Friday, August 08, 2008

Wow, just wow.

My friend and my Congressman, Steve Cohen, obliterated Nikki Tinker, winning roughly 79% to Tinker's 19%.  He had 80% coming out of Early Vote, which meant that Tinker's race-baiting and Jew-baiting ads had little effect except to make her a national pariah, winning Keith Olbermann's "Worst Person In The World" award on MSNBC's Countdown on Election Eve.  Not a good way to win an election, eh?

The truth is, Tinker's campaign did as much to secure Cohen's victory as anything Cohen did.  She embarrassed Memphis's African-American community, who responded with nothing short of an outright repudiation of Tinker and her tactics.  Her political career is in tatters at this moment, not likely to be rebuilt.

As long as Cohen continues to be the Hardest Working Man in Congress, he should have no problem holding on to that seat .

While no one had a worse night than Tinker, the Shelby County Republican Party came close. In fact, they may well look back at this night as the point at which they became irrelevant in county-wide politics, except on a district-by-district basis.  Democrats swept the three county offices on the ballot, with Cheyenne Johnson succeeding her mentor Rita Clark as Assessor over Bill Giannini (the GOP Chair, no less), Paul Mattila succeeded his late friend and former boss Bob Patterson as Trustee, defeating Ray Butler, and Otis Jackson unseated three-term incumbent General Sessions Court Clerk Chris Turner.  This can only bode bad tidings for the Republicans as they head into the 2010 County Elections.

In other news, Senator Rosalind Kurita of Clarksville won a landslide 19-vote victory over Tim Barnes of Adams, and Adams is considering a challenge of the results.  I'm betting a certain Memphis Senator just may assist with that challenge, whaddaya think?

Hell, it's almost 2:45 A.M. and I'm tired and going to bed.  But first, let's kick off Feel Good Friday in style with the one, the only,  Al Green... good night, all!

 

3 comments:

Sharon Cobb said...

I don't think Al Green could make you feel bad if he tried!

Jim Maynard said...

I couldn't believe what I heard from Nikki Stinkers mouth after she lost--she told CH 3 that it wasn't because of the ads. She claimed to have lost in the early voting, before she "exposed Cohen's real record"!!! I want to say "What a b**ch!" but some would call me a sexist.

Tom Guleff said...

Cohen's margin of victory was a total surprise, no one predicted that tidal wave.

For the GOP, it will be tough sledding in Shelby County (see demographic shift article in CA). We had 3 solid candidates that lost last night. That's rough.

The political landscape is changing, that is for sure. But, I believe the power shifted when Steve Mulroy won his seat on the commission (in 2006).