Do you think the GOP would try to knock out Cooper by chopping up Davidson into 4 pieces? I'm sure it wouldn't be hard if they were so inclined, but I don't know what the political culture is down there.
That's probably too risky. Nashville could theoretically be split 3 or 4 ways to make it completely Republican, but the rural parts of the 4th, 6th, and 8th are have history supporting Democratic congressional candidates, and so making any of them more competitive is probably a bad move, especially since they all have freshman representatives.
It would be better for the GOP to just secure those districts and give Cooper a safe one in Nashville. Not only is he a fairly strong congressman, but he previously represented much of the current 4th and could probably hold a close district based in that area. It would be better for the GOP to wait a decade (given that it looks like the GOP's holding onto the state government for a while) and hope to shore up some of their new gains (trade the 7th's Memphis's suburbs to the 8th for it's more swing-y northeastern corner mostly). Also, if they can draw a fairly Solid Democratic district in Nashville, they might wind up with a significantly more Liberal Congressman than they have now, which will make dicing up his district easier.
Lastly, cracking incumbents out of their districts works best when you can completely cover the region with your own incumbents, like what Delay did in Dallas in 2003 to get rid of Martin frost. That way you have an extra bit of insurance that the target can't pull off an upset win like Edwards did in TX-17.
