There is a stereotype the media loves to push. The average tea party member is an obnoxious middle-age white male while the people the liberal media loves are female, people of color are generally wonderful.
Can you imagine what the media would do with an obnoxious middle-age white guy in Congress who had a charismatic black female running against him? The media exposure alone would be worth 10 points and hundreds of thousands of dollars to the challenger.
But something funny happens when the tables are turned.
When the incumbent is not only an obnoxiously middle-age white male, but when he is a liberal Democrat to boot, the media is mostly silent. The silence becomes deafening when the challenger is a black woman who embraces the tea party movement.
This story is being played out right now in Memphis, Tennessee.
Steve Cohen is a four-term Democratic congressman in Tennessee’s 9th Congressional District.
His challenger is Charlotte Bergmann.
Ms. Bergmann is a black woman who openly embraces the tea party. If you believe the left-wing media, she doesn’t exist, if you believe the liberals, you are more likely to see a unicorn than a Charlotte Bergmann.
A mother and a grandmother, she owns her own business but also has seen the downside of life. She lost her job a few years back and was briefly homeless. She fought back.
She worked for the government for a while and when her job was eliminated she used some of the money she received as a severance package to go to Washington and personally lobby for jobs. Her tenacity got the attention of some people in Washington.
Steve Cohen is perhaps most famous for calling Tea Party activists Nazis and texting a young woman during the 2013 State of the Union address.
Mr. Cohen is somewhere to the left of Karl Marx. He also has spent almost his entire adult life eating at the government trough.
Tennessee’s 9th Congressional District has been a Democratic stronghold for 40 years. In 1974, Harold Ford Sr. defeated incumbent Republican Dan Kuykendall. Republicans have never come close to taking that seat since then.
After the 2010 census, the district was redrawn and in theory could be more favorable to a Republican candidate.
Ms. Bergmann is generally considered to be a long shot. But then again, so was Dave Brat in Virginia.
Ms. Bergmann has received support from the local Republican establishment but almost nothing from the national Republican Party.
That is appalling.
Unfortunately, groups like the Republican National Congressional Committee only look at the single issue of how winnable is a district. If they do not believe the district is winnable, the candidate gets no help.
While the party should not waste its money on lost causes, there is a bigger picture that the GOP is missing. Candidates like Charlotte Bergmann are crucial to the future of the Republican Party. The left, along with their willing allies in the news media, love to portray the GOP as nothing but a party of rich old white guys.
Candidates like Charlotte Bergmann destroy that myth.
Steve Cohen is one of the most reprehensible people currently serving in Congress. The GOP should throw some last-minute money into Ms. Bergmann’s campaign, not only to help her but to make Mr. Cohen and the Democrats sweat.
Ms. Bergmann though something of a long shot, is not a lost cause. A GOP investment in her campaign, even at this late date, is money that would be well spent.
It would send a huge message to the nation if not one but two conservative black Republican women were sworn into Congress in January. In Utah, Mia Love is expected to easily win.
It would be great if Charlotte Bergmann won, too.
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