(From the diaries – promoted by James L.)
I’m not sure if this is a case of EMILY’s List jumping the shark, drinking the gender essentialist Kool-Aid, or throwing Steve Cohen under the bus (maybe all three cliches at once?), but EMILY’s List has endorsed Nikki Tinker in the primary in TN-09 rather than incumbent progressive Steve Cohen.
EMILY’s List offered the following rationale:
“This is an extraordinary circumstance for us. We don’t make these decisions lightly,” said EMILY’s List spokeswoman Ramona Oliver. “Nikki ran a strong race in 2006 has put a strong race together in 2008, and she’s the only woman in this race.”
Cohen’s response was:
Cohen said he was somewhat surprised by the endorsement, citing his support and ‘A’ rating from the abortion-rights group Planned Parenthood. “It’s unfortunate that the women who give money and trust to EMILY’s List are not going to see their money going against Republicans, but that their money is going to used against a champion of choice,” Cohen said.
And Cohen’s campaign manager got more to the point!
“Steve Cohen doesn’t have the proper plumbing for EMILY’s List. His record as a state senator and congressman doesn’t mean anything to EMILY’s List because he’s not the right gender,” said Cohen campaign manager Jerry Austin.
The race in TN-09 is a curious confluence of gender and race; Steve Cohen is a Jewish white guy who represents a district that’s almost 60% African-American (who emerged from the primary via a split black vote). This is the seat that used to be represented by Harold Ford, Jr., so with Cohen a member of the Progressive Caucus and sporting a Progressive Punch score of 95%, he’s a big improvement over Ford, who was consistently the least liberal member of the CBC.
By contrast, Tinker (who is African-American and, obviously, female) is running as the apparently more conservative option (and, presumably, one who would therefore be less representative of the views of her D+18 district). Tinker’s background is in corporate law, specializing in “labor relations,” first for large firm Ford & Harrison and then for the general counsel for Memphis-based Northwest Airlines affiliate Pinnacle Airways.
For what it’s worth, a poll from a few weeks ago showed Cohen beating Tinker by a gaudy 63-11 margin, so unless it’s intended simply as a thumb in the eye to Cohen, it may be too little too late for them (although the primary isn’t until August 7).
Why a thumb in the eye right now? Cohen may have a frowny face on their good/bad chart as a result of his May 10 gaffe where he used a sexually loaded cinematic allusion to urge Hillary Clinton to exit stage right:
“Glenn Close should have stayed in that tub, and Sen. Clinton has had a remarkable career and needs to move to the next step, which is helping elect the Democratic nominee,” Cohen said.
Cohen rightly expressed his regrets over the comparison later, but is it an offense that really justifies EMILY’s List diverting its resources away from the general election task of beating Republicans and their decidedly non-feminist agenda?
not only did they have a stunningly low track record of picking winning candidates in the ’06 landslide… but endorsing less progressive primary candidates based solely on their gender practically seems to be their modus operandi at this point.
what are they good for? potentially sending pro-choice dino’s to congress to lobby blue dogs and rino’s? seems like they must have an agenda to divorce abortion rights from progressive policies writ-large…
As soon as I read the first sentance, I said to myself this is nothing less than spite for the Glenn Close comment. This organization just lost my respect.
From EMILY’s List mission statement: EMILY’s List members are dedicated to building a progressive America by electing pro-choice Democratic women to office.
It’s kind of like with EMILY’s List endorsing Clinton and NARAL endorsing Obama.
Looking at their full candidate listing, there are other more important races this group could be focusing on.
What I find most laughable about this endorsement is that Nikki Tinker is hardly some liberal champion. Rather, she is a corporate lawyer who has never been a big presence in the district.
Say what you want about Steve Cohen — personally, I happen to like him — but the guy has ably represented the people of Memphis for many years. This type of endorsement is stupid and counterproductive, even if there is no way TN-09 ever flips to the GOP.
This is now offically my LEAST favorite district in the entire United States. Racism, sexism, anti-Jewishness, what other cheap, unfair, and just ultimately un-Democratic Party slur is going to be thrown around in this district. This race feels like Cohen is running against a sleezy Republican, but he’s not, these are members of his party. He’s not the right gender, he’s not the right race, he’s not the right religion. Good lord.
Last cycle eight Democratic women were elected to the House and one, Cynthia McKinney, lost her seat to a Democratic male. Of the eight, four defeated Republicans and four were elected to fill Democratic openings. It is notable that one of the eight, Carol Shea-Porter ran on a shoe string and took none of the big money. A second, Nancy Boyda, was elected pretty much due to the late influx of IIRC over $700,000 in DCCC expenditures. As for the other six:
Maizie Hirono, Kathy Castor and Yvette Clark were shoe-ins in the general election. Betty Sutton was a heavy favorite. Gabrielle Giffords put it away early and only Kirsten Gillibrand went down to the wire.
I don’t know whether their money made a difference in the primaries but it seemed they may have been more invested in some of the high profile losers like Diane Farrell, Francine Busby, and Lois Murphy.
$250 K would have put Linda Stender over the top and the same can be said for MaryJo Kilroy. For goodness sake, Ellen Simon made a heck of a showing in AZ-1 and she was pretty much entirely self financed. Vic Wulsin, anybody.
As for Republican women, they are certainly not gaining seats. They had 18 women in the House after the 1994 election and after this election they will probably be below that number (17 after retirements and half of those are in some kind of danger). Nothing over 14 years while the number of Democratic women in the same time has doubled. Is Emily’s List deserving of the credit? Mostly not, I think.
Btw, the US House has lots of information on women in Congress since 1917. Look it up under “Members” via a google of “US House clerk”.
This district is solidly democratic, but it’s still the south where even African-Americans are somewhat socially conservative, so I doubt a pro-choice group’s endorsement would matter. Harold Ford was staunchly anti-choice and held the district for as long as he wanted. Cohen will win, and quite easily at that.
Emily’s list spent a stunning $11,128,005 in the 2006 cycle of which $254,971 went for winning House members. Six of the eight Democratic women got basically little or no help from Emily’s list but still won. They spent $155,746 on Betty Sutton’s primary campaign and $67,275 on Yvette Clarke’s campaign. Clarke won her primary in a scattered field by 1,783 votes. Sutton won by 4,353 in a multi-candidate field over Capri Cafaro,Tom Sawyer and Gary Kucinich.
This just provides me with more evidence that it is not a progressive organization. Sure, our interests may overlap sometimes, but we should no longer pretend that EMILY’s list is a progressive organization. They gave Hillary Clinton money last month. Hah! “Early Money Is Like Yeast” my a$$.
In 2006, Nikki Tinker was the fourth biggest recipient of aid from Emily’s List with a whopping $172,001. The top three were Claire McCaskill ($327,525), Darcy Burner ($298,154) and Patty Wetterling ($240,911).
Several of their biggest involvements were in campaigns that did not result in a nomination: Nikki Tinker and Peggy Lamm ($165,903).
Otoh, they gave $5,000 to Linda Stender who lost by 3,000 votes.
I know he tried to join the Congressional Black Caucus and they wouldn’t let him in. Now, I know it may seem a bit silly for a white guy to join, but given his district it makes perfect sense. He wasn’t doing it to embarass anyone. But a lot of the time it seems like black groups are embarassed by him and the fact that he represents a majority African-American district. I find this position to be totally crazy, since to me him representing TN-09 says great things about both him and TN-09.
if they want to restore their standing. Personally, here’s what I always thought EMILY’S List stood for and should stand for but maybe I was mistaken:
– support 100% pro-choice women in Democratic primaries for open seats
– support 100% pro-choice women in a Democratic primary against an anti-choice incumbent (no matter if incumbent is male or female)
– search for and support 100% pro-choice women to run against Republican incumbents
That’s pretty much it. Obviously, Nikki Tinker doesn’t fit this criteria so I really wonder what the heck has gotten into them at EMILY’S List.
I write as a man and a progressive and a feminist.
Cohen’s remark about HRC does not fit into the category of “gaffe,” in that it shows a FUNDAMENTAL PROBLEM WITH WOMEN IN POWER. It’s that simple. How can EMILY’s LIST support a man who harbors such vile notions? And, how can the PROGRESSIVE COMMUNITY tolerate such an idea?
There is no way possible to put Cohen’s remark into any context, other than women in power are emasculating, murderous and psychopathic. No one who even harbors such beliefs can be truly called a progressive.
In this election, it seems frighteningly clear that many in the “progressive” community do not consider sexism to be a problem. I disagree vehemently and morally. Failure to stand up against blatant and vile sexism should not be acceptable in anyone calling themselves “progressive.”
EMILY’s List has only 3 criteria for making endorsements: the candidate must be a woman who is Democratic and pro-choice. And they are willing to remove an endorsement. Every single elected Democratic woman Senator was first elected with the EMILY’s List endorsement (no small fundraising matter), but the PAC’s endorsement was removed from sitting Senators Mary Landrieu and Blanche Lambert Lincoln when they voted to support the ban on all third trimester abortions (the so-called Partial Birth Abortion ban). Despite their own PR, EMILY’s List is not a progressive organization because they refuse to weigh in on ANY other issue except the issue of abortion; hence the PAC is willing to endorse women ranging from Rep. Barbara Lee (CA) who opposed the Afghan war to Rep. Ellen Tauscher(CA) of Bluedog Democrat fame.
Supposedly, EMILY’s List will only support competent and qualified women who can run viable campaigns, but those adjectival descriptions are very subjective standards. And quite frankly, the unstated requirement they would never admit is that the decision and support of founder and executive director Ellen Malcolm is required. In fact, it was the strong behest of Malcolm that resulted in the above very public and official endorsement recisions of Landrieu and Lincoln. That is the 800 pound gorrila sitting in the living room of this primary contest that EMILY’s List has waded into. Ellen Malcolm and EMILY’s List endorsed Hillary Clinton in January 2007 before, I think, Hillary even formally announced as a candidate. EMILY’s List has squandered large amounts of money conducting independent expenditure campaigns in primary state contests for Hillary (and have angered a substantial number of current and former members in the process, something the organization does not care about and something I know first-hand).
Their track record from 2006 was pathetic. Their major, competitive successes in the primaries were Betty Sutton in Ohio (big emphasis on this race) and Mazie Hirono in Hawaii (which EMILY’s List staff unofficially wrote off – as a staffer personally told me). On the other hand, they were heavily invested in races like Peggy Lamm’s primary in Colorado when political junkies like you and I were reading the polls and everything else and saying, I don’t think so.
The only two competitive general races that they won were Gillibrand’s and Gifford’s races. Other significant races where they were heavily involved were Diane Farrell’s, Lois Murphy’s, Mary Jo Kilroy’s, and Patricia Madrid’s among others. They were there early for all of those races. However, they arrived late to the party for other races which could have used their early assistance badly like Judy Feder in Virginia and Victoria Wulsin in Ohio. (And where are they now for these women?) Notice that, of the 4 competitive general election races won by Democratic women, they only were involved in 2 (Gillibrand and Gifford) while Boyda of Kansas chose to not resort to their assistance (like she did in 2004) and Shea-Porter (to their embarrassment!) came in under the radar (and they were soooo embarrassed that a pro-choice Democratic woman who they ignored won).
EMILY’s List has its own brand of Kool-Ade, and they’re proud of it. This year the ingredients of that Kool-Ade includes their Hillary obsession and, as always, Malcolm’s personal interests and therefore organizational dictates. So, I am strongly suspect that Malcolm has taken offense at what Cohen said about Clinton, and that is the motivation to support a woman, Nikki Tinker, who has resorted to racial appeals (Cohen’s not black!) to compete a second time. I’m not even a Cohen fan, but I hope Tinker goes down in flames and EMILY’s List chokes on its Kool-Ade. It’s time for some changes to made to its recipe.
If I were to magically get to live in a district that is 60% gay like TN-09 is for blacks, I would feel pretty damn screwed over if my Congressman or woman weren’t gay as well. I really would. As a group that is still so oppressed, especially in the South where racism is still prevalent, I would just be pissed that the straight man kept us down one more time when the demographics heavily favor us, and the law intends it.
The anti-Semitism is really unjustified, as is the sexism. I think the race really should have just been about the issues and let it be unsaid of the blacks needing to support the black candidiate, it’s what the district is intended to do.
His run was historic and courageous. That being said I cannot support him as far s his record of representing TN-09 went. That is a solidly progressive district and Ford VERY often sold out his district by voting with republicans in order to make his record seem moderate to conservative in order to further his statewide ambitions. He’s a good fit for the Senate out of TN, but was a HORRIBLE fit for TN-09.