Talk Elections

"This will be the first time that has happened," by Cohen's own account will be the third time it has happened!

IMPEACH HIM NOW

FF

Parkway Village wasn't even part of Memphis back when Sundquist was in Congress. The old 8th included a little corner of Frayser ( far Northwestern Memphis) for whatever reason. The newly proposed 9th has a huge dagger full of white people in the heart of the city taken out. It's not the same thing at all.

Shoring up Tanner.

There was no need to shore up Tanner. He never had a competitive election. Not even in 1994. Most years, the GOP didn't bother to field a candidate. That's how safe TN-8 used to be for the Dems. If they were really concerned about shoring up Tanner, they could have given him more than a tiny corner of the city.

They weren't so concerned as to consider that necessary. 30k urban Blacks isn't that tiny, anyways.

But "it helps" is just the reason it was left in and aquired the present shape I think, not the reason a jut was created in the first place. I read someplace that the general setup of the 9th being wholly Memphis and the 7th and the 8th splitting the difference is quite old, much older than the current Dem gerry.

We're a majority black county with a population of nearly a million people. It's not all that substantial a neighborhood. And calling Frayser "urban" is a bit of stretch. It was a working class white suburb many, many years ago. It used to have a couple of factories, which have long since closed. There are still a few white people left out there, though not by choice. It's about the most awful place imaginable. Neither the convenience of proximity to town nor the pastoral ideal of the countryside. Most of the whites in Memphis live in much more "urban" neighborhoods by any reasonable definition.

Well, he might not have had a competitive election because he didn't occupy a swing district. And, the reason the district wasn't marginal could be the fact that 30,000 Blacks were added to the Southern edge of the district.

Had those 30,000 Frayser folks been removed from his district, and, had 30,000 folks been added from Eastern Shelby county, then, the district would have been more competitive, and, Tanner might have faced a series of strongly contested elections.


Apparently, Frayser was enough, until 2010.

It's 5% of a congressional district. It's big enough that it was a serious embarassment for Fincher to not be aware of it.

It was a big gaffe in my book, but nobody really cared in the district. And I don't know how BSB's math skills could be so poor. It's a neighhood of 30,000 people. Maybe 20,000 are voting age. So maybe 8,000-10,000 people in Frayser bother to show up to vote. In 2002, a pretty decent GOP year, coming shortly after 9/11, Tanner won 117,838-45,850. He won every one of the 19 counties in his district. Tanner's total in Shelby was almost exactly the same as his total for the district. In 1994, Tanner did even better than the 20 year incumbant in Memphis's majority black district. It was a solid Dem district with or without Frayser. Even if you had redrawn the district to give him some GOP areas in NE Shelby County instead, it still would have been a solid Dem district. Which is why the GOP in Nashville had to completely redraw the district. As weak a candidate as Fincher is, he could very easily lose to seat back to a rural Dem if they only had minor changes. The new map gives him a whole lot of suburban whites who always vote party line GOP. Although, he could very easily lose in a primary, as they're going to want a country club type like Marsha, not a gospel singer farmer from Frog Jump.

If Tanner was so entrenched why did he retire in 2010? He probably would have won re-election (albeit by a smaller margin).

2010 redefined "entrenched" for Democrats. Chet Edwards and that guy in FL-2 whose name I can't be bothered to look up were entrenched through tough elections before, but they went under.

By about thirty billion votes in the case of Edwards.

Thirty billion, eh?  Old habits sure do die hard in south Texas.

Clearly Cohen has never been walking in Memphis.

Cohen is an a-hole. I hope he gets primaried.

He gets primaried every two years by a black person who says the seat is rightfully theirs based in skin color. And not fringe people. Last time, it was the 18 year mayor of Memphis. And every time, Cohen destroys. Black politicians think they are entitlef to special, segregated VRA seats. Black voterd don't agree.