marion berry – Moe Lane

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.

Quick looks at 2010: AR-01, MO-SEN, & NM-02.

Some points of interest, for various campaigns:

AR-01: Rick Crawford – who is running against Marion Berry, AKA The Guy Who Can’t Remember That He’s Not Supposed to Be Taken Farm Subsidies – has a revamped website. It’s a definite improvement over the old version, and should allow for more and better networking. AR-01 is a R+8 district, and long overdue for a Congressman not as ready to ‘forget’ about his income (both agricultural and residential) as Berry is. Check Rick out.

Continue reading Quick looks at 2010: AR-01, MO-SEN, & NM-02.

Marion Berry (D, AR-01) not up to keeping his story straight.

It’s sad when a sitting US Congressman loses his ability to remember the basic details of the shenanigans he went through to bring in the cash. Via Boot Berry, this classic moment of what we call a Kinsley gaffe:

To those without video: it’s of Berry first confidently denying that he personally gets farm subsidies (in 2007), then (yesterday) momentarily forgetting that he denies personally getting farm subsidies, cheerfully admitting that he personally gets farm subsidies, then visibly stopping and going to himself Wait a second. I’m supposed to pretend that I don’t personally get farm subsidies. It’s the stop-and-wait-and-visible-oops moment that makes this video: by all means, watch it.

And then check out his opponent Rick Crawford. Because if Berry can’t even keep up on this, him returning to private life seems best for all concerned.

Moe Lane

Crossposted to RedState.

Is Rep. Marion Berry (AR-01) hiding income from his constituents?

We have these disclosure rules for a reason, sir.

Rep Marion Berry (AR-01) is playing financial disclosure games again:

Rep. Marion Berry (D-Ark.) appears to have understated by hundreds of thousands of dollars the value of his Capitol Hill rowhouse on his annual financial disclosure forms.

In May, Berry filed a financial disclosure form reporting the value of the house at between $250,000 and $500,000, the same value that he has listed on his disclosure forms each year.

But according to District of Columbia tax records, the current assessed value of the house is $947,080, and the proposed 2010 assessment value is $864,970, reflecting the drop in Capitol Hill property values.

Continue reading Is Rep. Marion Berry (AR-01) hiding income from his constituents?

Meet Rick Crawford (R-Candidate, AR-01).

Starting with the background: AR-01 is one of those districts that is… interesting. It is currently rated as R +8 in the Cook Political Report, but is held by a soi-disant ‘Blue Dog Democrat’: in this case, Marion Berry. Berry has been in that seat since 1997: he won the 2006 election with 69% of the vote; and he was unopposed in 2008.

However, he will not be unopposed this term. Rick Crawford is going to be challenging him; it’s reported that the NRCC is looking at him as part of their planned campaign against selected ‘Blue Dogs’ that did not get challenged in the last election cycle. Rick is a business owner (AG Watch, a radio agricultural network) and military veteran (Army, bomb disposal) with strong roots in the area; he’s pro-life, pro-Tea Party, ready to run on an agricultural platform and is just as exceptionally happy to see the back of Arlen Specter as most of the people reading this, particularly after what Specter did to Kemp’s memory.

The NRCC is taking a challenge to this district seriously, and it’s no surprise why: while Barry has been comfortably winning elections lately – and didn’t have a challenger last cycle – the district itself has shifted on the national level (Gore in ’00, Bush in ’04, McCain in ’08). Plus there’s the entire agricultural subsidy thing, which Berry is notorious for (and, apparently, has set up an arrangement to allow himself to continue to benefit from personally). Then there’s the ongoing neutering of the Blue Dogs in general; as this NRCC radio ad (H/T: ARRA News Service) points out, Barry’s voting for what Pelosi’s proposing.

As noted above, Rick’s website is here, this is his current donation link, and here’s his Facebook page. We will no doubt see more campaign-related items as time goes on.

Moe Lane

Crossposted to RedState.