Ugly Tennessee Democratic primary race comes to an end

A primary race, so ugly in its conduct it received national attention, has concluded. From TPM Cafe's Jim Sleeper:

August 8, 2008, 4:56PM

Last night, a 60%-black Memphis congressional district re-elected its one-term white liberal incumbent, Steve Cohen, despite TV ads by his black challenger Nikki Tinker that associated him falsely with the Klan and asked why Cohen would "pray in our churches" while voting against mandatory prayer in public schools. Cohen had won in 2006 with only 31% of the vote, probably because several black challengers split the remainder. But last night, given two years to prove himself an effective representative, he won 79 - 19%.

Does anyone realize how important, and beautiful, this is? Emily's List didn't, as M.J. showed here, until it finally shook off its identity politics and saw that not every female candidate is better than every male.

Barack Obama was cagey and quiet on this one, and thereby hangs a tale.

The title of Mr. Sleeper's piece: Is Obama as Brave as His Black Memphis Supporters?

A bit more.

More than a decade ago, in Liberal Racism and this article, among others, I tried to persuade liberals how important and valuable it was that white-majority electorates in several Southern congressional districts had just elected blacks, in the 1996 elections. The civil-rights establishment refused to believe that it had even happened.

Obama, teaching about racial districting then at the University of Chicago, read my arguments but never mentioned them in class. (Yesterday, belatedly, he did condemn Tinker's odious ads but didn't make an endorsement.)

The root of the problem of racial districting that recapitulates racism itself was the defensiveness of voting-rights activists, black and white. Having struggled so bravely to pass the Voting Rights Act in the teeth of the more racist, segregationist America of the 1960s, many still cling to the assumption that people will vote only in racial blocs and that, therefore, no black can go to Congress unless districts are drawn to ensure heavy black majorities.

This is interesting reading. He looks at one election contest and many broader issues intertwined.

Complete post

New York Times pre-election coverage