The Nikki Tinker thing was a total embarrassment, Blair, especially for EMILY's List, which is how I, at least, became a cheerleader for her in 2006. And especially given that Steve Cohen seems like a hell of a good guy and totally determined to represent his constituency, which is probably why he demolished her by 60 points yesterday.
As far as the antisemitism thing, though, I defer to Ta-Nehisi Coates' (our newest blogger on TheAtlantic.com!) explanation:
"Frankly, I've always doubted the power of Jew-baiting as a method of scaring up votes in any black community outside ofthe tri-state areaGotham. That's not because blacks aren't antisemetic, it's because--in the words of the great Jimmy Baldwin--they're antiwhite. Jew-baiting against a white Jewish guy in a majority black district, is like attempting a 360 dunk. Why go through all that when the the plain-old race-baiting layup will suffice?"
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... were you ever a Nikki Tinker fan? If so, I guess I was unaware. And yes, it looks like an unfortunate embarrassment for EMILY'S List. I've always been a little wary of their organization for their see-no-evil approach to selecting candidates to support, but obviously, they couldn't have seen this one coming.
I think the real punch behind that ad was that it was just ambiguous enough - one could make the argument, as your Atlantic blogger did, that she's "just" riffing on him for his race, but to anyone who knows anything about the other guy, it also raises the issue of his being a Jew. If anti-semitism, however veiled, doesn't work in urban Memphis, I'm not all that convinced it actually works anywhere.
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