It was a tough loss, 10,000 votes. Bill Halter might have even upset Blanche Lincoln in the primary run-off had his stronghold of Garland County not dropped the number of polling places from 42 to 2, or had a few thousand more of us called to get Halter voters to the polls. But despite an unnamed Obama administration official attacking attempts to defeat Lincoln by telling Politico’s Ben Smith “Organized labor just flushed $10 million of their members’ money down the toilet on a pointless exercise,” I believe the groups who tried to unseat her made the right choice.
Tag: Bill Halter
Jun 09 2010
Election Results: Arkansas is Hopeless, Nevada Boots its Gov, eMeg wins her bid
I’m listening to the Primary election results on television and watching on the internet. Here are the current leads or projected winners for some of the races nationwide. The polls closed in CA an hour ago. HuffPo also has a header banner up with this http://www.huffingtonpost.com/
First, the biggest suck disappointment of the evening- Democrat Senate Plantation Blanche over Bill Halter in Arkansas , 52 to 48%.
Blanche Lincoln (D, “there isn’t going to be a public option” Walmart, Koch Oil, Arkansas)
Bill Halter
There’s been a lawsuit filed over the closing of polling places, but Halter has conceded.
May 06 2010
New SEIU Ad rebuts Obama on Blanche Lincoln
The SEIU is going up with an ad on black radio in Arkansas that directly contradicts President Obama’s claims about Blanche Lincoln on health care and Wall Street reform.
snip
The script features a number of ordinary Arkansans in succession:
“I’m a strong supporter of President Obama.”
“But I’m voting for Bill Halter for Senate.”
“I love President Obama. But I can’t vote for Blanche Lincoln again.”
“She voted to bail out Wall Street.”
“Senator Lincoln says she supported health reform.”
“But we all know she refused to take on the big insurance companies.”
And so on. The spot directly contradicts Obama’s recent claims that Lincoln is “leading the fight to hold Wall Street accountable” and that she “took on big insurance companies by voting to end discrimination against Arkansans with preexisting conditions.” As Chris Good notes, SEIU is one of Obama’s most powerful backers, and now the union’s support for Halter has them on opposite sides.
It is good to see labor standing up to this.
Yesterday, Presdient Obama entered into the primary with a radio ad claiming Lincoln was a “populist” friend of the worker! Lincoln voted to end the estate tax and for all of Bush’s tax cuts for the rich. She helped kill the EFCA and the public option. Some populist.
The odious radio ad itself:
Help Halter: Bill Halter on Act Blue