The National Republican Congressional Committee reportedly did some robocalls targeting Jim Cooper in TN-05 over the holiday week, although it's worth ask if their aim was actually to damage his re-election prospects -- or to help them:

"Jim Cooper has been in Congress for over seven years, and has lost touch with what Tennessee workers are going through," a woman says in the robocall, provided to us by a reader. "Unemployment in Tennessee is 10.3%, but Jim Cooper spent 2009 helping liberal Speaker Nancy Pelosi pass a massive government takeover of health care that will increase costs and could lower choices."

Tennessee a red state that offers the GOP some solid pick-up opportunities in 2010, such as the retirements of Democratic Reps. John Tanner and Bart Gordon, in districts that were carried by John McCain. However, Cooper's district is one of two solidly Democratic districts in the state. It voted for Barack Obama by 56%-43%, and for John Kerry by 52%-47% before that.

In an August 2009 poll, 61% of TN-05 voters, including 64% of Independents responded that they were in favor of a public health insurance option, representing strong support across party lines for real reform. The NRCC has either badly miscalculated how their generic anti-health care reform message will be received in TN-05, or else they are targeting the district in an attempt to show themselves expanding their 2010 playing field (an effort which will be impossible in any swing district, much less the solidly blue TN-05, at their current fundraising pace). Or, there's a third option which does not exclude the second -- that national Republicans are fully aware of the makeup of the district and how such calls would be received, and that they don't really mind having Jim Cooper around.