We need your help to Draft Bill Halter to challenge Blanche Lincoln in the Democratic primary in Arkansas!
This diary includes the information you need to know about Lt. Governor Bill Halter: how and why you should support the Draft Bill Halter movement.
With the events of the day, this is the best time to act! MinistryOfTruth has a great diary up about this. President Obama has told Blanche Lincoln why her obstruction is wrong and we should take initiative to solve the problem!
Draft Bill Halter!
How you can help:
- Sign up at DraftHalter.com:
This will show that we not only support the idea of a primary, but that we are actually willing to put some skin in the game ourselves. You can pledge to donate time or money.
- Join the Draft Bill Halter group on Facebook:
This will allow us to grow our numbers to show support for Bill Halter and a primary challenge to Blanche Lincoln. This is extremely important since Bill Halter needs to see that we have his back to risk the backlash from the establishment Democrats in the state. We are updating this group constantly with new information on the Draft Bill Halter movement. We hit 600 members last night, including 100 new members in the last week alone.
- Contact Bill Halter's campaign directly:
Let him and his staff know you want him to run and you are willing to do what you can to support him. His office phone number is 501-372-6446. You can also contact Bill Halter's office directly.
- Tell your fiends to join the Draft Bill Halter movement too!
Send out an email linking to the Facebook group and/or the DraftHalter.com page. Create a status update on Facebook linking to the group's homepage. Call friends or family and ask them to join, especially if they live in Arkansas.
Please act quickly because the deadline for filing is rapidly approaching (beginning of March). Lt. Governor Bill Halter needs to see we will be there for him so that he can be there for us.
Why you should help Draft Bill Halter::
- He is a strong leader showing that a Lt. Governor is a job that can be used to get things done, including passing a constitutional amendment essentially providing free tuition to any Arkansan student. He is the Southern Region Chair of the National Lieutenant Governors Association (NLGA).
- Tell me more about free college tuition for all thing:
Any legal resident of Arkansas with a 2.5 High School GPA (between a B and C average) or who scores a 19 on the ACT will get a full scholarship to a 4 year University or 2 year College (public or private). Returning students also qualify. An adult also qualifies for the scholarship if they attended an Arkansas High School and got a GPA of at least 2.5 or they can get a 19 or above on the ACT. Adults also qualify if they have attended a college or university for 12 credit hours and got a GPA of 2.5 or higher. This is an amazingly progressive policy as it essentially allows any Arkansan to attend college with no tuition costs given they meet relatively low merit benchmarks. Compare this to other states like Florida, where a full scholarship requires a 3.5 GPA and a 1270 SAT score among a slew of other requirements (and that was in 2000 when I was entering college). Florida fell victim to a Republican state legislature which creatively financed other programs using the lottery funds, decreasing the amount available for scholarships and increasing the requirements for qualification to receive a scholarship.
The Arkansas scholarships are funded through a state lottery which has already been made law. Scholarships will begin in Fall 2010. Almost 2/3 of the population voted to pass the constitutional amendment adding the state lottery. The state legislature made sure (with Bill Halter's constant pushing) to limit the money to only be used for these scholarships and the cost of running the lottery itself. By law, money currently allocated for other scholarships could not be decreased. This was in the language to prevent the creative financing other states have fallen victim to where the lottery money ends up actually decreasing the funds in other areas not tied to the lottery. When the legislature added the law, it won unanimous support. For more on the lottery and the scholarships, visit Hope for Arkansas.
- Some Accomplishments:
He attended Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar. Bill Halter brings extensive experience in both the public and private sectors to his office. He has served as an economic adviser to the President of the United States and to the U.S. Senate, led the Social Security Administration, advised Fortune 500 companies, and served on the Boards of Directors of information technology and life sciences companies.
Bill Halter first joined the Clinton administration in 1993, working to help trim bureaucratic waste with the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) in the Executive Office of the President. During his six years at OMB, the government’s $290 billion budget deficit was transformed into a $125 billion surplus. The United States enjoyed its first balanced budget in 40 years.
- Lt. Governor Bill Halter helped organize the Free Health Clinics held in Little Rock, Arkansas. These are the same clinics Keith Olbermann advocated for on Countdown. He also volunteered his time to register patients on the day of the event.
Firedoglake interviewed Bill Halter at the Free Clinic in Little Rock in November. If you want to get to see him answer a few questions about Arkansas, the tragedy of the state of health care in the country, fair trade, and saving elderly women from house fires, watch the video below.
Bill Halter interview with Firedoglake (the video is a little shaky only at the beginning):
Afterward, he went on Countdown to talk about the Free Clinics:
- Sounds like a great progressive, but can he win in Arkansas in a general election?
Simple answer: Yes
Arkansas voters elected Bill Halter to a four-year term as Lieutenant Governor on November 7, 2006, with 57 percent of the vote.
- Blanche Lincoln's favorability ratings show her well below 50% (27% in a PPP poll) and often losing to most Republicans with little chance for improvement. Bill Halter does nearly as well as Lincoln with huge room for improvement in name recognition and favorability numbers.
AR-Sen: Primary bound? by Markos
If Halter runs, we'll have a barn burner of a primary, and a real opportunity for progressives to strike back against one of the biggest obstructionists in the Senate, not just on health care, but on practically every issue we care about. And given Lincoln's poor general election numbers (well below the 50 percent danger marker for incumbents), we'd likely have a better chance of holding the seat with Halter, who would be more likely to consolidate Democratic support and get them to the polls, while remaining competitive among incumbent-adverse independents.
Markos also states that the "ball is in Halter's court," but I think the ball is in our court first. Will we support and urge him to run so that he knows we will be there when he decides to? It is up to us.
So again, if you do nothing else, join Draft Bill Halter on facebook. If you don't have a facebook account, go to DraftHalter.com and sign up. You can also stay up to date on the Arkansas Democratic politics at BlueArkansasBlog.com, where I regularly contribute.
UPDATE: From the PPP poll yesterday:
http://bluearkansasblog.com/...
Baker vs Lincoln
Baker 50%
Lincoln 35%
Undecided 15%
(Lincoln -15% and Baker above 50%)
Baker vs Halter
Baker 45%
Halter 34%
Undecided 21%
(Halter -11% and Baker well below 50%)
http://bluearkansasblog.com/...
Do you approve or disapprove of Senator Blanche Lincoln’s job performance?
Approve .......................................................... 27%
Disapprove...................................................... 62%
Not Sure.......................................................... 11%
Do you have a favorable or unfavorable opinion of Bill Halter?
Favorable........................................................ 21%
Unfavorable .................................................... 29%
Not Sure.......................................................... 50%
Halter, with lower name recognition, still beats Lincoln against Baker. Halter has room to grow, while Lincoln is toast.
Update 2:
Here is ARDem's take on the exchange between Lincoln and Obama from BlueArkansasBlog.com:
http://bluearkansasblog.com/...
The President effectively attacked Lincoln’s implication that his agenda was in any way ideological. He defended his agenda, and the Democratic agenda I might add, as being right for America, and he essentially told Lincoln to act like a Democrat and open her eyes to see that he was trying to do what’s right for the whole country, including Arkansas. (Not that Senator Lincoln really cares about Arkansas of course.) And notice, he specifically rubbed her nose in health care, the issue she’s been a particular thorn in all our sides on.
Blanche bit off more than she could chew with this one. I don’t know why she went in their with this fake "question"-this long winded, almost babbling, assertion that the President’s agenda is too far to the left and that he needs to move right while giving her ammunition to fire back at her critics. I guess ultimately all she really proved is what we already know, that she has a real political tin ear. And you know, as I watched Obama getting ready to respond to her I had to think that he was putting together the right words to tell her what he’s probably wanted to say to her for half a year now in the nicest way possible. And then he just let her have it, in his typical nice, even handed, charming way.
Oh, and by the way, your’s truly is quite happy to be counted as an extremist element by Blanche Lincoln, and I will continue to work and fight for such radical causes as universal health care, workers’ rights, civil and human rights, protecting the environment, having a sensible foreign policy, and making sure that our economy works for everyone. You know, all those Marxist notions...
From the comments:
Bill Halter stomped my ass in debate in HS
He had a wickedly logical mind and a disarming sense of humor. Never could get anything over those Catholic High boys.
If I had stayed in Arkansas, he would have had my vote. As it is, he's got my money and my support. Go Bill!
"Respect for the rights of others is peace." Benito Juarez
by Blue Boy Red State on Wed Feb 03, 2010 at 09:57:10 PM CST