RACIAL POLITICS IN MEMPHIS GETTING UGLY AS THE CORRUPT, REACTIONARY FORD MACHINE FIGHTS FOR A COME-BACK

Memphis-based Congressman Steve Cohen is a freshman with an extraordinarily progressive voting record, one that reflects the nature of his constituency. His problem is that his skin color (white) and religion (Jewish) don't reflect the nature of his constituency. And that is something being brought up-- sometimes covertly, something overtly, by his opponents and their supporters. His opponents are all Democrats challenging him in the primary. Republicans don't bother running in TN-09, which has a PVI of D+18. In 2006 a Republican, mark White did run-- and wound up with 18% of the vote, the exact same percentage that the one before him got. Almost 60% of the district's residents are African-Americans. Bush only got 30% of the vote against Kerry. He would do far worse today. An independent, Jake Ford (younger brother of reactionary ex-Congressman Harold Ford (now chairman of the DNC and a shill for corporate interests on Fox or MSNBC; he goes back and forth) got 22%. This year Ford is running again-- the family thinks they own the seat. So are Nikki Tinker, James Gregory, Isaac Richmond, Joe Towns Jr. and Latroy Williams.

Last February we helped expose a vicious hate campaign by Tinker supporters against Cohen based on his faith and race-- and on his support for equality for all Americans. (His opponents want equality for all Americans except the ones they don't like, in this case, gays.) Yesterday's Memphis Commercial Appeal published the kind of contemptible racist broadside against a political candidate that you'd think would have been buried when John McCain was still a child. Not unexpectedly it came from a couple of Fords. "[T]he Ford brothers chose to spew racially and religiously divisive rhetoric the day before a memorial to a man who believed in judging people by character as opposed to skin color."

Jake Ford suggested that incumbent U.S. Rep. Steve Cohen is unable to represent the district because Cohen is white and the majority of the district's residents are black.

Jake Ford also accused Cohen, who is Jewish, of supporting reparations for Holocaust survivors but not for African-American descendants of slaves.

"He's just not for the money for blacks," Jake Ford said. "He is for Jews, but not for blacks."

(On that point, among others, Jake Ford seems to have gotten his facts wrong. Cohen is a co-sponsor of a bill to study reparations for slaves' descendants.)

This blatant appeal to racism (and anti-Semitism) would cause an uproar if a white candidate said these kinds of things about an African-American candidate. The Ford Brothers' attacks on Steve Cohen should be greeted with no less outrage.

Interestingly another member of the corrupt Ford family, former state Rep John Ford, who was serving a five and a half year prison sentence in El Paso for accepting bribes, asked Cohen to help him convince the Justice Department to get him moved to a prison closer to his family in Memphis. Cohen gave him the same constituent service he would give to anyone in Memphis and Ford is now in prison nearby.

My own Congresswoman is an African-American. I'm an enthusiastic supporter of hers because she and I see eye to eye on almost every issue. Our district is a little less than 30% African-American, Barack Obama is the Senator from Illinois, whose African-American population is about 15% African-American. Another freshman elected last year with Steve Cohen, an African-American Muslim, Keith Ellison (D-MN) won his race with 56% of the vote. His district is 12% African-American. Emanuel Cleaver is the vice chairman of the Congressional Black Caucus. In 2006 he was re-elected in his Missouri district with 64% of the vote, a district which is two-thirds white and less than a quarter African-American. An aside: Cleaver has endorsed-- strenuously-- Hilary Clinton; Steve Cohen is supporting Barack Obama. I don't know what the hell is wrong with these Fords; but they are playing a relate screwed up game on every level. This is a family that should be retired from politics once and for all-- and decisively.

As I mentioned, Steve Cohen has been endorsed by Blue America. Please take a look at the archive of his live blog session at FDL from February, 2007 and please consider joining the 375 people who have donated to his campaign through the Blue America ActBlue page.