READY TO RUMBLE: U.S. Rep. Steve Cohen, left, and challengers Nikki Tinker, center, and Joe Towns Jr., facing right, meet and greet after Sunday’s debate. The three are running in the Ninth District Democratic primary on the Aug. 7 ballot. -- PHOTO BY BILL DRIES

They agreed on a number of things: Gas prices are too high, mortgages are too risky and the war in Iraq should end.

What likely is to be the only debate among the top three contenders in the 9th Congressional District Democratic primary was more of a demonstration of different campaign strategies than differences on how to vote in Congress. It also offered a glimpse below the surface of the hotly contested primary.

Sunday’s televised debate on WREG-TV Channel 3 featured incumbent U.S. Rep. Steve Cohen, attorney Nikki Tinker and state Rep. Joe Towns Jr.

Personal challenges

Each challenged the portrait of themselves that the other two are trying to paint for voters.

Cohen challenged Tinker’s claim she has worked as a “civil rights attorney.” She is a corporate counsel on labor relations for Pinnacle Airlines. As she explained that her corporate work hasn’t spanned her entire career, Cohen pressed her on the point, producing the only sparks of the evening.

“My heart is pure. I didn’t wake up in corporate America,” she told Cohen.

Tinker questioned whether Cohen was profiting from high gas prices through his investment portfolio, and she questioned Towns for running in the primary as he also is seeking re-election to the state House of Representatives.

Towns charged that Cohen and Tinker each were too tied to “special interests.” He also questioned Tinker’s television ads in which she talks of running to protect senior citizens waiting on their porch for their monthly Social Security checks.

“Seniors have automatic (direct) deposit. … Seniors are not helpless people waiting on their porches for checks. That’s a great distortion,” Towns said.

After the debate, Tinker and Cohen didn’t exchange small talk after shaking hands on the platform.

Cohen and Towns, who both are veterans of the Shelby County legislative delegation, did talk later. Cohen immediately brought up Towns’ attack on his record as a state senator.

“I started to say that you were there for 12 of those years,” Cohen said with a laugh as Towns also chuckled.

“You’re the congressman. I’ve got to take the meat off you,” Towns said as the two parted amiably.

Don’t forget the Fords

A Democrat has represented the 9th Congressional District since Harold Ford Sr. upset Republican incumbent Dan Kuykendall in 1974. No one is running in the Republican primary this year. The winner of the Democratic primary will face independent candidate Jake Ford in the November general election.

Ford, the brother of former U.S. Rep. Harold Ford Jr., also ran as an independent in the anti-climactic general election two years ago, coming in second with 22 percent of the vote.

Jake Ford had the backing of his father two years ago. His brother, while not openly supportive, displayed a sufficient amount of hostility to Cohen to leave little doubt the Ford family wasn’t in the Cohen camp.

That branch of the Ford family wasn’t in the Cohen camp. Joe Ford Jr., son of Shelby County Board of Commissioners member Joe Ford Sr., was among the candidates in the Democratic primary and finished third with 12 percent of the primary vote. He later backed Cohen over his cousin in the general election.

Some of the hostility from the two Harold Fords was the result of Cohen’s bid for the congressional seat 10 years earlier. With the younger Ford vying for the seat his father was giving up, Cohen mounted a vocal and caustic primary challenge to the continuation of the Ford brand. Tinker was among the Ford campaign partisans in the spirited 1996 campaign that Ford Jr. won.

Cohen also was seeking re-election to the state Senate. To make his political future more interesting, the Fords backed Tommie Edwards, Cohen’s challenger in the state Senate Democratic primary, which Cohen won.

He quickly closed ranks after the primary and supported the younger Ford in a much easier congressional general election campaign against Republican nominee Rod Deberry. Ford Sr. and Jr. didn’t close ranks as readily.

Race relations

Cohen admitted in Sunday’s debate to being upset that election night when Edwards got 68 percent of the black vote in his district. He expressed it election night by beginning a comment on the vote count by saying, “After all I’ve done for you people.”

Towns brought up the statement again this weekend.

Cohen said at the time he was tired and again apologized just as he did 12 years ago.

“What I said was that in this city that a white person could not get a majority of the African-American vote,” Cohen said Sunday.

“I’ve been proved wrong, which has been great,” Cohen added, citing his congressional vote totals in black precincts.

Asked directly about the assertion by some voters that the majority black congressional district could only be adequately represented by a black person, Tinker said her appeal to voters was not based on race.

“I think what the voters are asking for here is diversity. … They are saying that there are nine seats in the state of Tennessee and this is the only one where African-Americans have even enough courage to stand up and run,” Tinker said. “I think they’re saying with those nine seats, can we just have one.”