Willie or Won't He?

Memphis Mayor Willie Herenton wants to primary a fellow Democrat in the 2010 Congressional race, taking on incumbent Congressman Steve Cohen.

No word yet what issues Herenton has with Cohen's performance in Congress, but statements from both men can be found here. I'm sure the immediate speculation is that Herenton (an African American) thinks he can knock off the white guy in a predominently black district, but I'm not jumping to conclusions.

You can pencil me in on the Cohen side of this one. Even though I consider Cohen a bit of a kook, I don't see any reason to oust him yet.

UPDATE: TNDP Chairman Chip Forester just commented on this issue on a conference call with bloggers. He said there's "not any clarity that Mayor Herenton will be challenging Steve Cohen" and attributed all the speculation to an "offhanded comment" by the Mayor.

I understand why the party chairman wants to skirt this issue for now so I'll cut him some slack, but according to The Memphis News, Herenton issued the statement in writing and "has formed an exploratory committee to run for Congress in the 2010 elections."

Still, let's keep our fingers crossed that Chip is right. Hopefully this will all turn out to be nothing.

Chipster: TNGOP "Racist" and "Liars"

Damn. The new guy doesn't hold back.

Finally, I want to put the Republican Party on notice. The Democratic Party will no longer sit quietly by while the Republican Party runs racist, demagogic falsehoods against our values, our principles, and our candidates as they did this year against President Barack Obama, Nathan Vaughn, and other legislative candidates. When you lie about our candidates, our office holders, we are going to call you out as liars. There is no place in politics for such conduct. Robin Smith, Jason Mumpower, Bill Hobbs, and Chip Saltsman I tell you now: You are put on notice. As Chair of the Tennessee Democratic Party I will not stand by and see this happen without a full frontal attack on the racist, smear tactics that you have used in these past campaign. Decent men and women in Tennessee are demeaned by your racist bigoted attacks and I will not stand for it and neither will the Tennessee Democratic Party.

Does he mean it? Here's hoping!

CHiPS

Wow – $1,000 in just over four hours?

Almost $2,000 in eight?

The progressive blogosphere has more power (and credit cards) than I thought. A big congratulations to R. Neal at KnoxViews.com for pulling this together! He’s the brains behind the big “Chip In” effort that all the local lefty blogs are getting in on.

It’s all to show support for new Tennessee Democratic Party chair Chip Forrester. Okay, it’s mostly for that, but also a little bit about getting his attention. Bloggers are chopping at the bit around here. Chipster needs to harness that enthusiasm.

We’re ready to cheer on the TNDP if the TNDP is ready to do something worth cheering about. So how ‘bout it, Chip? Let’s start kicking some ass!

This is the first time I’ve ever donated directly to the state party. Chip, you can thank R. Neal for that.