The Arkansas Project

TBQ Poll: Dear Heavens, Does It Ever Suck to Be Blanche Lincoln

By David Kinkade - January 20, 2010 12:36 pm

Roby Brock’s Talk Business Quarterly is out with the latest numbers on embattled Democratic U.S. Senator Blanche Lincoln, and if you were thinking that Lincoln’s sucky poll numbers had surely bottomed out, well, that just goes to show what you know, because it just keeps getting worse. Fifty-seven percent of Arkansans hold a “strongly unfavorable” or “somewhat unfavorable” view of the state’s senior senator.

Do you think it has anything to do with her support for that reeking turd of a health care bill? No, it couldn’t be that, because that’s just insanely popular, right? Quick, we need someone to explain why that reeking turd of a health care bill is actually a net plus for Democrats, in spite of all evidence to the contrary. Over to you, Blake Rutherford!

And another thing: Am I the only one who finds it strange that TBQ continues to use GOP political strategist Clint Reed to craft these polls, when he’s consulting for the campaign for Republican state Sen. Gilbert Baker — who’s a strong contender to be Lincoln’s challenger in November? Just askin’.

(UPDATE: Roby Brock called to let me know that he typically discloses Reed’s affiliation with the Baker campaign, as well as his Democratic contributor Robert McClarty’s affiliation with that of Attorney General Dustin McDaniel—but that he’d neglected to do so in this case. He has updated his blog post with the disclosures.)

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Premature Evaluation: Or, Why Internet Polls Aren’t Worth the Paper They Aren’t Even Printed On

By Dan Greenberg - December 1, 2009 9:01 am

As a State Senate candidate, I’ve recently been the subject of a couple of “Internet polls,” in which website visitors are asked to vote for rival candidates. Even to discuss an Internet poll probably grants it too much importance, because there is no relation between actual voter behavior and an Internet poll.

After all, these were polls in which people from outside my district and minors could vote; perhaps more relevantly, someone technologically sophisticated types (which excludes me) might be able to vote multiple times from the same computer — not exactly a scientific gauge of public opinion.

Let’s look more closely at one of these polls. About a month ago, Whit Jones, proprietor of the insidesaline.com news site, polled his readers about the 2010 Senate race in District 22, which included me, my GOP primary opponent Jeremy Hutchinson and Democratic Rep. Dawn Creekmore. When I heard about this poll, I decided to vote once and then focus on more important things in my life: that is, everything else in the universe.

Regrettably, a supporter of mine soon brought to my attention that Hutchinson was accusing me of “robo-voting” in the poll. (Hutchinson made the same accusation in the previous Internet poll that he and I were subjected to; I assume “robo-voting” has something to do with using a computer program that repeatedly casts votes.) I immediately checked the poll, looking forward to an incredibly lopsided vote total in my favor.

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Senator Gilbert Baker Announces the Hiring of Former Huckabee for President National Press Secretary Alice Stewart

By David Kinkade - October 21, 2009 5:53 pm

Arkansas Sen. Gilbert Baker, frontrunner in the 2010 GOP primary race to challenge incumbent Democratic Sen. Blanche Lincoln, announces today that he’s hired former Mike Huckabee spokeswoman Alice Stewart as his campaign mouthpiece.

It’s all in a news release with a comically long headline, which I liked so much I pasted it in as the title for this post. She’ll be serving as deputy campaign manager and communications director. Full statement at jump.

Alice was last seen here on the Arkansas Project when she was in the running for the executive directorship of the Republican Party of Arkansas. She also has a blog, which updates even less frequently than this one, if you can believe such a thing.

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You Should Go To The SPJ Blogging Academy

By David Kinkade - September 22, 2009 2:21 pm

You, there! What are you doing on Saturday? Nothing worthwhile, I assume.

Therefore I suggest you look into attending the Arkansas Society of Professional Journalists Blogging Academy: An Introduction to Community Journalism in Little Rock, where they’ll have a bunch of so-called self-styled “experts” on hand to talk about how you, too, can make a name for yourself through a time consuming, non-paying hobby.

It’s at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock Law School (Room 305) from 10 a.m to 2 p.m, and panel sessions will focus on ethics and legal issues, accessing government and something called “blogging best practices.” I’m on the latter panel, so I assume they’ll be holding The Arkansas Project up as an example of what not to do.

Other participants include Max Brantley of the Arkansas Times, Steve Harrelson of Under the Dome and, uh, I forget who else. Hell, I don’t know, let’s say “Jason Tolbert.” OK, so no Tolbert, I’m informed.

And best of all, it’s all free, so get thee to the Facebook page to learn more and get registered.

Lincoln on ‘Arkansas Sunday Edition’

By David Kinkade - September 5, 2009 4:17 pm

All you  morning early risers will want to listen to Arkansas Sunday Edition with Blake Rutherford Sunday, where Blake will host a special interview with Sen. Blanche Lincoln, talking about her re-election campaign and all that other stuff. That’s on Little Rock’s 103.7 The Buzz Sunday morning from 7-9 a.m. Not to be missed!

On The Radio. Again.

By David Kinkade - August 31, 2009 11:24 am

I’m heading over to the KARN studios in scenic West Little Rock at 2 p.m., where guest host Alice Stewart will have me and Think Tank blogger Blake Rutherford on to chat about politics and more as Blake and I continue our ongoing “Goofus and Gallant” routine. (He’s Goofus. Obviously.)

That’s 102.9 FM/920 AM from 2-3 p.m.  Tune in!

Posting will resume later this afternoon.

Where You’ll Find Me Sunday Morning

By David Kinkade - August 28, 2009 2:33 pm

….why, on the Arkansas Sunday Edition on The Buzz/103.7, of course, hosted by local blogging and broadcasting legend Blake Rutherford.

It’ll be me, Lance Turner and the rest of the “Not-Ready-For-9 A.M. Players” talking politics and whatever else comes up. Show kicks off at 7 a.m., and you do not want to miss it. You do not, I say!

Well, That Certainly Sucked

By David Kinkade - August 9, 2009 6:18 pm

You may have noticed that the Arkansas Project was down all day Friday and a good part of Saturday, because it turns out that when the health department tells you you “must wash hands,” brother, do they ever mean it. They’ll shut you down so fast it’ll make your head spin.

OK, maybe that’s not how it went. My hosting provider ran into some server problems, which they tried to explain to me, but all I heard was “infested with demons.”

So I guess I maybe need to find a new hosting service, so if you’re interested in being the new home for The Arkansas Project, send your proposals! I don’t really make a lot of demands or have a lot of specifications, though I suggest that, if you want to host this site, you might wanna be pretty lawyered up, because there’s a better than even chance that you’re gonna end up as a party to a libel suit at some point.

UPDATE: We may experience another brief disruption on Monday….

Subscribe to ‘Arkansas Morning’ Update

By David Kinkade - August 3, 2009 9:56 am

Former U.S. Attorney Tim Griffin, who announced recently that he would not be pursuing a 2010 Senate race but now may be running for Congress against Rep. Mike Ross, because, you  know, why not, has launched a new daily e-mail update, Arkansas Morning.

It’s a political news tipsheet on state and national issues, with a good round-up of headlines from legacy media, blogs, Twitter feeds, etc. Good stuff in there— you should go over here to subscribe. (You can get a taste of recent submissions at Griffin’s blog, The Griffin Room.)

I’m not entirely sure why he’s taken to doing this all of a sudden, but I presume it’s a strategy to harvest e-mail addresses and sell them to spammers. At least that would explain why I suddenly started getting all these e-mail pitches about “Great Deals on Chinese Herbal Viagra!” And to be honest with you, I don’t think this is even real Chinese Herbal Viagra. In fact, now that I look a little closer it appears to be a Flintstones Chewable Vitamin. I can’t believe I ordered $1,200 worth, but truth be told, it was a pretty persuasive e-mail.

Someone’s Having A Birthday!

By David Kinkade - July 31, 2009 2:17 pm

You’re not going to believe this, but it so happens that today is The Arkansas Project’s one-year anniversary, more or less. We went public on July 31, 2008, after blogging in the dark for a few days beforehand to try everything out. Oh, what a fun year we’ve had!

For all of you history buffs out there, I was looking back through The Arkansas Project archives and I came across the blog’s original business plan, in which we laid out our strategic goals for generating revenues and making this venture a sterling success. Here, let’s all take a look:

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Here Is What Some of Our Friends Are Up To

By David Kinkade - July 31, 2009 8:15 am

A few Arkansas Project pals have scored some nice achievements these last few days, so let us now pay tribute to these characters.

David Sanders (top); Blake Rutherford; and Nick Stovall

1) Arkansas News Bureau columnist David J. Sanders landed a fine guest column in today’s Wall Street Journal. Sanders reports from a recent conference on philanthropy at the Clinton Presidential Center and questions the growing dependence of government dollars in private foundations. Sanders writes:

Remarkably, most of the recommendations had little to do with philanthropy. Rather, they were wish lists for Congress. These philanthropists turned government activists were eager to rewrite the Title I funding formula and to lobby the administration for more money for rural broadband. One presenter urged the group to advocate for a national energy policy that takes into consideration social, environmental as well as economic impacts. Another group recommended lobbying Congress and the Agriculture Department to create philanthropic rural-development endowments.

Looks like the administration is beginning to nationalize another sector of the American economy.

Read the whole thing.

2) Blake’s Think Tank blogger Blake Rutherford announced yesterday that he’ll be launching a regular Sunday morning radio show on 103.7 The Buzz in Little Rock, starting August 16, with a focus on politics, local affairs, sports and whatever else he can think of.

He’s slated for 7-9 a.m., which I’m told is a choice time slot because it allows you to hit the “folks getting ready for church” demographic as well as the “meth addicts just coming down after their Saturday night tweak” crowd.

3) The Arkansas blogosphere and the Lonely Misfits Drinking Society bids a fond farewell to young Nick “Zack” Stovall of the Arkansas News Bureau and the Unfamous First Words blog, who’s moving to St. Louis to do something or other. I forgot to ask, but I assume it has something to do with fighting crime and solving mysteries. Good luck to him and stuff.

A Night To Remember!

By David Kinkade - July 25, 2009 6:09 pm

Arkansas Secretary of State Charlie Daniels joins the Oak Ridge Boys onstage for a rousing chorus of "Elvira."

The Democratic Party of Arkansas had a big to-do in North Little Rock Friday night, pulling in an estimated 1,400 people for a big party fundraiser at Verizon Arena.

Why, all the stars were there: Gov. Mike Beebe! Sen. Blanche Lincoln! Sen. Mark Pryor! Attorney Gen. Dustin McDaniel! Bill Halter, champion of the Arkansas lottery! Blake Rutherford! Good for them. It sounds like it was highly successful and a great event.

And we KNOW it was a great event from this extraordinarily flattering Arkansas Democrat-Gazette (ADG) report by Capitol Bureau chief Seth Blomeley, (HEADLINE: “Democrats Slam GOP At Dinner”) prominently published on the front of the paper’s Arkansas section, and featuring two (2) photographs. In addition, the ADG has made available online dozens of photographs from the event. (You’ll need a subscription to read the full article—sorry.)

Now let’s look back: A month ago, Arkansas Republicans held a parallel event in Little Rock. Granted, it was much smaller, with only about 400 people on hand, but let’s face it, there aren’t nearly as many Republicans in Arkansas as Democrats, right? But anyway, there were a bunch of elected officials and candidates on hand, as well as keynote speaker Gov. Tim Pawlenty of Minnesota, who some say just might be a candidate for president one day.

I’ll bet that event got the same red-carpet treatment from the ADG and Blomeley, right?

Hm, not quite. In that case, the ADG just ran this wire story from the AP, which focused not on the event but on Pawlenty’s response to South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford’s affair. (Remember that? It transfixed a nation for, uh, days! And then Michael Jackson died, and we were never the same.) I believe the ADG ran that piece inside the B section, with no photo.

I suppose it would be churlish to point out the egregious disparity in coverage of the two events, and who’d listen anyway, right?

But I’d be interested to hear the editorial decision-making that adjudges one to be “news” and the other to be “not-news.” Seems like either they’re both “news,” or they’re both “not-news,” if you boast of being a balanced, trusted, objective news source serving the community. (Having worked as a reporter and attended my fair share of events like this, I can tell you that they are typically “not-news,” because they are “pseudo-events,” but a newspaper generally has to cover them in case news breaks out.)

I don’t much go in for “liberal media bias” bellyaching from conservatives, because it’s boring and unconstructive, like whining about the weather. But if you are an Arkansas Republican candidate for office in 2010, I’d keep in mind that the state’s largest daily newspaper and its chief political reporter have done you a tremendous favor by laying down their standard, at an early point in the process, for how you and your Democratic opposition will be treated in the coming campaign season. Rest assured, you will not receive the same type of coverage. Plan accordingly.

It was truly a night to remember.

It Is Time to Tweet the Tweet Up, Mothertweeters

By David Kinkade - July 23, 2009 9:23 am

Blake Rutherford (center) regales his fans with amazing tales of his blogging adventures at June 2009 Tweet-Up at Capital Grill.

The third monthly Little Rock Tweet-Up is slated for this evening at the Copper Grill at 5:30 p.m.

There’s more details over here, and I’m sure you’ll want to be there, because it’s exactly the type of thing you seem to enjoy. Or maybe not. Frankly, I can’t make heads or tails of what it is that you like anymore. You’ve changed, man.

New Kids On The Blog*

By David Kinkade - July 23, 2009 9:11 am

*Sometimes you just write a headline and you say to yourself, man, that is solid gold.

It’s been over a week since we announced a new entry to the central Arkansas blogosphere, so, hey, look at that, here’s something new. Bloghawgs is a joint production from Democratic political consultant Brett Kincaid and attorney Adam Butler, and it’s already off to a lively start. But wait, “Bloghawgs”? That’s a terrible name for a blog. It’s almost as bad as “The Arkansas Project.”

The new venture will be heavy on sports and political commentary with a liberal leaning, meaning it will probably hold absolutely nothing of interest to me. But if those are your things, then by all means go get your rocks off.

More Great Moments In Political Cartooning!

By David Kinkade - July 21, 2009 1:03 pm

A few months ago, we busted political cartoonist Vic Harville’s chops for phoning it in with this terrible piece of Photoshop crap marking the inauguration of President Obama.

Well, the Arkansas News Bureau cartoonist is phoning it in again, marking the death of broadcasting giant Walter Cronkite with this lazy and insight-free Photoshop job:

Oh, wow, what a powerful statement, presented as only a highly-paid newspaper political cartoonist could! Maybe if I really, really put my mind to it, I could attain such heights. Hmmmm, let’s see….

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Blogger Smacks Around Newspaperman But Good

By David Kinkade - July 16, 2009 5:23 pm

In case you missed it, there’s a fine exchange playing out between University of Arkansas education prof/blogger Jay Greene and Arkansas News Bureau columnist John Brummett concerning federal stimulus funds and education.

In a recent blog post, Greene critiqued a Fayetteville summer school program that was paying teachers twice their normal rate (and three times what teachers in neighboring Springdale were receiving) for their work in a three-week summer literacy program. Brummett responded with a column today, offering a qualified-maybe defense of the payments, sparking additional response from Greene:

It’s clear that John Brummett uses his column to prosecute his own personal, political agenda.  That’s acceptable for a columnist, but normally they have to be constrained by facts and logic in doing so.

Fun stuff, and there’s more, with additional blog response from Brummett.  It just goes on and on, these two. Read the back and forth.

Great Moments In Arkansas Newspaper Headlines

By David Kinkade - July 15, 2009 1:17 pm

Best juxtaposition of newspaper headline and photo of all time? I believe so, my friends. I believe so. (Via The Baxter Bulletin)

Rex Nelson Now Has A Blog, Too

By David Kinkade - July 14, 2009 7:15 pm

Rex Nelson

I had to drive to Fort Smith and back today, for some reason, so I didn’t get the chance earlier to note that Arkansas guy Rex Nelson, former Mike Huckabee spokesman and Delta Regional Authority honcho (among other things), has a new blog to chronicle his many enthusiasms. Here’s a taste:

I am almost 50 and not having to beg any naked 18-year-olds for quotes. Not yet anyway.

That may or may not be a representative selection. Anyway, there was a big shindig tonight at the Whitewater Tavern in Little Rock to kick this venture off, and I was there. What, you weren’t cool enough to get invited to the blog launch party? Well, I’ll leave you to yourself to think about that for a while.

Another Newspaperman Down: Webb Leaving ADG

By David Kinkade - July 14, 2009 6:46 pm

Word on the street is that Kane Webb, longtime columnist at the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette and editor of the paper’s Sunday “Perspectives” section, is leaving the newspaper business and jumping into the teaching game. He’s headed to Catholic High School in Little Rock, his alma mater, to teach English. It’s a good fit, since that’s the language he speaks.

Rejected titles for this post included “The Kane Mutiny” and “Webb Poets Society.”

ADG Goes Behind the Wall (Updated!)

By David Kinkade - July 13, 2009 11:33 am

The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette announced yesterday that they’re battening down the hatches. They’ll be ending free access to their online content  starting August 5 — all news content (much of which has been available at no charge through the newspaper’s Northwest Arkansas site) will officially be on lockdown.

The inimitable Lance Turner offers his analysis of this strategic move here. Choice cut:

And what does it mean for the Web site? Well, you can kiss some of those inbound links goodbye. Bloggers and other Web sites will be loathe to send their readers to locked-down content, which in turn means more online irrelevance for DG news stories and opinion columns. (emphasis added)

In a related story, the ADG will be requiring all of their readers to sign a non-disclosure agreement under which they’ll not be permitted to discuss the paper’s content with non-subscribers.

UPDATE: The Fayetteville Flyer picks up on publisher Walter Hussman’s statement that “online advertising is not as effective.” FF’s Todd Gill asks: “Did you really just tell your current and potential advertisers that there’s no value in placing ads on your website?”