, plus state GOP chairman Chris Devaney of Nashville.

But that was enough to swell the turnout to several hundred at the Great Hall of Germantown last Tuesday night. Included were candidates galore for other races, including not a few Democrats. An omen for what comes next?

Categories
Politics Politics Feature

Steve Cohen vs. Ricky Wilkins Heats Up

CREDIT: Jackson Baker

Well, let’s face it: Saturday, June 14th, may go down in contemporary annals as the day that a relatively desultory election season took an uptick, with convincing evidence that the 9th District congressional race between incumbent Democrat Steve Cohen and his primary opponent Ricky Wilkins is the race to watch on the way to August 7th and the one that will drive the vote.

Whatever that turns out to mean for Cohen and Wilkins, it is good news for the other Democratic nominees on the county ballot and for those judicial candidates who are counting on a healthy Democratic turnout to pad their vote totals.

Exhibit #1 on Saturday was Wilkins’ headquarters opening in a Poplar Plaza storefront. The place was jammed, the number of influential attendees was above par, and Wilkins himself gave a standout performance — whether as best actor in the drama or best supporting actor remains to be seen.

(It should be noted that last week Cohen’s organization released the results of an internal campaign poll that gives the incumbent congressman a substantial lead of 73 to 9 percent over Wilkins, findings that correlate, more or less, with those of a Berje Yacoubian poll published in the Flyer last December, showing Cohen at 76 percent and Wilkins a 11 percent. Both polls preceded the actual start of full-scale campaigning.)

Exhibit #2, later on Saturday, was the back-to-back appearance of Wilkins and Cohen at a Shelby County Democrats’ “stump party” in Raleigh/Frayser. Another good crowd gathered in the backyard of party activist Lexie Carter‘s house for an afternoon cookout-cum-speechathon involving numerous candidates for office, but it focused on the cynosure duel of Cohen and Wilkins.

As he had earlier at his headquarters opening, Wilkins took the gloves off and did what a challenger must, took the fight to the champion. Cohen responded with a forceful and proud evocation of his congressional resumé.

In a moment, the rundown on how things went. The specifics, as it were. But first, the upshot: Ricky Wilkins, a mega-lawyer who boasts his local roots, may become the latest casualty of a congressman who has managed to beat his last several primary opponents by running up multiples of their vote — anywhere from 4-to-1 to 8-to-1. But on the evidence of Saturday, Wilkins has more rooted strength, in-depth support, and organizational and financial resources than any of Cohen’s previous challengers — certainly enough to make a fight of it, though it is still hard to find neutral observers who give Wilkins a serious chance of winning.

This is a time of upsets, however, as indicated by the downfall of GOP House Majority Leader Eric Cantor in Virginia and by the distressed predicaments of Senators Thad Cochran in Mississippi and Mitch McConnell in Kentucky.

At his headquarters opening, Wilkins forsook a previous diffidence vis-à-vis his opponent and launched several attacks against Cohen, whom he termed a “career politician.” Some of the charges were indirect, as in Wilkins’ pledge to be a congressman “who’s not going to pander to our community [or] spread around crumbs.” Nor, he said, would he “spend a lot of time doing a lot of international boondoggling travel.”

Other Wilkins barbs were more direct, as in a statement that “my opponent mentioned that his campaign was going to be dirty and vicious, and he’s following through on the promise.” Wilkins provided no examples for that accusation, though in an interview he contended that it was Cohen, not himself, who “interjects race and religion … so as to try to divide the community and marginalize his opponent.”

That was apparently apropos remarks by the Rev. Kenneth Whalum, a Cohen supporter, who, at the congressman’s own headquarters opening earlier this month, spoke of “the red herring that a Jew cannot effectively represent the black community in Memphis,” implying that Wilkins supporters were behind the “mud-slinging … particularly among African-American ministers.”

A parenthesis: Wilkins got some traction last month at a press conference where several African-American ministers announced their support for him. 

Prominent among them was the Rev. Keith Norman, pastor of First Baptist Church on Broad and president of the local NAACP. Norman would later stress that he, a former classmate with Wilkins at Carver High School, was speaking only as an individual and not on behalf of his church or the NAACP. He would repeat that assertion before the Wilkins headquarters opening got started on Saturday, but then inaugurated the affair with a lengthy prayer, invoking the Almighty’s blessings upon Wilkins, while draping an arm around the candidate.

Cohen has issued his own list of more than a score of African-American ministers who support him, including such well-known names as Whalum, Dr. James Netters, and Apostle Bill Adkins.

Another line of attack from Wilkins at the headquarters opening was a claim that Cohen had the support of “special interests.” He said, “Just go to opensecrets.org. It’ll show you who his top financial contributors are. Most of them don’t live in Memphis or give a darn about Memphis. … For whom are you really working?”

A cursory search of various sites, including the Federal Election Commission’s (FEC), indicates that Cohen has, along with support from local donors, significant financial support from union and entertainment sources, as well as organizations connected, from different points of view, with the transportation industry. The list of donors seems consistent with Cohen’s political profile and committee memberships (e.g. the House Transportation Committee).

A not insignificant additional fact to be found on the FEC site is that, as of March 31st, Cohen’s reported cash on hand was $943,149, while Wilkins’ was $112,286.

Yet a third line of attack came from Wilkins at Carter’s stump party, where, in remarks preceding Cohen’s, Wilkins declared, “I won’t be a congressman who will sit on his war-chest and watch fellow Democrats lose their races. …  We saw what happened in 2010. The congressman you elected at that time sat on his money and allowed Democrats to lose elections.”

That reflected a charge by Cohen’s estranged former district director Randy Wade, now a Wilkins supporter. Wade lost a race for sheriff in 2010 and subsequently complained, before leaving the congressman’s employ, of insufficient help from Cohen, who has responded that he fully supported Wade, both in joint appearances that got free media and in paid advertising, including billboards featuring the two of them together.

In his own remarks at the stump party, Cohen did not respond directly to Wilkins’ charges, though his campaign staff would respond to a Wilkins claim that he had always supported Democrats with copies of a 2006 ad, which appeared in the Flyer and elsewhere, listing Wilkins as a member of Democrats supporting then District Attorney General Bill Gibbons, a Republican, against a Democratic opponent.

Cohen emphasized instead his accomplishments on behalf of the district. Some of the recent ones cited were $15 million for the Main Street to Main Street project on the riverfront, $5 million for processing the county’s backlog of rape kits, and $3 million for summer jobs in Memphis.

Cohen attributed his prowess to his close relationship with President Barack Obama, who has endorsed his reelection bid, and with members of the Republican majority, with whom, he said, he had a “good working relationship.”

He told the crowd, “I’d appreciate your vote for this term and the term after and the term after that. I’m not asking you for one more term; I’m asking you to continue representation that’s honest and effective.”

Wilkins’ own tagline at both events Saturday was one he uses frequently: “If you liked Steve Cohen, you’ll love Ricky Wilkins.”

• More problems for beleaguered Juvenile Court clerk candidate Henri Brooks. On Friday she was charged with misdemeanor assault after an altercation with a driver over a parking lot space at Methodist Hospital Central, where Brooks was working. Witnesses say Brooks uttered racial slurs and attacked the woman who drove the other car.

And on Monday, acting on an apparent discovery by a Channel 24 reporter that Brooks does not live at the Midtown address she has claimed, but at a Cordova address outside her district, the County Commission voted to consider a possible ouster of her from the commission at a special called meeting on June 26th.

One note running counter to a mounting chorus of criticism came Tuesday from veteran Democratic operative David Upton, who contended that he had hand-delivered information to Brooks at her claimed Midtown address some two years ago. Meanwhile, Methodist Hospital announced Tuesday that Brooks had “resigned.”

Categories
Politics Politics Beat Blog

Early Poll Indicates Big Cohen Lead Over Challenger Wilkins

CREDIT: JB

Cohen (l); Wilkins

  • JB
  • Cohen (l); Wilkins

Yacoubian Research, an established Memphis polling firm, has conducted what it said to be an independent poll of likely voters regarding a Democratic primary contest in the 9th Congressional District between incumbent congressman Steve Cohen and his potential challenger, lawyer Ricky Wilkins.

The poll, involving some 204 respondents in the 9th District, found Cohen prevailing by a margin of 76 percent to 11 percent, with 13 percent expressing themselves as unsure.

A second question was asked of both 9th District voters and a sample of 414 Shelby County voters at large: “If Congressman Steve Cohen were to endorse a Democrat for Shelby County Mayor against Republican Mark Luttrell, would this make you more likely or less likely to vote for him?”

Within the 9trh District, 51 percent pronounced themselves “more likely,” as against 10 percent who said “less likely” and 39 percent who said there would be no difference. Percentages for the larger county sample were: 35 percent “more likely;” 26 percent “less likely”; and 39 percent, no difference.

Cohen led Wilkins in all age, race, gender, and geographic groupings, with his greatest strength among African-American males (83 percent) and white females (88 percent). Wilkins is African-American.

In only one category, an infinitesimally small sample of Republicans intending to vote in the Democratic Primary, did Wilkins lead Cohen. The vote there was 2 to 0,

Yacoubian’s conclusion: “In sum, Congressman Steve Cohen continues to be the overwhelming favorite in the August 2014 Democratic Primary for 9th district congress.”

The poll results can be accessed in more detail here: Yacoubian_Poll_Results__1_.pdf