By John Brummett

Every other e-mail that pops up lately is about this tiresome “card check” issue.

It’s usually from some Republican war room. It inevitably blasts Blanche Lincoln as unfit for re-election to the U.S. Senate from Arkansas next year on account of her wavering on “card check” and being for it at the same time.

That would require a dexterity of which I adjudge her incapable. She is wavering on the bill and AGAINST it at the same time, which is a far easier contortion, at least in Arkansas.

Wavering, as I have explained, is the smart thing to do. The bill might not come to a vote. It might get amended.

And Lincoln is absolutely right — compellingly so — that this should not be a policy priority.

We have an economy and country to save. We’re going to need jobs before we tinker on how those with jobs should be allowed to organize with a union.

We’re going to need affordable health care before we tinker on how those with jobs should be allowed to organize with a union to negotiate collectively on health care benefits.

Lincoln will be against “card check” if circumstances require an actual position, or so I confidently expect.

If there’s a more anti-union state in this country than Arkansas, I don’t know what is. Well, yes, I do. Alabama, Mississippi, Oklahoma. But Arkansas is the most anti-union state in this country with two Democratic U.S. senators. With even one, I should say. We’re the weirdest state. On that perhaps we can agree.

If I am wrong about Lincoln’s position, then she is invited to call and correct me for the record.

Anybody think my phone is going to ring on that one?

You have these Republicans feigning salivation at the thought of challenging Lincoln’s re-election next year.

They don’t really think she’s an easy mark, but, then, Barack Obama did get creamed here. If the economy gets worse and none of what the Democrats are trying does any good, it conceivably could get rough out there for Blanche.

As an insider was telling me the other day, Republicans at this point see Lincoln’s seat as a priority by this formula — a nominee able to help out through his own resources on funding.

So, if you hear the names French Hill and Scott Ford, that’s what it will be all about.

This would seem to take state Sen. Gilbert Baker of Conway out of the equation, unless he invested better than I think from his days as a music teacher at the University of Central Arkansas.

In the meantime, Republicans need to foment this notion that Lincoln is vulnerable. The best way to do that is to hit her on “card check.”

They have this stalking horse, this Karl Rove disciple named Tim Griffin, who got outrageously installed as U.S. attorney in Little Rock for a while. He is going around talking like a potential candidate and blasting Lincoln for being a sell-out to big labor and an opponent of the Arkansas working man’s right to a secret ballot.

That’ll be fine rhetoric until Blanche puts out a news release announcing her opposition to “card check,” at which time Griffin would be without any legs or a tongue.

In fact, here’s the best-case scenario for Lincoln: Griffin actually runs and gets Republican primary competition from, say, state Sen. Kim Hendren, a right-wing firebrand from Northwest Arkansas, and Hendren wins the primary because the Northwest Arkansas candidate always wins Republican primaries.

Hendren would be somewhat weaker than the late Fay Boozman, whom Lincoln vanquished in 1998, and somewhat stronger than Jim Holt, whom she handled in 2004.

Some of a Democratic persuasion profess worry that Lincoln, if forced to oppose card check now, might inspire a Democratic primary opponent of her own, and be weakened thereby. They wonder if it might be Lt. Gov. Bill Halter, who can’t ride the lottery forever.

I’m trying to think of the last politician in Arkansas who got hurt by a challenge from the left.

Well, there’s only one. That would be Tim Wooldridge, who was going to be a conservative Democratic lieutenant governor until Halter brought his bucks, his lottery and his football coach into the fray.

I think Blanche would prove a little more resilient than that.

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John Brummett is a columnist for the Arkansas News Bureau in Little Rock. His e-mail address is jbrummett@arkansasnews.com; his telephone number is (501) 374-0699.