Cohen: Memphis Has Never Been Split Except When it Was!

[freepcrusher]

30k urban Blacks isn't that tiny, anyways.

We're a majority black county with a population of nearly a million people. It's not all that substantial a neighborhood.

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).