The Arkansas Project

Blanche Lincoln Is Just A Damn Money Machine

By David Kinkade - January 26, 2010 11:57 am

Finally, something to smile about.

Democratic Sen. Blanche Lincoln can’t seem to get much right these days based on her poll numbers, but her fundraising prowess tells another story.

In the fourth quarter of 2009, Lincoln raised $1.3 million, leaving her with $5 million cash on hand, her campaign announced this morning. In a related story, the various candidates in the GOP primary to challenge Lincoln discovered that they could save a bundle by carpooling to events.

Back in July of last year, I noted that, if Lincoln were to continue raising funds at the rate of roughly $500,000 per month, she could conceivably raise $11 million for the race. For this election cycle in total, she’s now raised more than $7 million, which I believe is already an all-time record for an Arkansas candidate.

Republican candidates who think that Lincoln is finished just because she’s polling below 50 percent (way below) right now truly underestimate how hard Democrats will fight to hold this seat. Political machines don’t just roll over and die because they get discouraged.

And yes, we’ve all heard the rumors and speculation floating around that the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee wants Lincoln to step aside for a stronger candidate. I’ll believe it when I see it. Till we hear her say she’s out, she’s in.

By the way, I’ll be on KARN at 5 p.m. this afternoon with local radio legend Dave Elswick to talk state politics, and I’ll bet we discuss some of these numbers. Also on the agenda: I’ll show you how to make a simple bird feeder with just a pine cone and a couple tablespoons of peanut butter! Tune in at 5 to learn how!

David Sanders Wants Your Money

By David Kinkade - January 26, 2010 11:43 am

The David Sanders for House District 31 campaign drops a note that Sanders is hosting a fundraiser this evening at Little Rock’s Pipe and Tobacco Shop on University Avenue, across the street from the University of Arkansas at Little Rock. It’s at 6 p.m., so make your way over there if you want to support Sanders’ campaign, or if you just want to reek of cigar smoke for the next 72 hours.

Shocker: Vic Snyder Bows Out! (Updated)

By David Kinkade - January 15, 2010 4:17 pm

Here, Arkansas: Here’s your political “holy shit” moment of the day—Democratic Rep. Vic Snyder of the Second Congressional District announces he’ll retire. Full statement at jump.

Republican Tim Griffin has been making a spirited run to challenge Snyder on the GOP side, facing Scott Wallace and David Meeks in the Republican primary. Soooo…who will jump in on the Democratic side? In true Arkansas Project fashion, let’s let mindless, ill-informed speculation run rampant. Hash it out in the comments section, fools.

UPDATE: Griffin offers a statement in response, also at jump.

(more…)

This Arkansas Girl Won ‘Survivor’ (Updated!)

By David Kinkade - December 21, 2009 8:37 am

****UPDATE: I’m keeping this post at the top for a couple of days because the photos are so awesome. New stuff will show up underneath. ****

Come, let us dispense with tiresome talk of the 2010 Senate race (“Will Jim Holt get in? When will Jim Holt get in? Is Jim Holt in yet? Has anyone talked to Jim Holt?” “Jim Holt…call me!” “Jim! Holt!”) and the dreary back and forth over Obamacare to focus on the things that matter most to the Arkansas Project readership.

And so here is Natalie White, a 26-year-old pharmaceutical sales rep from Van Buren, who took home the $1 million dollar prize on the CBS reality show “Survivor,” which means she is now better funded than all of the candidates in the GOP Senate primary. Ha ha! Zing! See how I brought it back around there?

More Natalie at the jump.

(more…)

A Stiff Drink: Greenberg, Kerr at Arkansas Tea Party

By Dan Greenberg - December 17, 2009 1:26 pm

Here is a clip from last Saturday’s Tea Party, which was held in Little Rock’s Doubletree Hotel; it’s me and state Rep. Allen Kerr. A friend of mine came up to me after my talk and said: “Dan, that was the most interesting speech on federalism I have ever heard!” That is probably not a high bar, but I hope you enjoy it.

Video courtesy Kenneth Wallis of Little Rock Immigration Examiner. (Several other videos available at that link.)

Amateur Hour for Arkansas GOP

By David Kinkade - December 11, 2009 12:51 pm

It’s amateur hour for the Republican Party of Arkansas, which has cranked up their moral dudgeon to “high” in response to a throw-away comment from the state Democrats’ executive director in a recent news story.

Here’s the background: On Tuesday, former GOP Rep. Michael Lamoureux won a special election to be the next state senator for District 4. Asked for response, state Democrats offered this to the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette’s Mike Wickline :

Mariah Hatta, executive director of the state Democratic Party, said she hopes Lamoureux “will work across party lines for the good of our people and avoid the hyper-partisanship cult of Republican legislators, mostly in the House, who would like to make the Capitol in Little Rock more like the one in Washington.”

That “cult” bit didn’t go down too well with GOP chair Doyle Webb and House  minority leader Bryan King, who issued hyperventilating statements declaring, in effect, “We are not a cult.”

OK, let’s review some elementary political communication tactics, such as, when someone makes a charge against you, you DON”T REPEAT THE CHARGE. Why? Because it simply reinforces the idea in people’s minds, rather than refuting it.  Here, let’s let Ryan Sager explain how that works:

People use “perceived familiarity” with a supposed “fact” as a mental shortcut to judge its truth. Thus, if they hear “X isn’t true,” over time they simply remember “X.” So, for instance, if you’re the Democrats during the health care debate, you don’t want to get stuck repeating, “There are no death panels.” What people remember from that is, “Man, there’s sure a lot of controversy over these ‘death panels’ I hear so much about.”

Well put, Ryan Sager! So when people hear Republicans leaders protest, “We are not a cult!”, they don’t share the deep sense of offense. They’re more likely to simply remember the nouns: “GOP=Cult.” (If you’re running for office in the coming year, feel free to clip ‘n’ save this little lesson. It may come in handy when you have to run a little campaign damage control of your own.)

Now, Hatta’s comment was dumb — over-the-top and needlessly provocative-for-the-sake-of-being-provocative. But the Republican response, purposely elevating the throw-away smear buried in a newspaper story into a Big Issue, is worse, because they allowed themselves to be provoked, to no useful end.

It may be too much to ask the state’s GOP leaders to think like professional communication strategists. But at the very least, they might refrain from embarrassing themselves with tactics that are self-defeating and monumentally retarded.

UPDATE: No sooner do I hit “publish” on this piece than a news release arrives from GOP Senate candidate Conrad Reynolds, taking a breather from not raising money for his campaign, pushing the same goddamn lines. This. This is the hill they’ve chosen to stand and fight upon. Attention Democrats: Give Mariah Hatta a fat bonus! Full Reynolds statement at jump.

(more…)

Campaign Watchers! More 2010 Campaign Updates!

By David Kinkade - December 7, 2009 10:05 am

Better than a picture of Michael Lamoureux, I'd say

Hey, things may be a little slow over here of late, but rest assured that our running lists of potential and announced 2010 Arkansas candidates are being updated regularly.

The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette’s Mike Wickline runs with a report today on some races to watch (subscription only link), which included a couple of names we didn’t have yet, so I’ve added them to the lists in the appropriate places.

In case you missed it last week, The Tolbert Report noted that GOP Rep. Mark Martin is eyeing a race for secretary of state. Republicans have been slow to field candidates for the state constitutional offices, since everyone thinks they should be the one to replace Sen. Blanche Lincoln, so Martin’s entry to the secretary of state race should be a welcome one.

And don’t forget that Tuesday brings a special election in Arkansas Senate District 4, where former GOP Rep. Michael Lamoureux faces Democrat John Burnett and Independent Tachany Evans to replace outgoing Republican Sen. Sharon Trusty. Voting is already under way. (UPDATE: Lamoureux won the race handily.)

Do check out the list and let us know who’s missing.

Straw Wars: Baker For the Win

By David Kinkade - December 5, 2009 4:11 pm

The Republican Party of Arkansas hosted its straw poll for the 2010 Senate race today, with seven of the announced candidates participating. And in a way, I guess you could say that all of these guys are winners. But in another, more accurate way, most of them are losers and Gilbert Baker is the winner, since he won.

More from Roby Brock at Talk Business, who offers summaries of the hopefuls’ speeches at his Political Buzz blog.

Tribute to Our Veterans

By Dan Greenberg - November 11, 2009 12:08 pm

A moving tribute to our veterans…

Sen. Tracy Steele to Run for House District 39 Seat

By David Kinkade - November 5, 2009 11:13 am

State Sen. Tracy Steele, a term-limited Democrat, sends word that he’ll run for the Arkansas House of Representatives in District 39. The seat is currently held by first-term Democratic Rep. Richard Carroll. (Carroll was elected as a Green Party representative in 2008 but changed his party affiliation in April of this year.) So chalk up another primary contest.

Steele’s full release is at the jump.

While we’re on the subject, although posting has been sporadic here at The Arkansas Project lately (What’s that, you’re feeling neglected? OK, OK, I promise, this weekend we’ll go out for a nice steak dinner, just you and me. Now let’s see that million-dollar smile, huh? That’s my girl!), I’ve been regularly updating our candidate lists for 2010, so check ‘em out if you haven’t looked in a while. (And many thanks to all of you who have written in to share names we didn’t have and to point out my boneheaded errors that needed correcting.)

(more…)

Huzzah, For It Is Election Night, At Long Last, Somewhere

By David Kinkade - November 3, 2009 7:54 pm

At long last, the off-year elections for the governorships of New Jersey and Virginia and for the open Congressional seat in New York House District 23 will be decided, meaning that soon we can all go back to not caring about these places anymore.

I’m going to go ahead and get a head start by forgetting where New York House District 23 is located. Where is that, out on Long Island somewhere? Sounds about right.

More Ugly Polling Numbers for Lincoln

By David Kinkade - November 2, 2009 10:13 am

Roby Brock at Talk Business fires up his magical mystical polling machine yet again for a slew of questions on political and public affairs matters in Arkansas.

Among the top-line results: A notable degradation in Democratic Sen. Blanche Lincoln’s numbers from the last Talk Business survey in July. Lincoln’s latest numbers, per Roby, show 46 percent of Arkansans expressing an unfavorable opinion of the senior senator and 42 percent favorable.

Looks as if President Barack Obama, with 59 percent of Arkansans disapproving, is a millstone around Lincoln’s neck. Gov. Mike Beebe shows a slight decline but continues to post strong favorability numbers.

And lord a’mighty, there’s way more data in these polls than any one person could possibly digest in a single blog post, so I’ll send you to Roby’s blog for more info.

Meanwhile, the slip in Lincoln’s poll numbers and the carnival of candidates on the Republican side have led political watchers at Congressional Quarterly to shift their assessment of the 2010 Senate race in Arkansas from “Leans Democratic” to “Likely Democratic.”

Lincoln Pulls in $1.2 Million in Q3

By David Kinkade - October 12, 2009 10:11 am

Democratic Sen. Blanche Lincoln reports another strong fundraising quarter, with $1.2 million for the third quarter ended Sept. 30, and a total of $4.13 million on hand.

From the Lincoln campaign:

* For the 3^rd quarter (July 1 – September 30, 2009), the campaign will report total receipts of $1,210,919;

* Individuals accounted for more than 58 percent of the total contributions for the quarter;

* The campaign reported $4,129,747 cash on hand at the close of the period, September 30;

* Since the beginning of this year, Senator Lincoln’s campaign has raised $4,204,068, an average of $1.4 million per quarter.

She also reports campaign expenditures of $266,105.90 for the quarter. Lincoln statement at jump.

On the Republican side, the current money leader is state Sen. Gilbert Baker, who says he raised more than $500,000 in September (Baker’s third quarter fundraising window was abbreviated as he entered the race in early September).

(more…)

Campaign Lists Updated; Keep ‘Em Coming

By David Kinkade - October 12, 2009 7:17 am

Posting rhythm here has been slow lately, but I’ve been making regular updates and corrections to our list of 2010 candidates as new information is made available, thanks to our readers. Hit the 2010 campaigns button in the right sidebar, or click here, to get to the full list. In recent days we’ve added in several newbies, and a few names have dropped off.

The lists are still incomplete, but we’re treating them as a work in progress. So if you’ve got info on candidates for office (especially for legislative seats) that we don’t have here, send me an email and we’ll check it out.

David Whitaker Exploring Run for Congress in Third District

By David Kinkade - October 5, 2009 3:27 pm

Fayetteville Democrat David Whitaker, a former assistant city attorney, announced a couple of days ago that he formed an exploratory committee for a possible run against GOP Rep. John Boozman in the Third District in 2010.

This was rumored on the Arkansas Times blog a couple of weeks back, and all over Twitter this weekend when Whitaker announced he had filed the papers to form the exploratory committee (via Doug Thompson), but I’m posting it here now in case you were out of town all weekend and completely out of touch with the news, like I was. I just didn’t want you to be the last to know, man.

Stuff From Around Arkansas, October 2

By David Kinkade - October 2, 2009 10:10 am

We haven’t done a “Stuff From Around Arkansas” post in a while. So let’s do one of those, eh, and round up a few things that have been floating around out there the last few days. And incidentally push those horrible Senate candidate photos down the page. Oh, yeah, that’s the stuff.

Big Money: OCD blogger Jason Tolbert has early look at Q3 fundraising numbers for several GOP candidates, including Tim Griffin, Gilbert Baker and Tom Cox. (The Tolbert Report)

Holt On: Former state Sen. Jim Holt may join the GOP primary for U.S. Senate, because, y’know, what’s one more? (AP)

Lincoln Watch: Is this the headline you really want to see if you’re an incumbent Democratic senator in a red state with weak poll numbers? (Politico)

Sales Force: I’ll confess, lottery ticket sale totals are outperforming my expectations. But you’re wondering: Will it last? I don’t know, why the hell are you asking me, I just admitted that I got it wrong the first time, jesus. (AP)

Ancient Chinese Secret: House Speaker Robbie “Robert” Wills takes off on a top secret junket to China. The mission: Negotiate the construction of an underground tunnel from Beijing to the Arkansas Capitol. (Arkansas Times)

Let’s All Go Buy Lottery Tickets At Midnight

By David Kinkade - September 27, 2009 5:19 pm

("If Lottery Tickets Told The Truth"--click image for more)

If you don’t have anything to do at midnight, then you should go to the big kick-off ceremony for the Arkansas lottery at some random gas station in West Little Rock. Hooray! Free money for all! (Unless you listen to John “Buzzkill” Lyon at the Arkansas News Bureau, who’s decided it’s his job to bring everybody down with his “statistical probabilities” and such.)

The midnight observance is lottery director Ernie P.’s way of giving the finger to all those pesky news reporters who have been antagonizing him all these months with questions about exorbitant salaries for lottery employees and sketchy contracting practices. Ha, screw you, newspeople. You should have gone to law school like everyone else.

Gov. Mike Beebe says he won’t be buying any lottery tickets, probably because Mrs. Beebe won’t let him. I know how that goes. I told Arkansas Project Girlfriend (APG) I wanted to go buy a bunch of tickets and she said “no,” because I had already exhausted this year’s budget category for “throwing away money on stupid-ass shit.” Which is alarming, because it’s only September and it turns out there’s still a whole bunch of stupid-ass shit I was planning on throwing away money on this year.

Tim Griffin Would Like To Be Your Congressman

By David Kinkade - September 21, 2009 3:40 pm

Let us cast our memory back fondly to the earlier part of this year, when I speculated that former U.S. Attorney Tim Griffin, who was then weighing a Republican challenge to Sen. Blanche Lincoln, was really interested in running for some OTHER office. Say, let’s quote me, in interrogative mode:

Is Griffin serious about running for the Senate seat? Or is he “exploring” a run to test the feasibility before he “suddenly” decides to drop down to a lower level race and, oh, say, challenge Democratic Rep. Vic Snyder for the Second District House seat?

Thought-provoking questions, Dave! And whaddya know, today Griffin announces today he’ll join the race to challenge Snyder, just as we wondered all those months ago. He even has a (placeholder) website. (Conway’s David Meeks is already in the race, and a couple of others are rumored to be thinking about getting in.)

So let us salute The Arkansas Project’s laudable foresight, while ignoring and forgetting the many, many, many times my wild-ass, harebrained speculations turned out to be laughably and pitifully wrong.

‘You’re Sort of Like Cheap Trick’

By David Kinkade - September 18, 2009 3:53 pm

So I’ve been more or less MIA these last few days in an effort to make money, meaning that this absurd blog had to take a back seat. But here, let’s watch this amusing video in which Uncle Sam seeks advice from conservative pundit Tucker Carlson:

Arkansas connection? Well, Carlson started off as an editorial writer at the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette right here in Little Rock years and years ago, so there’s your damn Arkansas connection. (Via Extra Awesome)

David Branscum to Run for District 90 House Seat

By David Kinkade - September 18, 2009 3:51 pm

Republican David Branscum of Marshall has announced that he’ll run for the Arkansas House of Representatives in District 90. The seat is currently held by Republican Rep. Roy Ragland, who is term-limited. Branscum’s full news release is at the jump.

(more…)