News and Views on Politics, Policy and More
As it happens, the Joe Biden vs. Sarah Palin vice-presidential smackdown on Thursday is only the SECOND most anticipated debating event of this week: Tonight’s the big Young Democrats vs. Young Republicans debate at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock starting at 7 p.m. (Here’s the site with all the relevant stats.)
Maybe Greenberg will send us a report of what goes down. Definitely let us know if it ends in a rumble.
Josh and Anna Duggar
Josh Duggar, eldest of the gigantic northwest Arkansas Duggar clan (17 kids and counting), was married to Anna Keller in Florida on Friday, Sept. 26. The Florida Times-Union in Jacksonville has a nice write-up, and there are a whole bunch of photos at the couple’s wedding website, but please don’t ask me why they’re wearing matching polo style shirts.
Yes, I know I noted this a few days ago, but it turns out that was one of the highest trafficked posts of the last week, so I figure I’ll give you people more of what you want. And imagine, here I was thinking that what you wanted was more of Dan Greenberg’s thoughts on public education reform.
Next phase in the financial meltdown. The upside: That post-apocalyptic all-leather wardrobe is quite slimming.
Remember two weeks ago when various experts could say that the situation on Wall Street probably wouldn’t have too much effect on Arkansas? That assessment is no longer operative.
The Arkansas News Bureau’s James Jefferson and John Lyon report that the worsening situation could have significant negative impacts on the state economy, including slowing job growth, reduced access to credit, big hits to state retirement funds and a high stakes fight for survival in a “Road Warrior”-style primal desert wasteland. OK, I made that last one up, but you believed it, didn’t you?
Meanwhile, the much bally-hooed financial sector bail-out package flopped yesterday, though all four of Arkansas’ congressional reps voted for passage.
And the Jonesboro Sun rounds up response from a couple of profs who talk about what this might mean for northeast Arkansas.
This actually came out late last week, but Rasmussen has John McCain up nine points in Arkansas over Barack Obama —51-42. An ARG poll last week reported McCain with a 12 point lead in the state. It’s a relative bright spot for the Republican compared to some other numbers from around the nation.
Other interesting numbers in the mix: Arkansans like Sarah Palin better than Joe Biden, and Gov. Mike Beebe is still the prom king.
Things are a little slow on the news front today. But a few things that might be of interest to folks keeping an eye on Arkansas legislative races:
The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette has recently been spooling out spotlight stories on races for legislative seats, but unfortunately you have to be a subscriber to get a look at them.
On Sunday they covered the race between Republican Dave McCoy and Democrat Barbara Nix in District 28 in Saline County, the seat currently held by Democrat Lamont Cornwell. Today the focus shifts to District 29, where Republican Ann Clemmer is facing off against Democrat Scott Smith for the seat currently held by term-limited Democrat Janet Johnson. Memo to the ADG: Get these out from behind the subscriber firewall and make ‘em available to everyone! Call it a public service.
In a Sunday column, Arkansas News Bureau columnist David Sanders takes a look at the hotly contested state Senate race in Conway, where incumbent Republican Gilbert Baker seeks to fend off Democrat Joe White. Sanders says his money is on Baker.
Meanwhile, Max Brantley at the Arkansas Times blog points to a big money fundraiser for White in Little Rock last week, attended by Gov. Mike Beebe, that raised an estimated $20,000.
Steve Harrelson at the Under the Dome blog has been rounding up candidate ads, and a few days ago he pointed to these two in the Baker-White race (he’s got others):
(By the way, all the candidate names above are linked to their campaign websites, if you’re looking for more information on any of the candidates.)
Found a YouTube clip of “Huckabee,” Mike Huckabee’s show that debuted this weekend on FOX News. It’s part of his interview with Elisabeth Hasselbeck:
For part 2 of the Hasselbeck interview, click here. It includes some discussion of GOP VP pick Sarah Palin.
Previously on The Arkansas Project, we considered why FOX was doing so little promotion of “Huckabee.” Then we watched the show, and we realized, “Ooohh, so THAT’s why FOX is doing so little promotion of ‘Huckabee’.”
We’ve touched a couple of times on the Tony Alamo case in southwest Arkansas, where federal officials raided the controversial evangelist/shyster’s compound last weekend as part of a child sex probe and took several children into protective custody. A few days later, Alamo himself was arrested in connection to the probe.
I don’t have any new news on this, but just wanted to point to the unrecognizable recent photo of a balding and bearded Alamo that emerged when he returned to Arkansas this week to face charges.
It’s a far cry from Alamo’s classic dark glasses and high pompadour look of years past, which Bill Clinton memorably characterized as “Roy Orbison on speed.” More photos and classic Alamiana here.
I just finished watching the debut of “Huckabee,” Mike Huckabee’s new show on FOX News, and frankly I have no idea what the hell that was supposed to be.
The show opened with a short Huckabee monologue comprised of a couple of flat jokes followed by a strangely earnest commentary on the situation on Wall Street. (Summary: The problem is “greed.” Damn you, Gordon Gekko!).
The monologue segued into a bizarre Q&A session with the audience, in which audience members asked Huck questions about religion, politics and parenting (“Do you have any advice for a new couple just starting out and about to raise a family?”). This segment was, uh, strange. (Hey, look, there’s Mrs. Huckabee sitting in the audience!)
Because ArkProject commenter High Heels requested more Elisabeth Hasselbeck pix.
Things looked up a bit when the lovely Elisabeth Hasselbeck, co-host of ABC’s “The View,” strolled out as the first guest. But I’ll be honest, I kinda zoned out during this part, as I got lost in Elisabeth’s big brown eyes and started writing “Mrs. Elisabeth Kinkade” all over the cover of my notebook, and sketching out pictures of us holding hands under a rainbow. When I started paying attention again that stupid “Free Credit Report” commercial was playing. God, I hate that commercial.
Then we moved to a panel discussion on the economy and federal bail-outs with personal finance guru Dave Ramsey, former Congresswoman Geraldine Ferraro and some FOX Business chick with great cheekbones whose name I forget. They took two questions from the audience and then kind of gave up on that and went back to talking to each other. This segment was also weird, along with being long and rather lifeless.
When we hit the 45 minute mark, it occurred to me that I wasn’t sure how long this show was supposed to be. One hour? Two? I was praying that the show it was only 60 minutes, because I wasn’t sure I could sit through another hour of this. (Hey, look, there’s Sarah Huckabee sitting in the audience!)
After the final commercial break, we got a special surprise—the “Huckabee” house band! The band was called “The Little Rockers,” and it was comprised of folks from the FOX News crew who all like to play music, with the man himself on bass guitar. I presume this was a cost-cutting measure so they didn’t have to pay for professional musicians.
I have no idea what to say about this show; I’m just stringing together sentences. It wasn’t so much that it was bad as that it was just kind of uncomfortable, from beginning to end, and I felt sorry for everyone involved. Jason Tolbert of The Tolbert Report says he thought it was “fun,” which only reminds me that I never need to party with Jason Tolbert.
And really, I’m only writing this so that you’ll appreciate what I go through on your behalf to come up with content for this ridiculous blog. If you’re the masochistic sort, it will be on again at 10 p.m. on FOX News, and again Sunday evening at 7 p.m. I don’t recommend it.
But I think I’m starting to understand more fully why FOX News was so hesitant to do any promotional support for this show.
In conversations and e-mail exchanges with a few Arkansas Project friends yesterday, we arrived at the consensus that this whole “Huckabee” show deal is weird.
Let’s review: For some months, we had been hearing that former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee was in talks with FOX News to launch his own show. Here’s what Huckabee told Arkansas Democrat-Gazette writer Kane Webb in an interview published August 10:
“I can say it’s gonna be unlike anything else that’s on FOX and maybe on cable.” When asked if it’s a talk show, Huckabee says, “yes and no. Not a talk show like you’ve seen. We’ll have a live studio audience and some very innovative features.” But surely it’ll be about politics, right ?
“Politics will be a part of it, but it certainly won’t be all of it,” Huckabee says. “I mean, what isn’t politics a part of now ? There are entertainment shows that have a political overtone. I think this may be a political show that has an entertainment overtone.”
Images of the Howard Cosell variety hour come frighteningly to mind in the worst-case, fish-out-of-water scenario. In the best case, a conservative version of Jon Stewart without the snarkiness….
Here’s a possible clue: One of the producers working with Huckabee is a man named Woody Fraser, who was the original producer of the Mike Douglas Show and Good Morning America.
Fast forward to this week: On Wednesday evening, Huckabee announced on his website that the show would debut on Saturday night at 7 p.m., which I dutifully passed along here. Follow-up inquiries by media produced almost no new information, other than the fact that the show’s first guest would be Elisabeth Hasselbeck.
Reporters who call FOX News are referred to Huckabee’s agent, who, I’m told by well-placed media sources, has been less than forthcoming with information. I e-mailed the agent yesterday and received no response, but then again, why would they respond to me? (Another friend swears that she saw a promo for “Huckabee” on FOX News yesterday afternoon. I believe her, though I’ve not seen it myself.)
So what gives? Why launch a new television program—one that would almost certainly command a reasonably sizable audience based on curiosity alone— with almost no promotion from the network? That’s a strategy guaranteed to hamper the show’s success.
My current working theory: FOX News is not happy with the concept of the show, and, like a movie studio declining to screen a bad movie for critics, they’re not putting any marketing muscle behind “Huckabee,” and airing it in low viewership weekend slots. When the show underperforms, FOX can say, “Well, we tried,” and walk away.
(Another consideration: We’ve all been talking about “Huckabee” as if it’s the launch of a series. I just assumed that was the case, but now that I think about it, no one has said anything about a “series.” The original blog post announcing “Huckabee” makes no mention of a continuing series and only refers to a “show.” What if it’s not planned as a series, but as a one-off broadcast to test the waters?)
I glanced at the broadcast listings on the TV, and at this point the Comcast menu still says that the Bill O’Reilly and Sean Hannity shows are scheduled for tonight. (Yeah, that’s the type of crackerjack reporting you can expect from The Arkansas Project—I turned on the television!) But I’m planning to tune in this evening just to figure out what the hell is going on with this thing.
Update, 8:30 a.m. or so: Huck’s on “Fox and Friends Saturday” right now talking about the show and showing off his bass guitar. He’s loose and charming in an open collar shirt and sport coat.
With regard to “Huckabee”: “We’ll certainly talk about the debate; we’ll be talking about the proposed ‘bail-out’…I wanna talk about what does this mean to you at your dinner table. How does this affect you, whatever they do up there in Washington…We’re gonna have some humor in the program…Sometimes we’ll just tell ‘em what Congress is doing and that’s about as funny as life can get.” Claims some vindicaton for his anti-Wall Street stuff during the primary.
Update: The Arkansas Project’s review of “Huckabee” is here.
