Stereotyping Memphis and Shelby County

The August 7 Republican Primary Race for U.S. Congressional District 7 is drawing more and more attention in the media. Shelby County Registrar Tom Leatherwood hopes to best incumbent Marsha Blackburn in the primary which will likely determine the outcome of the General Election in November.

This quote from today's Commercial Appeal article gets my blood boiling:

Leatherwood is taking an aggressive approach, swinging at Blackburn for her effectiveness, questioning the accuracy of her campaign financial disclosures and jabbing criticism at her tactics of characterizing him as tied to Memphis rather than Shelby County and his hometown of Arlington.

When I first started working in state government in 2000, it did not take long to notice the hostile attitudes toward Memphis and Shelby County held by people in the central and eastern parts of Tennessee. Whenever I attended statewide meetings and discussed the special needs and issues of Memphis and Shelby County, I could hear eyes roll within my fellow Tennesseans from other parts of the state. With Shelby County's large African American population, the culture of my part of Tennessee differs significantly from the rest of Tennessee.

I am not naive. Memphis and Shelby County has suffered many unethical fools in public and elected service that has led to mistrust of anything coming out of my home city and county.

But this hostility grew to contempt when I recently participated in a statewide ethics training via satellite link. The trainer from the Ethics Commission in Nashville ridiculed Memphis and Shelby County during the training as if we weren't even there. It was insulting.

The efforts of the Blackburn campaign to demonize Tom Leatherwood with references to associations with Memphis and the contempt expressed by the ethics trainer plays into the worst kind of stereotyping. When politicians use Memphis to divide and conquer the electorate, it smacks of racism.

More Marsha, Marsha, Marsha

The Memphis Daily News has a short story about Marsha Blackburn warning her supporters about Tom Leatherwood's challenge to her in the Republican Primary for Tennessee's 7th Congressional District:

Marsha Blackburn is telling her supporters that she is facing her most serious challenger this year since her first run at elected office in 2002.

The U.S. representative for Tennessee’s 7th Congressional District is facing Shelby County Register of Deeds Tom Leatherwood in the Republican primary for her congressional seat. The primary election is Aug. 7.

In a note to supporters, Blackburn calls Leatherwood a “very serious opponent” who nonetheless “knows he can’t out-conservative someone with my voting record, so he kicked off his campaign with a negative attack on me and has never let up.”

She goes on to say of Leatherwood that “he is being encouraged by some of his pals in the courthouse in Memphis who resent the fact that I don’t spend more time catering to their wishes” and that she believes Democrats are urging other Democrats to vote in the Republican primary for Leatherwood.

UPDATE: Turns out that Leatherwood has also been accused of FEC abuses.

Marsha, Marsha, Marsha

From the Memphis Daily News:

The Washington-based watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, along with Germantown resident Barbara Kaye, has filed a complaint with the Federal Election Commission against the campaign committee of U.S. Rep. Marsha Blackburn and the committee’s treasurer, Tea Hoffman.

Blackburn is the representative of Tennessee’s 7th congressional district that includes parts of Shelby County. The group’s complaint alleges several things, including that Blackburn’s committee might have violated federal campaign finance laws for reporting errors that have dogged Blackburn’s campaign finances covering each year since she first ran for Congress in 2002.

Darcy Anderson, spokesman for Blackburn for Congress, said the campaign has undertaken its own investigation, voluntarily reported errors to the FEC and already addressed the matters publicly.

This can't help her campaign in the Republican Primary against Tom Leatherwood.