Arkansas News Bureau John Brummett may not be the biggest Bill Halter booster, but he has nothing but contempt for Blanche Lincoln and her already ridiculous campaign.
Halter made a lot of money at one point in his life and served on boards of assorted ventures. One was a software company that opened a 58-employee office in India. So that, Lincoln says in a TV ad, makes Halter an outsourcer of America jobs.
He was on a drug company board whose CEO got convicted of making false claims and a third that paid a class-action settlement in a lawsuit accusing it overstating the effectiveness of its drug to fight lung cancer. Blanche tells us about those in a creepy mailer.
This is the cynical demonization process that is part of a cancer on our politics. It’s not enough to distinguish yourself from your opponent by performance and policy. You must delve into his past and overstate any association that might make him seem more than someone with whom you merely disagree, but someone who is a sinister threat, near-criminal.
Halter was not directly complicit in any of those matters. He is guilty of bumps in the road of business life — of associations with human beings who were less than pristine. None of it bears on his stand on the issues. He does not run for the U.S. Senate to move your job to India and sell you drugs that don’t work.
It’s Blanche, actually, who has a public record that is obliging to multi-national corporations and drug companies. That doesn’t make her a bad person. It makes her a bit of a Republican.
As much as Lincoln might try to smear Halter, the most nefarious corporate interests will soon be riding to her rescue, not his.
I’m hearing that Arkansas corporate interests are talking among themselves about producing independent attack ads on Halter to counter the national labor assault on Lincoln.
Perhaps it's the same rumor, but I'm hearing that that U.S. Chamber of Commerce will soon engage on Lincoln's behalf. It's an easy call for them -- by helping Lincoln, they help the weakest general election Democratic candidate. And if by some miracle she survives both the primary and general election, they'd still have their favorite senator at their beck and call.
You've been angry over the past year at Democratic inaction on climate change, on the death of the public option, on Democrats more beholden to banks and Wall Street than on delivering on their campaign promises.
Lincoln has been instrumental in all of these failings, one of 3-4 Senate Democrats (plus Lieberman) who have worked tirelessly to stymie the progressive agenda from within. And of that lot, she is the only facing reelection this year.
Here's our chance to get rid of her, sending a message to other Democrats that their transgressions will be remembered, and there will be hell to pay.
It's the end of the fundraising quarter, so consider jumping aboard this challenge. I'm hoping for 1,800 total contributors from Daily Kos by the end of day tomorrow. We only need 260 more of you to contribute to reach our goal.
Seriously, this is how we reform the Democratic Party. If Lincoln wins, it'll signal the rest of the party's assholes that they can shit on the party with impunity. If Halter does, those assholes will have to think twice before choosing their lobbyists over their constituents.
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