US Rep. Steve Cohen challenged again in Tennessee

ADRIAN SAINZ
Associated Press

MEMPHIS, Tenn. (AP) — When the young rappers took the stage at a campaign event four years ago and started rhyming, “Keep goin’ and goin’, with Steve Cohen,” the bespectacled congressman shed his sports coat, started dancing slightly off-rhythm and pointed at himself with a smile.

The white, Jewish Memphis native has not shied away from a little public awkwardness as he turned himself into a political force in Tennessee’s majority black 9th congressional district.

In the Democratic primary Thursday, Cohen faces yet another challenger hoping to knock off the popular, four-term incumbent by highlighting the difference between Cohen’s race and ethnicity and that of his constituents.

“I understand the struggles that folks have in this community,” Ricky Wilkins, a black attorney, said at a fundraiser Wednesday. The political novice asserted Cohen can’t relate to blacks in Memphis. “My life experience is one that uniquely positions me to not just understand what people are struggling with in this community, but also to lead and guide them to improve their circumstances.”

Since he was elected in 2006, Cohen won more than 70 percent of the vote in the primaries on his way to easy general election victories in this heavily Democratic district. A loss to Wilkins would shake up the political landscape of Tennessee, which has no black members of Congress.

Few give Wilkins much chance for an upset in light of Cohen’s skill in forming a rapport with the district, which lies in one of the poorest large cities in the country. Memphis is fighting through financial struggles, high crime, blight and an unsettled education system.

Cohen helped pass a resolution apologizing for the enslavement and segregation of blacks. He secured funding for area hospitals and supported efforts to reduce infant mortality, as well as legislation to address racial and ethnic disparities in the criminal justice system. An ally of President Barack Obama, he backed the health care overhaul, the withdrawal of troops from Iraq and the drawdown in Afghanistan.

“He understands his hometown very well and has spent pretty much a whole career running for office and holding office effectively. I can’t imagine a scenario where he loses,” said Marcus Pohlmann, political science professor at Rhodes College in Memphis.

Cohen received some national attention in 2013 after his Twitter exchange during the State of the Union address with a woman he described as his daughter. Cohen later learned he was not her father.

Wilkins is not the first opponent to try to leverage Cohen’s race to pry him from the seat held for more than two decades by a legendary black political family: Harold Ford and his son, Harold Ford Jr.

In 2008, Cohen trounced black corporate attorney Nikki Tinker, who ran a television ad that asked “Who is the real Steve Cohen?” and wove together pictures of him, a statue of Confederate Gen. Nathan Bedford Forrest and a hooded Ku Klux Klansman.

But Cohen said Wilkins, who has never held elected office, has raised more money and has worked harder than his past primary opponents.

Wilkins also is a lifelong Memphis resident who grew up in one of the city’s poor neighborhoods. He earned a law degree from Vanderbilt University and returned to Memphis to work as a private attorney. He has served on the board of the Memphis Housing Authority, which helped create affordable housing opportunities.

Like Cohen, Wilkins is an Obama supporter. Both candidates have life-size cutouts of the president in their campaign offices.

Wilkins represented the city in a legal dispute about the Beale Street entertainment district, but he was fired when interim Mayor Myron Lowery questioned his fees in 2009. Wilkins said his fees included payments for outside experts.

A polio survivor, Cohen was a longtime member of the state Senate before running for congress. He helped create the Tennessee lottery, which helps fund college scholarships.

Cohen built a reputation as an aggressive campaigner: Wilkins called Cohen a political bully who pressured a union to change its apparent endorsement of Wilkins.

“I feel very confident that we’re going to have a very big victory,” Cohen said during a recent campaign event. “The only enemy we could have and the only weak link would be apathy of our folks who don’t think they have to vote.”

Supporters of Wilkins said Cohen has become comfortable in his position and indifferent. Rev. Gregory Stokes of the Greater Paradise Baptist Church Ministries in Memphis said he believed Wilkins could help improve economic conditions in the district.

“The last years things have been hard, they’ve been difficult,” he said. “Any form of finances that can trickle down will be a blessing, and I don’t see that happening under Cohen.”

But Cohen, despite his different heritage, will be tough to oust, Pohlmann said.

“He really is a child of Memphis,” he said. “He can cross over, I think, in part because he has absorbed the lessons of living here.”

Copyright 2014 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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