WES PRUDEN: NOW THAT ARLEN SPECTER IS ON HIS WAY TO OBLIVIA WHO WILL DRIVE MS BLANCHE THERE?
LITTLE ROCK, Ark.
With Arlen Specter now retired to the Republic of Oblivia, the land of humiliated incumbents, attention focuses on Blanche Lincoln, who must enjoy attention while she can. She, too, seems en route to the province of the memorably forgotten.
She was forced into a June 8 runoff, and if she survives that she will become the No. 1 target of the Republicans in November, when she will be the most vulnerable of all Democratic incumbents. Ms. Lincoln – or “Miss Blank,” as critics here call her for her lack of strong convictions – is holding on, barely, against Lt. Gov. Bill Halter, a flyweight creature of his own ambition, George Soros’ money, and the national labor unions. Mr. Halter was propelled into contention by an unlikely ephemeral coalition of good ol’ boys, eager to vote for anybody but Miss Blank, and down-home liberals armed with Yankee money.
From the outside, it’s difficult to find much to separate the two candidates. The difference is only a matter of degree. The national unions see in Mr. Halter a vote for their “card-check” legislation that would eliminate the secret ballot in elections to determine whether workers want to be represented by a union. Mzz Lincoln was for card-check before she was against it, and Mr. Halter is believed to be for it but won’t say exactly, though nobody here believes that George Soros, MoveOn.org and the unions are taking Mr. Halter’s eventual support on faith.
Mzz Lincoln goes into the runoff campaign with a lot of money on hand, much of it from business groups, including the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. The National Turkey Federation likes her; so does Bill Clinton, who promises to campaign for her over the next three weeks.
The first snap polls, often unreliable, reveal Mr. Halter a slight favorite. The arithmetic of runoffs makes it difficult for an incumbent to get the majority he or she couldn’t get in the first round. Since a majority of voters were against the senator in the first-round “preferential primary,” it’s logically difficult to see what could change their minds the second time around. But Gothic politics often makes no sense, and the sound and fury of the next three weeks may signify not very much. U.S. Rep. John Boozman, who swamped several opponents to win the Republican primary, is regarded as the overwhelming favorite against either Mzz Lincoln or, in particular, Mr. Halter. He’s much too liberal for Arkansas, and if he wins the runoff he’ll only be set up for a mercy killing in November.
Arkansas regularly votes for Republican presidential candidates; for down-ballot offices, not so much. Barack Obama was clobbered by John McCain in 2008 and his share of the vote was the smallest of any in what the president famously called “the 57 states.” The Arkansas voter is the king of the ticket-splitters, most dramatically illustrated in 1968 when Arkansas re-elected J. William Fulbright, who led opposition to the Vietnam War, to the U.S. Senate and the liberal Winthrop Rockefeller as governor, and voted for George Wallace for president. Nevertheless, Arkansas has resolutely resisted going all the way in the way of the rest of the South. Both senators are Democrats, as are three of the four members of the U.S. House of Representatives. Democrats hold overwhelming majorities in the state legislature, and in the rural counties, and some of the not so rural, the Democratic primary is regarded as “the real election.” This could be the year that changes. In addition to the prospect of taking Blanche Lincoln’s seat, Republicans have an authentic chance to win three of the four House races.
Both Mzz Lincoln and Mr. Halter, with remarkable chutzpah, are trying to use their outsider money to turn the race into a familiar rail against those same “outsiders.” Said the senator on the morning after: “I am grateful for the Arkansas voters who recognized that this campaign is not about the outside groups trying to exert influence here. This race is about Arkansas.” Mr. Halter sounds a similar theme, and both candidates are trying now to strike upright and noble poses, taking down television commercials decried as “mean” and “negative.” The Lincoln campaign spiked its commercial calling Mr. Halter “Dollar Bill Halter” (“He’ll do anything to make a buck”), and a Halter commercial called the senator “Bailout Blanche” for her support of President Obama’s rescue of Wall Street. This was what passes for wit in the campaign, and after reloading, the mean and negative campaigning will resume next week.
• Wesley Pruden is editor emeritus of The Washington Times
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