In his rather quixotic primary bid to unseat sophomore Democratic Congressman Steve Cohen, former Memphis Mayor Willie Herenton has been reduced to a pretty overt racial appeal in order to justify his candidacy.
The basic gist of the appeal is a photo montage of the eleven members of the state's Congressional delegation (all of whom are white), with the caption "What's Wrong with This Picture?"
According to the Memphis Commerical Appeal, for what it's worth, there was quite a bit wrong with that picture:
The Herenton for Congress 2010 Web site is showing a diagram of the 11 white members of the Tennessee Congressional delegation, and asking, "What's wrong with this picture?"
It seems that there are at least two things objectively wrong, or at least inaccurate, a Herenton critic pointed out Tuesday. One is that the photograph of U.S. Rep. John Duncan, R-Tenn., doesn't look like Duncan and is apparently U.S. Rep. John B. Shadegg, an Arizona Republican.
The other is that the nine U.S. congressmen listed are referred to as "State Representatives."
As of late Tuesday evening, both of those mistakes had been remedied on the web page.
That said, there is still some substantial dispute about the message behind the montage. In an interview with the Commercial-Appeal, Herenton's campaign manager, Sidney Chism, stated that the Tennessee 9th was ""the only district [in Tennessee]— the only district — where we can, not should, but can elect a person of color."
He might want to check with his boss. In an interview two weeks ago with WREG-TV, Herenton seemed a lot closer to using the word "should" rather than "can":
"This is an 11-member delegation. If you look at this picture, and you're African-American, you sense the lack of representation," said Herenton, who resigned as mayor last summer.
"If you look at the map of Tennessee, the 9th Congressional District in the lower southwest corner was carved out so you could enhance the possibility of an African-American being elected," said Herenton, who said the delegation wasn't a "true representation of the demographics of this great state."
Cohen has represented the Memphis-based 9th district since Harold Ford Jr. left in 2006 to run for the Senate (in Tennessee, not New York). He has not been a stranger to rough campaign treatment in the primaries. In 2008, Nikki Tinker not only ran a campaign based in no small part of a similar appeal to Herenton's, but actually managed to co-mingle race-baiting and Jew-baiting in one of the most vile television ads of the campaign cycle.