Tag: arkansas

#rsrh Democrats no longer pretending to respect their own primary process.

This is a pretty naked allegation:

Regardless of Tuesday’s outcome [in Arkansas], the National Democratic Party seem determined to make sure that embarrassments in Louisiana, Arkansas, Oklahoma and West Virginia do not materialize as any dissenting delegate votes when the presidential roll is called in Charlotte, N.C. in September.

The short version in this case is that Democrat John Wolfe is poised to do well enough in next week’s Arkansas primary to theoretically get delegates.  The thing is, he won’t – the Democratic party has already announced that he’s ineligible to get any, because he’s not Barack Obama.  Oh, I’m sure that there’s an ostensible excuse being offered, but why pretend that it matters?  It doesn’t for the Democrats, after all. Continue reading #rsrh Democrats no longer pretending to respect their own primary process.

Mike Ross (D, AR-04) cuts and runs.

Mike Ross is something like the fourth Blue Dog to have decided to throw in his or her cards this election cycle*; apparently, actually being opposed in an election for a change didn’t appeal to the man.  AR-04 went strongly for McCain in 2008 (56%), and redistricting will apparently improve the percentages slightly, so it’s probably not too surprising that Ross decided that he wasn’t really up for another bruising reelection fight.

And by ‘bruising’ I mean ‘contested.’ Continue reading Mike Ross (D, AR-04) cuts and runs.

DOOM approaches in Arkansas.

The latest Rasmussen totals for AR-SEN are brutal for the incumbent (65/27 Boozman/Lincoln), and the RCP average isn’t much better.  Which is not precisely news, but it does lead to a couple of observations:

  • First, given this kind of lopsided Republican dominance of the Senate race, is it legitimate to say that either the Democratic incumbent in AR-04 (GOP candidate Beth Anne Rankin), or the Democrats trying to retain AR-01 (GOP candidate Rick Crawford) and AR-02 (GOP candidate Tim Griffin) have any kind of advantage in the general election?  There is a very real possibility that Arkansas is about to flip from 3-1 DEM/GOP to 4-0 GOP/DEM; which is something that hasn’t happened since (I think) the tag-end of Reconstruction.
  • Second, did you know that the state legislature of Arkansas is dominated by the Democratic party, in both houses?  That might not be all that true after November.
  • Third, it’s currently conventional wisdom that incumbent Democratic governor Mike Beebe (GOP candidate Jim Keet)  is too popular to be shifted.  Maybe so.  Then again, maybe not: at least some of the people showing up to flip the Senate seat and the House ones are not going to be inclined to make an exception for any Democrat.

All in all: while I agree that the Left sent the Democratic party a pretty powerful message in the Arkansas Senate primary, I’m not sure that the text of that message was the one that the Left wanted to send…

Moe Lane

SEIU to GOP: please target the following races…

…because they’re going to be written off:

  • Larry Kissell (NC-08)
  • Mike McMahon (NY-13)
  • Michael Arcuri (NY-24)
  • Zach Space (OH-18)

At least, that’s my impression from this petulant whine from the SEIU about the way that they were forced to spend ten million dollars to lose the Lincoln/Halter race, and how they’re not going to support the Senator anyway, so there.  She can just go down in defeat, the mean woman anti-union Democrat. Continue reading SEIU to GOP: please target the following races…

DOOM for Sen. Blanche Lincoln (D, AR)? #rsrh

Maybe, maybe not – but when Tom Jensen feels the need to start his preview of the Senate race in Arkansas with the sentence “[w]e are going to have Blanche Lincoln-John Boozman numbers tomorrow* and they aren’t pretty for Lincoln” you can be reasonably certain that they won’t be giving out free kittens and ice cream at the Arkansas Democrat party HQ in celebration of the news.  The general impression that I’m getting, in fact, is that when it comes to November the difference between Lincoln and other potential Democratic alternatives is going to be mostly in seeing how far the rubble bounces…

Moe Lane

*This was written yesterday, so expect the news sometimes Tuesday morning.

Marion Berry (D, AR-01) cuts and runs.

Somebody call up Stu Rothenberg and Charlie Cook (ooh, Charlie had this one as Likely Democratic): they need to adjust their Democratic DOOMWatch lists again.

Arkansas Rep. Marion Berry to retire

Arkansas Rep. Marion Berry is expected to announce his retirement tomorrow morning, according to three sources briefed on the decision.

Berry will become the sixth Democrat in a competitive seat to leave in the last two months but the first to announce his retirement since the party’s special election loss in Massachusetts last Tuesday.

Speculation was rampant after his comments a couple of days ago; note that politicians routinely deny that they’re going to retire until they actually do.  Presumably, there’s always the hope of a convenient asteroid strike or something as a game-changer.  It’s a shame, in its way: we were all going to really enjoy watching Berry lose that race. As the video at the link shows, the man was seriously off of his game.  When you can’t even remember your own farm subsidy shenanigans…

Moe Lane

PS: It looks more or less like Rick Crawford for AR-01, on the GOP side.  Check him out.

Crossposted to RedState.

Vic Snyder (D, AR-02) breaks and runs.

The usual ‘more time with his family‘ bit, and nothing about a 17 point deficit in the polls. Then again, that’s not too surprising – although it’d be great if just once one of these guys said “I’m not going to throw away ten months of my life on an election that I’m just going to lose anyway?”  Admittedly, if Snyder had the nerve to do that he might not have fled the upcoming race.

Moving along, Charlie Cook had this at Democratic Toss-Up, and emphasis on ‘had.’ If I had to guess, I’d expect at least ‘Leans Republican’ by the next update.  The three Republicans that I know of so far for this race are Tim Griffin, Scott Wallace, and David Meeks.  Check them out.

Moe Lane

Crossposted to RedState.

Clinton won’t help Olbermann muck about in AR primaries.

(Via Hot Air Headlines) I don’t know if Mediaite deliberately omitted the reason for former President Bill Clinton’s refusal to attend a Keith Olbermann-boosted ‘free clinic event.’  It’s entirely possible that the actual reason (warning: FDL link) – that Clinton thinks that the event in question is a thinly-veiled primary campaign event against Senator Blanche Lincoln (D, AR) and for Democratic Senate hopeful Bill Halter – was simply uninteresting to Mediaite, which is of course that site’s privilege.

That being said, this kind of allegation is newsworthy.  A former President accusing a more-or-less prominent Leftist television commentator of playing internal Democratic party politics with people’s health care coverage?  This should have been front and center on the site.  Heck, it should be above the fold on the New York Times.

‘Should,’ not ‘will.’

Moe Lane

PS: Does MSNBC… approve of this?

Crossposted to RedState.

PPP – Vic Snyder (D, AR-02) tied with generic Republican.

Democratic pollster Tom Jensen earned a bit of polling goodwill by calling the NJ and VA gubernatorial elections accurately (and forthrightly admitting that PPP messed up NY-23, and why), so when he says that AR-02 is a trouble spot for the Democrats, people should probably pay attention to that.

Snyder’s approval rating is now 42%, with 46% of voters in the district disapproving of him. He’s at a solid 75% in his own party but with independents the spread is 30/56 and with Republicans it’s just 12/75.

[snip]

In possible 2010 match ups Snyder leads Tim Griffin 44-43, Scott Wallace 44-42, and David Meeks 45-42. Those close margins come despite the fact that none of the Republican candidates are well known- 67% of voters have no opinion about Griffin, 75% say the same of Wallace, and 78% are ambivalent toward Meeks.

That’s all within margin of error, and it’s not good news for Snyder.  Then again, he’s an incumbent Democrat who voted against his district’s wishes with regard to health care rationing: that’s not a good thing to be, these days.

Moe Lane

PS: Below are the Republicans mentioned above who are running in the AR-02 primary.

Tim Griffin
Scott Wallace
David Meeks

Crossposted to RedState.