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An anti-Semitic flyer distributed in recent weeks said "Cohen and the Jews HATE Jesus" and that African-Americans in Memphis should unite behind a "black Christian." Picture: Steve Cohen.
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WASHINGTON (AFP)---A Jewish Congressman in a majority black area of Memphis, Tennessee, won the Democratic primary Friday after a racially tinged face-off that saw White House hopeful Barack Obama decry the negative politics involved.
Steve Cohen beat rival Nikki Tinker, an African-American, by a margin of 79 percent to 19 percent in Tennessee's Ninth District.
Cohen is now virtually assured of re-election in November because the Republicans are not fielding their own candidate.
Tinker, a prominent Memphis lawyer, had run campaign ads that implied Cohen was linked to violent white supremacists of the Ku Klux Klan.
She had also suggested the Jewish congressman was against school prayer.
An anti-Semitic flyer distributed in recent weeks said "Cohen and the Jews HATE Jesus" and that African-Americans in Memphis should unite behind a "black Christian."
Obama on Thursday decried the poisonous tone of the race.
"These incendiary and personal attacks have no place in our politics, and will do nothing to help the good people of Tennessee," Obama said in a statement.
"It's time to turn the page on a politics driven by negativity and division so that we can come together to lift up our communities and our country."
