Arkansas Senate: 2010 Election BREAKING News

From AP/Huffy Post Arkansas Sen. Blanche Lincoln failed to win the majority of votes in the Democratic primary Tuesday and now faces a three-week fight with Lt. Gov. Bill Halter for her party's nomination. Already one of the most vulnerable incumbents seeking re-election this year, Lincoln will run against Halter alone in a June 8 runoff. A third candidate, Little Rock businessman D.C. Morrison, drew enough votes Tuesday to force the extra campaign but will not progress. Lincoln had said she would be ecstatic with either a runoff or a clear-cut victory, but Halter has said forcing overtime would be close to a win. With just over half the state's 2,516 precincts reporting, Lincoln had received 44 percent of the vote to 42 percent for Halter. Lincoln, 49, portrayed herself as a centrist in her re-election fight. But she faced anger from both the left and right, particularly over the health care debate. When Halter joined the race in March, he was embraced by groups on the left that had grown frustrated with Lincoln's positions on issues such as health care and trade. Outside groups on both sides, including the AFL-CIO and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, have pumped millions of dollars into the race. The candidates themselves swapped attacks on a daily basis. Organizations on the left criticized Lincoln for opposing efforts to create a new government-run

insurance program as an option in the health overhaul. Republicans criticized her for voting to support the Senate health care bill that was signed into law. Lincoln, however, voted against a companion bill that was also approved through a simple majority vote in the Senate. The chairman of the Senate Agriculture Committee, Lincoln had taken steps over the past year to distance herself from the Obama administration and national Democrats on key issues. In her first television ad touting her re-election bid, Lincoln had proclaimed that she answers to Arkansas, not her party. But facing the challenge from Halter, Lincoln embraced national Democrats and ran radio ads featuring President Barack Obama endorsing her bid. She also had the backing of former President Bill Clinton, who remains popular in his home state. Halter, a one-term lieutenant governor, is a former Clinton administration official, having served as a deputy commissioner and acting commissioner of the federal Social Security Administration. He was elected lieutenant governor in 2006 after briefly considering a run for governor against Mike B... more

I don’t answer to my party,’ Democratic senator brags in ad

By Sahil Kapur

Lincoln touts opposition to public option, day after liberals raise million for primary foe

A conservative Democratic senator may have angered more than just the progressive base with her new ad. She could be drawing ire from her party's entire establishment after ripping its legislative priorities.

Facing challengers from the left and the right in her re-election bid this year, Sen. Blanche Lincoln (D-AR) boasts in the spot about her refusal to support the public health insurance option and climate change legislation.

Portraying Congress as a group of children fighting and blithely tossing around money, she says, "This is why I voted against giving more money to Wall Street, against the auto company bailout, against the public option health care plan, and against the cap and trade bill that would have raised energy costs on Arkansans."

Lincoln was one of a handful of Senate Democrats whose refusal to back the public option -- which progressives strongly champion and polls show a majority of Americans support -- ended up scuttling the provision soon before the bill's passage in December

The House of Representatives passed cap and trade legislation last summer, but the Senate has not yet taken it up, partly due to the opposition of conservative-leaning Democrats like Lincoln.

"Some in my party didn't like it very much, but I approve this message because I don't answer to my party," she said in the ad. "I answer to Arkansas."

The Senator's spokeswoman Katie Laning Niebaum told the Huffington Post's Sam Stein that the "ad will air from March 5-12 in all Arkansas media markets" and called it "a substantial buy."

The Republican Party's recent surge in the polls has Democrats worried as pundits speculate that the minority party could make significant gains, possibly even regain the majority in one or both chambers. A senator from conservative-leaning Arkansas, Lincoln is a prime GOP target and among the most vulnerable incumbents defending her seat.

FoxNews.com reported last month that the two-term senator could be facing one of nine potential Republican contenders in the general election. John Boozman currently leads the pack and holds a 9 point lead against Lincoln, according to a Rasmussen survey released this week.

If the ad is any reflection, Lincoln appears more concerned about a general election battle against a Republican than being ousted in the primaries by newly-declared Democratic contender Bill Halter, a progressive.

Currently the lieutenant governor of Arkansas, Halter jumped in the race on Monday with a big splash as a slew of liberal advocacy groups immediately rallied around him. Although Lincoln holds a comfortable lead of 42-26 points over him according to a December DailyKos/Research 2000 poll, Halter's notable fundraising success suggests he might put a serious fight.

Less than a day after his announcement, a coalition including MoveOn.org and the Progressive Change Campaign managed to raise over half a million dollars for Halter's primary campaign against Lincoln, claimed DailyKos's Markos Moulitsas, who is helping organize the effort. The number reportedly jumped to over $1 million within two days.

The White House reaffirmed its support for Lincoln in the Democratic primaries on Thursday, despite her opposition to several of its policies. "The president supports Senator Lincoln," spokesman Robert Gibbs told Sam Stein in response to a question. "He believes that Senator Lincoln is serving her state well and believes she should be returned for an additional term."

Gibbs added that Obama "understands even as he's the head of the Democratic Party that not every Democrat is going to agree with him on every issue, and he's not going to agree with every other Democrat on their views on every issue."

The video is Lincoln's ad, uploaded to YouTube. Quick fact check comment: Blanche Lincoln actually answers to the health insurance industry, Wal-Mart and the other various corporate interest that sends money to her bank account.

Exclusive: Halter Takes On Lincoln, Offers Support For Public Plan

By Sam Stein

Arkansas Democratic Senate candidate Bill Halter cast himself as a populist anti-Washington crusader on Tuesday, drawing several distinctions with his opponent, Sen. Blanche Lincoln, and downplaying the White House's endorsement of the incumbent Democrat.

In a wide-ranging interview with the Huffington Post, Halter pledged to run a "positive race with a positive agenda" in his effort to unseat Lincoln -- the conservative Arkansas Democrat, whose stonewalling of the Democratic agenda has rankled many in the party. But he wasn't averse to taking on his primary opponent, pointing out several areas where there are "differences in perspective."

On health care -- the most contentious issue of the day and the most divisive one when it comes to Lincoln's standing in the Democratic Party -- Halter struck a decidedly more progressive pose than Lincoln. He would not say whether he would support the final bill, noting that the legislative language was changing by the day. But he did offer his backing for a public option for insurance coverage -- a popular policy proposal that Lincoln has steadfastly refused to support.

"I do think that we need greater competition," Halter said. "I do believe that we ought to offer an option to the public. They get hung up on the words 'public option' and there's been a real messaging problem there. People don't know what that really means, so let me try to use an alternative formulation to tell you what I think people would respond to, and that is give the public the option, on a voluntary basis, to buy into a program like Medicare."

The lieutenant governor and former Clinton administration official also noted that, unlike Lincoln, he does not support a repeal of the estate tax, which he said adversely benefits the state's wealthiest individuals in "direct juxtaposition with providing help to middle class families for their students to be able to go to college."

Finally, Halter took Lincoln to task for her support of a bank bailout, saying that the bill was poorly constructed and lacked sufficient oversight provisions.

"I would not have voted for a bailout bill that didn't include tighter restrictions and more checks and more oversight on the expenditure of that money," he said, citing the ineffectiveness of TARP managers to get some of the money to small businesses.

The majority of Halter's barbs, however, were addressed to Washington D.C. as a whole rather than Lincoln in particular. Lamenting the grip that special interest groups have on the legislative process, he cited Sen. Jim Bunning's (R-Ky.) decision to hold up unemployment benefits and the failure to pass a piecemeal jobs bill as two recent examples of egregious inaction.

"I would submit to you that one of the reasons why [my candidacy has been well-received] is that we've got a political dynamic in Washington now where things have become so partisan and so highly charged that even the basic things you can't get done," Halter said.

So far, the reception for Halter has indeed been overwhelming. Nearly $4 million was pledged to his campaign within an hour after he officially launched his candidacy. But the majority of donations, he said, were of the small, individual variety.

"We have now had more than 20,000 people who have contributed to the campaign and... it looks like the average contribution is $23," he said.

In many ways, his campaign against Lincoln has become a proxy battle for a more glaring division erupting within the Democratic Party, where the progressive community has been driven mad over the ability of centrist caucus members to hold up jobs and health care legislation. Lincoln has long been considered a personification of that centrist obstinacy. And, not surprisingly, when Halter announced his primary campaign bid, a host of frustrated groups, from the AFL-CIO to MoveOn.org, quickly moved behind him.

Asked whether he was comfortable playing the symbolic role of centrist-killer, let alone garnering the attention and aid of outside-Arkansas organizations, Halter didn't skip a beat. "I welcome support from people from all parts of the political spectrum," he said.

And what about the Obama White House, which, on Monday, offered its endorsement for Lincoln's reelection?

They don't have a vote, Halter replied.

"I think their statement was that their policy is to be supportive of incumbent senators," he replied. "And I think that's actually what Robert Gibbs said at the podium. And look, the fact is that I'm seeking the votes of Arkansans, okay? It's Arkansans who are going to vote for their next United States Senator... I'm more concerned about getting votes in Arkansas than I am in which special interest is opposing our campaign or who's lining up for whom." Watch Halter's New Campaign Ad: