Citizens' Daily Lobby

Yesterday we encountered a Secure Arkansas petitioner at the Rodney Parham Kroger.  He was trying to get signatures for the group’s meanspritied and unnecessary ballot initiative.   Mexican immigrants don’t want our jobs, according to this guy.  They just want welfare.  That explains why I see them working everywhere…   I don’t think this is an issue Kroger wants to be mixed up in, and I hope they kicked him off their property shortly after I complained.  For those who don’t know, the ballot initiative is to keep any undocumented person over the age of 14 from receiving government benefits.  It turns out that’s already Federal law, but, hey, who’s counting?

The “grassroots” group has never published its sponsors, as previously advertised on their website.  They even removed the “sponsors” link.

I have been waiting to see how the rhetoric from Progressive bloggers would swing now that it’s Blanche vs. Boozman in the Senate race.   I cynically predicted that there would be a softening towards the incumbent and a move to make amends.  I was wrong, at least on some counts.  ArDem of BlueArkansas had this to say on the topic:

As recently as yesterday I was discussing the possibility of helping Lincoln out if just to try to keep her from becoming a serious drag on the ticket. Some people have already urged me to make that push. After reading this [refers to Blanche Lincoln's apparent concessions for Walton-backed Arvest Bank] today, I realize that that’s not going to happen. …

We are not going to sit down and keep our mouths shut just because she managed to squeek out of the primary. Wrong is wrong, and when she’s wrong we’ll call her and everyone else on it. And if Senator Lincoln really wants to fight a two front war going into the general, then that choice is hers.

I couldn’t agree more.

The Green Party of Arkansas has fought the uphill battle again to be included on the ballot.  From the StatePolitics blog:

Green Party of Arkansas spokesman Mark Jenkins tells me that they plan to hold their nominating convention on July 24 although the exact date and time have not been worked out. Jenkins is not sure how many candidates the Party will field but if certain that John Gray will seek for their U.S. Senate nomination and Ken Adler will seek nomination for their nomination for U.S. Congress – District 1.

This will put John Gray and Independent candidate Trevor Drown alongside Republican Rep. John Boozman and Democratic Sen. Blanche Lincoln on the ballot for U.S. Senate in November.

If you were planning to skip the vote for Senate this year due to the bitter aftertaste of  both major party candidates, a vote for Gray would accomplish much the same thing and may make you feel like a better citizen.

The 2010 campaign season is complicated in Arkansas by the Fiscal legislative session taking place this year.  Several state legislators have their sights set on higher office, but legislative rules better suited for the old system of bi-annual legislative sessions may handicap some officials more than others in their fundraising efforts.  Members of the State House of Representatives are not allowed to raise money during the legislative session, while members of the Senate may do so.  H.R. 1003 was introduced by Rep. Lea and was assigned to the House Rules committee this week, where it was given a thumbs-up .  The bill will extend the current prohibition on fundraising during the legislative session to special and fiscal sessions.   Under the Dome’s Rep. Steve Harrelson questions how this rule will be interpreted for federal elections, which are governed by the Federal Election Commission.

House Speaker Robbie Wills, running for Vic Snyder’s seat in the 2nd District, has given his support to the measure, but it is unclear to what extent his current bankroll (currently over $100,000) influenced that support.  Rep. Joyce Elliott, also seeking the 2nd District seat, and most likely with substantially less money in her war-chest, says she would raise money during the session if allowed to do so.  State Senators Gilbert Baker and Kim Hendren, both running against Senator Blanche Lincoln,  have said that they will not raise money during the session.  Tim Griffin didn’t get a vote, but odds are good he will use the fundraising situation to his advantage in the 2nd District race.  The Baxter Bulletin has the full report.

How will Arkansas Progressives vote in 2010?   The choice may very well come down to swallowing a healthy dose of cynicism, holding the nose, and voting for Blanche Lincoln, if no credible progressive candidate surfaces.   It will be hard to make a symbolic vote against Lincoln when her opponent represents a party currently under the control of extreme conservatives.  Take GOP hopeful Gilbert Baker, for example.  He honestly believes that Blanche Lincoln is a liberal.  He won a GOP straw poll this weekend and had this to say:

“I’m proven and battle tested,” he said. “I will raise the money to beat Blanche Lincoln and move Arkansas from a liberal Democrat [seat] to a conservative Republican one.”- City Wire

Anyone who would call Lincoln a liberal is seriously, dangerously conservative, and progressives need to fight with everything they have to keep him out of office, any office.  This is, after all, the Blanche Lincoln who wants to make estate tax law easier on the wealthy, and the Lincoln who has battled for private insurance companies and against the public option throughout the health care reform debate.   They don’t call her a “conservadem” for nothing.

More great quotes from candidates who don’t have a clue about history:

Curtis Coleman: “We must reduce the cost of government by reducing the size of government.  We don’t need a government that lives within its means. We need a government that lives within our means.”  Curtis apparently doesn’t know that the size and cost of government was increased under both Reagan and Bush II.

Conrad Reynolds cited his lack of political experience as a qualification to office.   I wonder where he got that idea?  Could he have gleaned it from a certain autobiography that is selling like gangbusters to coggity old Republican coots?

Fred Ramey expressed that most Republican of ideals:  Purity of Ideology.  “I’m not crazy about a big tent.  We need to have some core conservative principles and that’s what makes us a party.”  He also stressed his lack of experience as a qualification for office.

Kim Hendren apparently had few coherent thoughts to express, but he did manage to say this: “When our military is asked to fight, let them win,” he said.  “And, nation building?  The nation we should be building is the United States of America.”  So much for cleaning up our messes overseas.  America First, Iraq and Afghanistan last.

Tom Cox shared a story about a GPS voice that told him our country needs to recalculate its route.  Metaphorically.  Right.  Remember that commercial with the guy who wanted to date the GPS voice in his car?

Progressives, these are the people in your GOP neighborhood.   You can get the whole, existentially challenging story at TalkBusiness.

If you were wondering where Senator Lincoln’s loyalties lie, a look at campaign donations (health insurance industry aside) may shed some light.  According to David Sanders, of Arkansas News, many of Lincoln’s supporters are prominent Republicans.  That’s right.  Republicans are just tickled pink to have her in the Senate. Says Sanders:

many of Lincoln’s biggest money backers are getting engaged. In fact, many of these supporters are prominent Republicans who need to keep her on the Senate Finance Committee so she can continue to protect their interests in a potentially hostile Democratic Senate. And, now that she chairs Agriculture Committee, her power to wheel and deal has only increased, which only makes her a more valuable commodity in the Senate.

The writing doesn’t have to be on the wall for everyone to get this message…Senator Lincoln is about Business, not people.    I hope she makes a lot of Republican friends with that message, because she’s alienating many Democrats.

A partial list of her contributors may be found at the Center for Responsive Politics. Note that Koch Industries is among the top 20 donors.

Thanks to Blanche Lincoln for being the only Democrat to vote for an amendment in the Senate Finance Committee to delay voting on the full health care reform bill until I and the insurance company lobbyists have at least 72 hours to read it.

Congress can’t be trusted to do its job without constant input from me,  Dr. Sally Q. Public.   I must be able to read and comment on every written and spoken word from committee sessions to the floor.  Not one jot or tittle should be added to or removed from any bill or even draft bill without my review.   I am the Universal Expert, fully and impartially informed on all issues by my favorite corporate news sources.  In fact, Senator Lincoln should probably have my number in her speed dial for legislative emergencies.

I am also a busy person, and for that reason legislation should be kept short. If Congress has to make a bill greater than 100 pages for any reason, then the entire country should just wait patiently until I have finished my reading.  And don’t give me any of that “conceptual language” business.  I want the full legislative jargon.  Total immersion.

I don’t know how Congress ever managed to do its job without me in the bad old days before the Internet.

Amid all the righteous indignation about presidents who appoint lower-level advisors without asking the Senate’s opinion (on that score, we are at Bush 32 and Obama 31 “czars” according to Wikipedia,) Tim Griffin enters the 2010 election fray.  Eric Kleefeld at Talking Points Memo reminds us that Mr. Griffin’s appointment was arranged in such a way as to “circumvent” Senate confirmation, using a little-known provision in the Patriot Act.

TPM revives an old Youtube video that’s worth a look.

How times have changed.  Those who as recently as last summer referred to Arkansas, when they absolutely couldn’t ignore it, as “flyover country,”  are now intensely concerned with all things  Arkansan.   Now that Blanche Lincoln and Mike Ross could stand directly  in the way of both a public insurance option and significant progress in climate change legislation, progressive, conservative, and environmental groups from all over the country are parachuting in (because flights from more important places don’t land here in flyover country, after all) to save our state from itself.

Paratroopers have included the conservative front groups Americans for Progress and Citizens for Patient Rights and the environmental groups 1Sky and Clean Energy for America.   Most recently,  Firedoglake PAC, under the leadership of Jane Hamsher, has entered the state’s political fray.    Ms. Hamsher’s  group is taking paratrooping one step further:  it is attempting to move in as an occupying force in Arkansas politics.    Last week, the blog announced it would raise money to find challengers for Senator Lincoln and Congressman Ross in the 2010 Democratic primaries.

On the Rachel Maddow Show last night, Ms. Hamsher cited the widely quoted DailyKos/Research 2000 poll results released last week that demonstrated overwhelming support for the public option in Arkansas, especially among Democrats, as her impetus for leaping into Arkansas politics.    (Well, that and the fact that influencing voters in Arkansas is so much cheaper than in larger, more educated markets like New York).

Ms. Hamsher, reading one poll from a partisan political group does not equal a real understanding of the  political situation down here  in flyover country.  I would love to believe the results of that poll as much as anyone, but I live here every day.  With the exception of a few faithful commenters on blogs like the liberal Arkansas Blog,  the response of citizens to the public option has been overwhelmingly, vehemently negative.

Even if one accepts that Arkansans favor the public option, it is extremely naive, or perhaps arrogant, to suggest that Arkansans are anything other than Conservative, or that Ms. Lincoln and Mr. Ross do not reflect their constituencies.   While Arkansas didn’t make the top 10 most conservative states, according to an August Gallup poll, it still rates in the “most conservative” group.   That is most likely a direct result of its religiosity.  Arkansas ranks as “>70% protestant, other non-catholic”  in the same poll.  One needs only to look at the results of recent presidential elections in Arkansas to conclude that the state’s large population of Democrats are right-leaners.

A challenge from the left for Mike Ross would be an interesting diversion in the primaries, but about as likely to materialize as Julius Caesar.   That’s because voters in his district actually like the man, and think he’s doing a bang-up job.   Blanche Lincoln is another story.  Not only is a viable Democratic challenger unlikely for 2010,  but a strong challenge could prove disastrous given the anti-Obama and anti-Democrat sentiment coursing through the state.  Unless you like the alternatives, Ms. Hamsher (Tea Party leader  and ultra-conservative- Harvard- graduate- turned- infantryman among them) you would do well to spend your PAC money elsewhere.

I agree with the political sentiment, but the methods are nothing short of condescending to our state.  I invite Ms. Hamsher and members of the FDL PAC to visit our state and talk to Progressives on the ground before parachuting in to save the day.

Thanks for  this find, from an unexpected source, MotownSports.

Yesterday, the New England Journal of Medicine released the results of a survey of practicing physicians in the United States.   (This is a scientific survey with rigorous methodology, for those of you who care about such things.)     Results indicate that the heavy-handed propaganda of conservative groups like Conservatives for Patients’ Rights intended to make the public believe doctors are opposed to the public option is misleading because most physicians support a choice of a public and private option, with only 27.3% in favor of private insurance only.   The survey included physicians from different specialties and from primary care practices.  It’s especially encouraging to note that specialists also support the choice of a public option to a similar degree as primary care physicians.  Specialists have been portrayed as being most opposed to a public option, presumably due to reduced salaries.    If the support of Arkansans isn’t enough to win over our recalcitrant legislators in Congress, perhaps overwhelming physician support for the public option will help persuade them.  Call or write today and urge Blanche Lincoln and Mark Pryor to support a strong public option.

Source: NEJM, 2009

Physicians’ Support of Options for Expanding Insurance Coverage and Medicare.

Panel A shows the proportion of survey respondents who favored public options only, those who favored both public and private options, and those who favored private options only. Panel B shows the proportions of respondents (according to their medical specialty) who supported, opposed, or were undecided about the expansion of Medicare to include adults between the ages of 55 and 64 years. The proportion of support was consistent across all four specialty groups (P=0.08).