Files Out For GOP Chair

November 25, 2008

More on state party chairmanships: Michael Tilley at the City Wire in Fort Smith reports that former Rep. Jake Files, who was recently considering a run for chairman of the Arkansas Republican Party, has taken himself out of the running:

Files said he is considering running for the state Senate seat in Fort Smith in 2010, and believed it would be difficult, if not impossible, for him to run for that seat and be the state party chairman. State Sen. Denny Altes, R-Fort Smith, is term limited and can’t run for the office in 2010.

Joseph Wood (left) with Sen. John McCain; Doyle Webb (right)

Joseph Wood (left) with Sen. John McCain; Doyle Webb (right)

Meanwhile, Arkansas Project reader Teddy Republican notes in the comments section of an earlier post that GOP chair hopefuls Doyle Webb and Joseph Wood are currently on KARN radio fielding questions from Dave Elswick and listeners. You can listen online here.

Update: I tried to listen, but after about 10 minutes I wanted to kill myself from boredom. Blogger Jason Tolbert, who has more patience than I, has a summary of the Webb/Wood interview with Team Elswick at his blog.

Filed Under: Arkansas Republicans Tagged With: ,

Rumor Mongering: Next Arkansas Dem Chair?

November 25, 2008
Gov. Mike Beebe

Gov. Mike Beebe: Who's his pick?

I’ve talked with a couple of The Arkansas Project’s Democratic-leaning friends in the last week or so who resent all the attention given on this blog to the race for the next Arkansas Republican chair. So in the interest of fairness, let’s ramp up some speculation as to who might be in line to lead our Democratic brethren forward into this next election cycle.

Granted, the choice will be Gov. Mike Beebe’s, so we’re at a bit of a disadvantage here—it’s all just rampant speculation. However, I’ve collected a few names that are being floated in state Democratic circles, with varying degrees of reliability:

Mike Hathorn (former state rep and 2006 candidate for lieutenant governor)

Vince Insalaco (Democratic consultant and campaign guru, filmmaker)

Chris Massingill (former state director for Rep. Mike Ross and Beebe campaign manager, now state economic development honcho)

Steve Ronnel (Little Rock businessman and Democratic money guy)

Jason Willett (former staffer to Rep. Marion Berry, 2005-06 party chair and candidate for Jonesboro mayor in ’08)

More than one of these names strike me as implausible or even absurd (not because the individual couldn’t do the job, but because it’s unlikely he’d want it). But hey, let’s throw ‘em out there and have some fun.

Another savvy watcher says to consider former legislators who may have served with Beebe in the Senate.

Others?

Filed Under: Arkansas Democrats

Where Will Lincoln Go On Union Ballot Vote?

November 25, 2008
Mark Pryor and Blanche Lincoln

Mark Pryor and Blanche Lincoln

Washington D.C. pub Politico notes that Sen. Blanche Lincoln of Arkansas will be one Democrat to watch in the coming debate on the absurdly monikered “Employee Free Choice Act,” a labor-backed bill to make union organizing easier by eliminating the secret ballot. Lincoln’s not been clear on where she stands on the issue.

That fact that has not gone unnoticed by the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette editorial board, which has no use for the mealy-mouthed hedging on the issue coming from Lincoln and fellow Democratic Sen. Mark Pryor:

If and when our two U. S. senators make up their mind on this issue—perhaps they have and just don’t dare tell the rest of us—it would be nice to get a straight answer out of them.

Should they decide that Americans should be denied a secret ballot at their workplace, their votes would not be without irony.

Having just participated in the Democratic caucus in the Senate, which allows senators to cast their ballots in secret for their leaders, they would have tried to deny the same right to American workers.

The Arkansas Project has touched on this issue in recent days, along with other members of the Arkansas blogging posse Jason Tolbert at The Tolbert Report and Tim Griffin at The Griffin Room.

Filed Under: Arkansas Democrats, Arkansas Politics Tagged With:

Arkansas Project Management Notes

November 24, 2008
Arkansas Project employee monitors blog operations, fixes stuff.

Arkansas Project employee monitors blog operations, fixes stuff.

I’ve heard from a couple of folks recently who were having trouble with the e-mail submission form on the “Contact” page, which was not functioning properly. You might think that you guys would take the hint that I don’t want to hear from you, but I guess you didn’t. Really, your neediness is one of your least appealing characteristics. I tell you this as a friend.

Anyway, for some reason the old contact form was freezing up in some browsers and not transmitting your communiqués. I think that it might have had something to with an error in the Javascript, or getting some Ajax in the PHP, or some other such mumbo-jumbo in which I simply throw out technical terms even though I haven’t the slightest idea of what they mean.

This is all a long way of saying that the e-mail form on the “Contact” page should now be fixed, for those of you who want to send me news tips. Or love notes. Or death threats. The last of which I know is most likely.

Filed Under: Uncategorized

Man Moves to Arkansas to Kick Porn Addiction

November 24, 2008
Author David Yale

Author David Yale

I’m not sure when this blog turned into the Arkansas edition of Fleshbot, but it’s a holiday week so we’ll take whatever news we can get.

A dedicated Arkansas Project reader sends along a note about a new book, “Saying NO to Naked Women,” a loosely fictionalized chronicle of how author David Yale kicked his addiction to pornography and meaningless sex by moving to a humble shack in backwoods Arkansas, where he can confront his demons. Why Arkansas, you ask? Here’s why:

…we got to Arkansas, and I loved the mountains. A real estate agent said he had just the type of land I wanted: remote – about 30 miles from town, with water on it, wooded but also including a small flat field that would make an excellent vegetable garden – and it was cheap. If memory serves me, I paid $96 down and $48 a month for five years – and then I owned it, free and clear. My total tax bill was $1.80 a year, payable in three equal installments if need be! When I saw the rock-rimmed pool and waterfall, I fell in love with it and wrote a check on the spot.

I’m glad this guy found inner peace and all, but I’m going to be honest with you, looking at that picture, I’m going to go out on a limb and say that coming up with ways to say “no” to naked women is probably the least of his problems. I think a better place to start might be by kicking his addiction to wearing ties with short sleeve shirts.

Filed Under: Uncategorized

New Media Whippersnapper vs. Curmudgeonly Print Guy!

November 24, 2008
John Brummett vs. Kristin Fisher: Media Battle Royale

John Brummett vs. Kristin Fisher: Media Battle Royale

Last week, Arkansas News Bureau columnist John Brummett opined that all this gee-whiz technology the kids are using these days is overrated: “Why, back in my day,” quoth the curmudgeonly newspaperman, “we hammered out six stories a day on a rusty old Underwood typewriter, and we liked it that way, by cracky. Now get me rewrite!”

Well, maybe that’s not exactly what he wrote, but it was something like that.

Anyway, Brummett was offering up a skeptical perspective on the work of a Little Rock KATV reporter who’s pursuing a new media experiment in news-gathering by soliciting suggestions and feedback from viewers. She calls it “Choose Your News,” and it allows viewers to weigh in on the development of a story at each step of the way, from conception to broadcast.

Said reporter is Kristin Fisher, and she takes exception to Brummett’s dismissal of her work. She’s offering Brummett a friendly invitation to come on the air and talk with her about media and technology. And since she’s a feisty newcomer, she proffers the open invitation via her blog:

This kind of “new media” debate is exactly what Choose Your News is all about. That’s why I would like to formally invite Mr. Brummett to be a special guest on the Daily Debrief. I would love to learn from his many years as a “trained news hound.” And maybe, in return, I could teach him a thing or two about that crazy thing called Twitter.

Will Brummett accept? Will this meeting of the minds result in a generational breakthrough of understanding? Will we ever, ever get to see the REAL Tina Sherman nude cell phone photos? All this and more on this week’s… “Arkansas Project”!

Update: More on this epic showdown from the Think Thank’s Blake Rutherford, whose inattention to the “Tina Sherman nude cell phone photos” story has been nothing short of scandalous.

Filed Under: Arkansas Media Tagged With: , ,

Nude Photos on Cell Phone Lead to Lawsuit (UPDATED)

November 23, 2008

You may have seen this story about Phillip and Tina Sherman, the couple in Bella Vista, Arkansas, who lost a cell phone that just happened to contain nude photos of the wife. They’re suing McDonald’s after a McDonald’s employee allegedly found the phone and uploaded the photos to the Internet, along with their personal information. They want $3 million for their trouble.

Since this is a high-quality professional blog that adheres to only the highest journalistic standards, I spent a good 2 hours running various image searches on Google, Yahoo, Flickr, Photobucket and assorted other photo sites to find said naked images to present to you, the Arkansas Project reader.

Then it occurred to me that that’s a pretty pathetic way to spend my time, and anyway, I don’t even know if this woman is hot enough to make it worth the effort. So I’m gonna give it another 2 or 3 hours, and if nothing shows up I’m hanging it up.

Update: OK, a reader sends this along, but I honestly don’t know if it’s reliable or not. A blog search turns up this Photoshop job of a sexy chick in lingerie layered onto an iPhone image with a McDonald’s logo superimposed. It’s being circulated as one of the “Tina Sherman” photos (the lingerie image, that is, not the iPhone image or McDonald’s logo, which would ostensibly be manipulations after the fact):

So is the woman in the lingerie Tina Sherman? What am I, Hugh Hefner? I don’t know. She’s not nude, but she is good looking, so unless and until verifiable photos of the real Tina Sherman emerge, let’s all just agree to pretend that this is what she looks like, because I have the feeling it’s much better than the reality.

Update to the Update: I see that the Drudge Report has now picked up on the story as well, which means that tens of thousands of perverts serious researchers the world over are, as we speak, putting their ninja web search skills to work digging up the (real) Tina Sherman photos.

Update to the Update to the Update: Here’s one guy who’s getting out there and saying that the photos are probably a hoax, a claim he makes based on the absence of evidence:

One problem, no photos and no alleged website where they reportedly taken down from.

Nobody seems to be able to locate any photo other than the tired cropped one below.

Some unscrupulous sites, in order to capture traffic, have resorted to “censoring” the image, or using ones like the shower image above. (which we found on google images) Some have even been making claims to posess video.

This of course only leads to malware and viruses. So stop searching.

We’ve searched high and low and have found no evidence of the validity of this story’s claim.

By the way, don’t you wish I covered Arkansas political developments with the same depth and dedication that I did this naked photos story?

Really? You do? Jesus, you are so lame.

Update X 4: That ain’t Tina Sherman in the Photoshop image above. It’s actress Chyler Leigh, who’s apparently on “Grey’s Anatomy.” I don’t watch that show, because I am a heterosexual male, but I’ll get Arkansas Project Girlfriend (APG) to confirm it for me, since she does. That is, if APG’s still talking to me after all the attention I’ve given this topic over the last two days. We might as well go ahead and put that question in the “Unconfirmed” folder as well.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: ,

Inauguration Fever Hits Arkansas, Tix in Demand

November 23, 2008
"I'm going to Washington!"

Arkansas congressional delegation offices receive an object lesson in the principles of scarcity and supply and demand as requests for presidential inauguration tickets pour in. The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette’s Jane Fullerton reports:

Each office expects to receive about 200 tickets — there are a total of 240,000 — which will be distributed just days before the ceremony and must be picked up in person. The tickets are free, and available only through congressional offices, so organizers have warned repeatedly against purchasing any tickets online, saying any such offer would be bogus.

“The whole delegation is working together to help as many constituents as possible,” [Sen. Mark Pryor spokesman Lisa] Ackerman said. “We’re trying to spread them as far as possible.”

Since it’s congressional staff developing the distribution process, I’m sure that the process will be as convoluted and asinine as you can possibly imagine. I don’t know why they’re making it so difficult—there’s nothing easier than distributing tickets equitably. Just print ‘em up on some gold slips and stick ‘em into a random assortment of chocolate bars to be sold in stores around the state. If it’s good enough for getting in to the chocolate factory, it’s good enough for the inauguration.

Filed Under: Arkansas Politics

Huckabee: Overexposed?

November 22, 2008
Huckabee: Ubiqitous

Huckabee: Ubiqitous

“How can I miss you when you won’t go away?” is the question that the AP’s Andrew Demillo has for Mike Huckabee in his weekly political analysis column.

Huckabee’s everywhere these days promoting his new book, chatting up the birds on “The View,” hosting TV and radio shows, and making political appearances on behalf of other candidates. It’s a serious problem. I know, because I had to chase him out of my yard twice earlier today. Look, if you’re not gonna rake the leaves, quit drinking out of the hose.

Writes Demillo:

But his omnipresence leaves one big question: Will voters miss him if he won’t go away?

Political experts say Huckabee is walking a fine line between relishing the spotlight and hogging it.

“It’s a tricky tightrope act for any politician in his position to perform,” said Mark Rozell, professor of public policy at George Mason University in suburban Washington. “He doesn’t want people to forget about him and his surprisingly good showing in some of the primaries and caucuses. On the other hand, there is a saturation point where people think a politician is pushing himself a bit too hard.”

The other problem that Huckabee faces is the perception that he’s not just pushing himself. He’s shoving others out of the way.

There’s countervailing opinion from a GOP strategist who thinks Huckabee’s multimedia play is keeping him at the forefront of the minds of folks who are already eyeing 2012.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With:

Wal-Mart Lobbyist Nabbed in Abramoff Scandal

November 22, 2008

Here’s an Arkansas touch in the Jack Abramoff lobbying scandal (Good Lord, that’s still going on? How long has it been?): Jim Hirni, a former Wal-Mart lobbyist and former legislative director to Sen. Tim Hutchinson of Arkansas, who’s apparently facing a plea agreement with the U.S. Department of Justice for his role in providing World Series tix to a Congressional aide. He’s the latest to go down in the long-running corruption investigation.

Thanks to an Arkansas Project reader Clark Haruspex for the keen eye.

Filed Under: Uncategorized
« Older Posts
Newer Posts »