Sunday, October 31, 2010
Throwing out the lifeline
Grab hold.
Posted by Max Brantley on | Permalink | Comments (27)
Boozman 55-36
So says the latest Rasmussen poll.
52 percent of those polled think Boozman's views are mainstream. Whew.
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Human rights An apology for Arkansas
John Brummett this morning apologizes to the world for Clint McCance, the Midland School Board member whose anti-gay rant on Facebook became an international news story. He apologized on CNN and said he will resign, though he hasn't yet, so far as anyone knows. Brummett's point is that he should not be taken as a representative of Arkansas. But how much of Arkansas does he represent?
Brummett suggests, unrealistically I think, that since education is a state responsibility that there ought to be some formal mechanism for the state to step in in such egregious cases. I'm for greater state control of local districts, but this would be a steep mountain to climb legislatively. Also, one small clarification: It's not totally true, as John writes, that McCance does not work in the school. In the winsome way of small-town school districts, he regularly gets board-awarded work cleaning the district's carpets.
Brummett also hints Gov. Mike Beebe's office was behind Education Commissioner Tom Kimbrell's evolving position over the course of a day last week, from a disapproving statement in the morning to a welcome statement essentially urging McCance's resignation in the afternoon. Could be. But I'm still waiting for the first political candidate on Tuesday's ballot to stand up publicly and repudiate McCance's remarks and say resignation was the only possible cure for the situation and, furthermore, that gay people shouldn't be discriminated against in school, at work or anywhere else. Politicians' silence is not a reassuring statement about Arkansas, or at least about the Arkansas politician's perception of the Arkansas voter.
Would a candidate really be damaged by condemning a cheerleader for gay suicide? You wonder. Republican candidates' hope for a state legislative tsunami are based in part on stealth-financed mailers that play the anti-gay card (nice work, Clint Reed). Reed objects to a newspaper report that says gay marriage is among the issues being used in direct mail pieces attacking Democratic legislative candidates. That was an issue in some mailing in previous elections (for which he also disavows responsibility) but says they don't feature in this year's work. Taxes and such things as votes on popular election of the president are featured, he said.
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Arkansas Politics Watching the storm surge
I feel this morning a little like we used to feel in South Louisiana tracking the hurricane eye coordinates across the Gulf of Mexico as they bore down on the coastal marshes. How bad will it be? Is it time to leave for higher ground?
A survey of the newspapers this morning finds not a glimmer of hope that Democrats won't take a punishing direct hit on Tuesday. Some truly unthinkable things could happen, including election of a grifting nut to a statewide office on the strength of his name's resemblance to that of a race car driver. Republicans, of course, can say, "Yeah, but what about the fiddler?"
- Brian Chilson
- MORAL VICTORY: If Lincoln gets 46 percent, would she be the Jim Holt of 2010?
Click here to read through Arkansas political predictions from Skip Rutherford's Copper Grill breakfast club. If Blanche gets 46 percent, won't that be a moral victory? A flawed and wounded candidate doomed to lose two years ago gets 46 percent? That would make her the Jim Holt of 2010, a surprisingly strong showing for such a loser.
Wake me when it's over. 2012 I hope.
PS — It is a bad day when I share some agreement with Maureen Dowd about the president's political skills.
PPS — Nate Silver's 538 blog has done the numbers-crunch of all number crunching. Bottom line prediction at this hour, 51 Democrats in the Senate, Republican House 232-202. He's got Boozman by 22 points in the Senate race. In the House, he has Rep. Mike Ross +18, Republican Tim Griffin +15 and Republican Rick Crawford +8.
PPPS — For those who missed it, Daily Kos gave Sen. Blanche Lincoln one last boot in the pants yesterday for blaming Bill Halter for her problems.
PPPS — Please watch the cartoon on Leslie Peacock's Eye Candy blog. It's in the video window,too.
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Saturday, October 30, 2010
The line is open
Play ball or whatever.
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Arkansas Politics Beebe lead widens
New Rasmussen poll gives Mike Beebe a 60-38 lead over Jim Keet.
Will Beebe hold some of his campaign loot back for some needed party building the next two years? Or blow it all on a blowout?
Posted by Max Brantley on | Permalink | Comments (11)
Police beat On the Border burns
Reader reports major fire at the On the Border restaurant on Chenal Parkway. Channel 4 is reporting fire began about 4 a.m. and damage is at least $500,000.
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Arkansas Politics An issue in treasurer's race
Bobby Tullis, the former legislator from Mineral Springs who's the Green Party candidate for treasurer, pledged today if he was elected not to accept political contributions from bankers. He called on incumbent Democrat Martha Shoffner to return her campaign contributions from bankers. It's an old custom. About all the treasurer does is invest state money — in banks.
Tullis also said he'd sell the state-owned Tahoe that Shoffner drives.
Tullis has a few blemishes on his public record and it's late in the game, but you can't really knock the points.
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Politics Republicans: Still saying no
Dana Milbank scores again with me today in a column lamenting Republican talking points: 1) their highest priority is making President Obama a one-termer and 2) no compromise, on anything.
When Republicans gained control of Congress 16 years ago, the revolutionaries were eventually convinced by their leaders to cut deals with President Bill Clinton, leading to milestone achievements on the budget and welfare reform.But there is no Bob Dole in the Republican leadership today; there isn't even a Newt Gingrich. There is nobody with the clout to tell Tea Party-inspired backbenchers when it's time to put down the grenades and negotiate. Rather, there are weak leaders who, frightened by the Tea Party radicals, have become unquestioning followers of a radical approach.
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Arkansas Culture and Characters Homecoming a 'Thriller'
Washington Post blogger sounds a little skeptical about the Razorback band's plan to lead all of Razorback Stadium fans in a Michael Jackson-style "Thriller" dance at halftime of today's homecoming football game with Vanderbilt. See instructional video. Too complicated for me.
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Politics Bill Clinton's 'bank shot'
The possibility that Bill Clinton might have given some encouragement to Kendrick Meek to drop out of the Florida Senate race (both say it didn't happen, but ...) appears to have moved some black voters to act on the practical consideration that Meek won't win and Charlie Crist is a better alternative than the Republican.
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Friday, October 29, 2010
TGIF
I'm glad this one is over. Your comments welcome. Some spare parts:
* Some 237,000 have voted already in Arkansas. Pulaski loves that early voting; still more votes cast, about 5,000, in Pulaski than the other seven counties of the rest of the 2nd District combined. Early sites open from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday. Any registered voter can vote at any site, see votepulaski.net. Only the downtown site open Monday, 8 to 5 p.m.
* You want voter intimidation? Republican 'baggers will show you how to do some intimidating — roll in on elderly black people in their homes and interrogate them over their absentee ballot requests.
* The Game and Fish Commission said today it would open to inspection applications to be director of the agency. Some think the overview of the job being distributed by the Commission to applicants makes it sound like the director is intended to be a tool of the commission. Read it for yourself.
* Did you know the guy who stomped on the Kentucy Moveon demonstrator demanded that SHE apologize to HIM? Anyway, her response is good.
* Rally to Restore Sanity. A sympathy rally in Little Rock, noon to 5 Saturday in MacArthur Park. It will combine an earlier planned event at the Capitol.
* The Koch boys' and their Americans for Prosperity are also going after Steve Breedlove, Democratic candidate for state rep in addition to Carolyn Staley and I presume many more Democrats. AFP called the Church of Christ preacher a liberal. They want to elect only Republicans who pledge the corporate polluters' line. Do they ever plan to report their spending in Arkansas?
* Gene Sayre tells me that Judge Mary McGowan has scheduled a hearing at 11 a.m. Monday on his lawsuit seeking removal of the legislature's bastard triplet of a constitutional amendment, Issue 2, from the Tuesday ballot. She agreed there are no factual issues to consider, only legal ones.
Posted by Max Brantley on | Permalink | Comments (16)
Human rights UPDATE: No resignation yet from Clint McCance
Stanley said the first he heard of McCance's intention to resign was Thursday night when McCance announced it on the Anderson Cooper 360 show on CNN. McCance came under fire for remarks about homosexuals on his Facebook page.
Stanley said the letter would go to school board president Bryson Wood. Stanley was out of town when the controversy in his district came to a boil, but he worked behind the scenes with Arkansas Education Commissioner Tom Kimbrell and both issued statements in favor of McCance's resignation.
UPDATE: We talked briefly with Wood Friday morning then got an update this afternoon. Wood said that after trying several times to reach McCance last night after his appearance on CNN and most of the day today, he finally got in touch with McCance around 3 p.m. When he tried to pin McCance down on when he would submit a formal letter of resignation to the school board so they could act upon it, McCance refused to be specific.
"He would not be specific to me as to when he would submit it," Wood said. "He indicated anywhere from three days to a week." At first he said within a week, then he said within a few days."
Like Superintendent Stanley, Wood said that McCance's announcement on CNN last night was the first he'd heard of McCance's intention to resign.
Wood said that protestors have indicated that they would be back at the school on Monday if McCance's resignation hadn't been made official.
"We're wanting this to go away for the sake of our kids at our school so this doesn't cause any more hardship on anyone," Wood said. "We're wanting to bring some closure to it, but we're kind of at his mercy until we receive that resignation."
UPDATE II: KTHV Channel 11 has revealed another odd wrinkle in the ongoing saga of Clint McCance — a man named Stephen Blackwood, who says he drove from Little Rock to Pleasant Plains, met with McCance (who Blackwood says showed up to their meeting carrying a pistol) and talked the embattled school board member into announcing his resignation. Blackwood appeared with McCance during his appearance on CNN's Anderson Cooper 360 Thursday night. Blackwood runs a foundation dedicated to the memory of his son, who committed suicide in 2008.
More on the jump...
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Explosive news
The story about explosives found in cargo flights to the U.S. has broadened to include a fighter escort for a flight from Yemen to New York. This one promises to grow.
Posted by Max Brantley on | Permalink | Comments (9)
Politics Voter caging: a view from the street
A Times reader sends along an interesting visualization of the addresses contained in the "caging" file that was attached to a 2004 email sent from Republican second congressional district candidate Tim Griffin, then national research director and deputy communications chief for the G.O.P., to a campaign chairman and other party officials. For background on the voter caging issue, read articles from Greg Palast here and here. Palast wrote in 2004:
A check of the demographics of the addresses on the "caging lists," as the GOP leaders called them indicated that most were in African-American majority zip codes.Ion Sanco, the non-partisan elections supervisor of Leon County (Tallahassee) when shown the lists by this reporter said: "The only thing I can think of - African American voters listed like this - these might be individuals that will be challenged if they attempted to vote on Election Day."
...Joseph Agostini, speaking for the GOP, suggested the lists were of potential donors to the Bush campaign. Oddly, the supposed donor list included residents of the Sulzbacher Center a shelter for homeless families.
A spokesperson for the Bush campaign at the time said the caging list was not set up to try to challenge voters. Setting up such a list, wrote Palast, "would be a crime under federal law. The Voting Rights Act of 1965 outlaws mass challenges of voters where race is a factor in choosing the targeted group."
The file contains Google street view shots of each of the addresses listed in the excel file. Take a look for yourself. Do these look like potential Bush donors? Think there are any Bush Super Rangers lurking around these confines?
Posted by Gerard Matthews on | Permalink | Comments (15)
Event Calendar
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Re: Riverfest eve open line UPDATE
Warren Buffett is on a newspaper acquisition spree -
http://www.omaha.com/article/20120524/MONE…
…- on May 24, 2012
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Re: New attention to Tom Cotton, no press champion
His comments were made from the perspective of an infantry officer under fire downrange, responsible…
- on May 24, 2012
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Re: Riverfest eve open line UPDATE
I think Max has summed up very well the future of newspapers in Northwest Arkansas,…
- on May 24, 2012
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