By John Brummett
I’m not seeking to exert influence here. I’m merely looking to shoot straight with readers. This is less an endorsement than a confession.
I stopped in for early-voting Monday. There was no one in line in front of me and the touch-screen devices were breezes. It was a thoroughly pleasant democratic exercise except for, you know, the choices.
It turns out that I need to bring you up to date on how I voted, only because I related in a column some weeks back that I’d told a pollster I was voting, with nose held ever more tightly, for U.S. Sen. Blanche Lincoln.
Discerning readers probably sensed what was happening over the last few weeks. I have related repeatedly — ad nauseum, nauseam, some say — my festering disenchantment with Lincoln’s cynically dishonest campaign.
In the end I simply could not reward her campaign with a vote.
Lincoln has persisted in vile mailers falsely accusing Bill Halter of out-sourcing jobs and wanting to harm Social Security when all he did was sit on a board of a company that placed a tiny percentage of newly created jobs in India and acknowledge a debate questioner’s premise that we need responsible spending increases and benefits cuts to make Social Security work in the long run.
Another mailer, this one creepy, smeared Halter as a participant in “shady drug deals.”
Lincoln’s excuse is that she’s taken special interest hits for two years over health care and labor issues, and is entitled to fight back.
She certainly is. But the better way — better than exploitation and misrepresentation — is called rapid response. The better tack is counter-punching.
You vigorously defend yourself and scoff at your attackers. You call their hand by making the election a referendum on you, a choice between what they say about you and what you say back in confident, authoritative defense of yourself.
But Lincoln obviously has not been confident enough in herself to call for that referendum.
She has pandered to some voters by distancing herself from Barack Obama and to others by embracing the president. She apparently assumes that neither of these groups is smart enough to see what she’s doing. That is to say she insults us.
She moved left on financial reform only for electoral purposes and then, according to a national business publication, had to rely on a more vigorous and committed colleague, Maria Cantwell of Washington, for defense of her new-found liberal position at a Senate Democratic caucus meeting.
Lincoln feigns liberalism on financial reform in Washington while a mysterious Republican group runs ads in her behalf attacking Halter.
Why would a Republican group back her now with John Boozman waiting for November? Is it that she’s approximately as good a Republican investment as Boozman? Or is that Republicans fear the outsider message of Halter?
So I went with Halter, who is smarter, supremely competent, superbly qualified by academic and work experience and perhaps more progressive.
I suspect, my little vote aside, that Lincoln might win without a runoff next week.
Anyway, all we’re doing here is picking someone to get beat in November.
Lincoln will be fine. She has big-time special interest lobbyist written all over her.
The Senate vote was hardly the most difficult on the ballot. It was a snap compared to my deliberations between John Fogleman and Courtney Henry for the Arkansas Supreme Court.
I’ll tell you all about that one in a weekend column and explain why I did what I did.
But what I remain forever certain of is that we need to get these judges nominated by the Arkansas Bar Association, appointed by the governor and confirmed by the state Senate.
A voter deserving of no more respect than Blanche Lincoln extends is hardly qualified to pick a Supreme Court jurist.
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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.
May 13th, 2010 at 9:18 am
John Brummett votes for the more progressive of the two candidates . . .big shocker!!! (saracasm)
May 13th, 2010 at 12:32 pm
Dude… It’s “ad nauseAM,” not “ad nauseUM.” Sheesh.
May 13th, 2010 at 12:40 pm
Helena Box: Thanks. Going to fix it right now. Dude
May 14th, 2010 at 8:53 am
Congratulations on arriving at the only intelligent choice. Sen. Lincoln lost her way about five years ago, staggered off the people’s path and discovered she liked the seductive scent of corporate money and power. So the powerful have received her favors and the working stiffs have received the back of her hand. She has gone along with too many Republican fat-cat schemes to be called a Democrat.
One more thing: You are going to be very surprised on the morning of November 3 when you wake up to learn that the people of Arkansas have rejected The Party of No. We want legislators with the courage to act in the people’s interest, and there isn’t one Senate candidate from The Party of No who has done anything except play bagman for the bosses at the Chamber of Commerce.
May 14th, 2010 at 12:22 pm
Lexicat – I won’t defend either party. . .. but you have blinders on. The financial interests (i.e. Wall Street) heavily backed Obama and the Democrats in 2008. For instance, the Fat Cats at the much maligned Goldman Sachs donated heavily to Obama
As for the “people’s interests” what do you mean by that? That is simplistic rhetoric which really does not mean anything. What do you advocate? More entitlement spending? Good luck with that!! The country is already bankrupt, primarily because of entitlement spending!
And I wish we did have a “Party of No.” And I wish this “Party of No” had said “No” more often during the Bush years.