Nikki Tinker's resounding defeat in her primary challenge to Rep. Stephen Cohen may suggest that identity politics don't work quite as well as they used to.
Adam SerwerAug 08, 2008
This week the Democratic primary in the mostly African-American 9th Congressional District in Memphis, Tennessee made national headlines. Much of the coverage was focused on the aggressive ads African American challenger Nikki Tinker ran against incumbent Steve Cohen. One of the ads associated Cohen, who is white and Jewish, with the Ku Klux Klan; the other expressed indignation that Cohen was in “our churches, clapping his hands and tapping his feet” while voting against school prayer.