The 2010 contest for the 9th Congressional District drew national attention today when The New York Times published a story entitled "Ex-Mayor of Memphis Starts Bid for Congress, Invoking Race in Campaign."
That ex-mayor, of course, is Willie Herenton, who is challenging Rep. Steve Cohen to represent the majority-black Memphis district. As The Times points out:
In a commentary on The Times piece, Jay Bookman of The Atlanta Journal-Constitution decries Herenton's appeal to racial loyalty and says the campaign is "a case that will sound all too familiar to Atlantans."
That ex-mayor, of course, is Willie Herenton, who is challenging Rep. Steve Cohen to represent the majority-black Memphis district. As The Times points out:
Already, the campaign has proved how deeply race still infuses much of politics in the South, even after the election of a black president.Indeed, Herenton and his surrogates are making no secret of their desire to inject race into the campaign. Said one longtime Herenton ally:
"This seat was set aside for people who look like me," said Mr. Herenton's campaign manager, Sidney Chism, a black county commissioner. "It wasn't set aside for a Jew or a Christian. It was set aside so that blacks could have representation."The article covers a lot of the background that followers of local politics already would be familiar with. For a refresher, check out this analysis piece from this past June.
In a commentary on The Times piece, Jay Bookman of The Atlanta Journal-Constitution decries Herenton's appeal to racial loyalty and says the campaign is "a case that will sound all too familiar to Atlantans."
(L)ike many scoundrels before him, both white and black, he's hoping to use racial loyalty to blind voters to his failings. I hope the voters of Memphis recognize that approach and reject it.Ta-Nehisi Coates of The Atlantic Monthly's site writes that Herenton is acting like "a certain kind of politician who came of age in the '60s.":
The district was created so that people who look Herenton would be well-represented, not so that people who look like Herenton would have a job for life. The argument is insulting to the actual voter because it says that he/she shouldn't have the right to choose, but should have his/her choices dictated by politicians.Finally, Matt Yglesias of The American Prospect's Tapped blog draws connections both to Cohen's 2008 win over another black candidate who was accused of race-baiting -- Nikki Tinker -- and to what he calls similar tactics used by the right against Barack Obama in the presidential race:
Like last year, the circumstances of this election are likely to provoke outrage among clueless right-wingers who can't see how much the identity-based campaigns of Cohen's opponents resemble the classic right-wing playbook -- namely paint your opponent as a cultural outsider who holds regular people in contempt. The big difference -- other than the fact that it's more flagrant -- is that it's a black person doing it to a white person, so it inflames the tribal sensibilities of conservatives who spent all of last year appropriating a similar strategy against the black man in the White House.
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