Emily's List, Tinker humiliated in landslide

Charlie Burr

Last night's 60 point blowout for Steve Cohen represents something of a milestone in Memphis politics. It's a big win not just Steve, but for the city. If there's any good to come out of the $750,000 or so Emily's List invested in Nikki Tinker during the past two cycles, it's giving Memphis an opportunity to reject these low-life tactics in no uncertain terms.

From smintheus on Daily Kos:

Who knew, Democratic voters don't want to send a bigoted, union-busting lawyer to Congress. Nikki Tinker was trounced today in the Democratic primary in TN-09. With 89% of precincts reporting, incumbent Steve Cohen leads Tinker 79% to 19%.

It's a humiliation not just for the vile Tinker but also for those who endorsed her, especially EMILY's List and the DLC's Harold Ford, Jr. Her scurrilous, racist, anti-semitic attacks on the widely admired Cohen were so repulsive that in the last days before the primary EMILY's List felt obliged to renounce them. And so did her former employer, Harold Ford, though only a few hours before the polls closed. The humiliation for Tinker and her backers was not just the repudiation of her and her tactics that Tennessee voters delivered today. The deeper humiliation was the kind of campaign she ran, and the willingness of her backers to look the other way for so long. They've all lost face from this campaign.

Steve Cohen, on the other hand, deserves plaudits for rising above the muck and triumphing.

The incendiary ad unavailable yesterday posted after the jump:


Nikki Tinker race baits Steve Cohen. @ Yahoo! Video

Narrator: "Sometimes apologies just aren't enough."

No kidding.

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    It's great to see that Cohen, a real progressive, buried her by 60 points.

  • Bill R. (unverified)
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    One of the revelations of this campaign cycle is how people claiming to be in the progressive camp aren't really who they claim to be. Cases in point, the PUMAs who claim to be for Clinton policies who now vote out of spite for a right wing Republican for president who will make abortion illegal and bring down every other legal and legislative advance for women's rights, environmental protection, while privatizing social security and further weakening unions. Emily's List, like a whole lot of others, just aren't who they claim to be.

  • RichW (unverified)
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    Many of the PUMAs (but not all) are Limbaugh dittoheads posing as HRC supporters as a part of his opertion chaos. This shows how desperate the right wing is to stop Obama and a Democratic landslide in November.

    But back on topic, sort of, I have been thinking a lot of what constitutes "progressive" politics. I find it easy to identify non progressive ideas (anti-union, anti-environment, racist, sexist etc.) but I have come to the conclusion that there may be "domestic" progressives and "world" progressives whose views may be at odds.

    But that probably is an entirely new thread.

  • Bill Bodden (unverified)
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    Emily's List, like a whole lot of others, just aren't who they claim to be.

    Could this be another example of power corrupting?

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    I just had a good conversation with Steve Cohen, who's justifiably pumped about last night's results. They obviously outperformed everyone's best case scenario last night -- and are feeling really great today.

    Steve asked me to pass on his thanks to everyone who helped and rooted for him from afar.

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    Wow, she read the whole script herself, it sounds like.

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    Steve asked me to pass on his thanks to everyone who helped and rooted for him from afar.

    Thanks for this one Charlie. It was gratifying to see Ford and his Little Engine find out that sometimes they just can't. Something similar, if a little less blatant happened in the recent Oregon AG primary. Seems like Dem primary voters are, for the most part, sufficiently literate and aware so as to make this type of campaign fraught with peril.

    Once in a while someone gets their ass kicked for underestimating the intelligence of the American public and Mencken stirs uneasily.

    As for Emily's List, a group to which we recently donated money, What the hell were they thinking?

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