Arkansas Blog

Max,

a disater is putting it lightly. It was a CF(Cluster F***). AR tried to outthink itself and we got screwed. Move all the primaries to one day. AR is never going to be a big player in the pres. election becasue we only have 6 electorial votes. I think some of the races could have been changed had the primaries not been split, the Brown-Elliot race being one of them. But who knows. But I do know that the primaries need to be moved back to one day, no more splitting. I know a lot of people who forgot about the election or asked, "What are we voting for, again?".

Somebody bifurcated in here.

Tracy Steele shouldn't be listened to for anything anymore. Between this moving the primary boondoggle and his Martin Luther King commission bit he has no credibility.

I agree completely that we should not have moved up our primary.

Ironically, we would have gotten more attention from the Presidential had we not moved it up.

And below than 20% turnout is criminal

BUT I do take exception to Joyce's race. Joyce won the African American vote and the White vote, she won 15 of the 20 precincts, two precincts were a tie and Irma won her two home precincts and p82 by 9 votes.

This was not a case of Hillcrest out voting AA boxes it was a case of Joyce beating Irma in every corner of the district. A higher turnout would have only helped Joyce's margins.

You actually made the argument yourself...yeah 496 is a big margin but you could take the Hillcrest box completely out of the picture and Joyce still won the district with 55% of the vote

That is a real and conclusive ass kicking

But yes Tracy Steele is an idiot

Max -

You're looking at this process ass-backward. Moving the Presidential primary was a smashing success!! Arkansas, for the first time, had a real voice on the nominees for President - both for Republicans and Democrats. Has that ever happened? 1976? Maybe, but isn't that a stretch?

We were a real part of the process back in February, and allowed to vote for the candidate of our choice, since all the candidates were on the ballot for both parties. That wouldn't have happened if the Prez primary was on May 20 b/c the candidates who have since dropped out would not have filed to run in AR. Filing opened after the following candidates dropped out: Biden, Edwards, Dodd, Richardson, Romney, Gulliani, Thompson.

The Presidential nomination race is just about over now, Barack Obama is just 69 delegates away from the nomination, everyone knows that. If the election had remained on May 20, the turnout might have been only slightly higher. AND, lest you forget, the Republican race was over months ago! If the Prez primary was May 20, 200,000 Republican voters would have been denied the chance to cast their vote in a meaningful election.

Food for thought - more voters turned out in February, 2008, than in 2006 or 2004 primaries. In 2006 we even had contested primary races for statewide office, but voters still turned out heavier this year. They knew their presidential vote really mattered this time and they wanted their voices to be heard!!

Yes - turnout was low this year. But in 2005, when the change was made, who could've reasonably predicted there'd be no primaries for the US Senate or for any of the 4 Congressional seats? Those types of races would have ginned up turnout. If say, like in 1996, 2 members of Congress and a US Senator had opted not to run again in 2008, turnout would have been dramtically higher - would you still pooh-pooh the Prez primary move? No one could have predicted that sea change even in 1994.

For the first time ever, my vote mattered in a presidential primary!! It was a wonderful and timely idea moving the presidential primary up.

Max, please post the early-2005 Arkansas Times editorial and your columns, or Ernie's, and anybody else's, in which y'all lambasted such a "bad" idea. I'm sure all of them predicted such a Clinton-Obama scrap that would last nigh into June.

Voter Galore, you're spot on.

ARK. BLOG: My recollection was that I was against this idea from the start. I thought, particularly, the notion that there'd be some big economic boost from visitors was unpersuasive. I invite you to find words to make me eat, but that's my recollection. Though, there was a time when everybody started rushing that it might have looked like there was some advantage to joining the stampede.

But let me say now, for the future: Let's keep the primaries together. And let's not have them too early. The campaign season is long enough already. Let's move instead for a change in Democratic party rules to a rational, round-robin process that gives states turns at starting the process and that removes Iowa and New Hampshire from primacy. Somebody suggested something akin to four big primary weeks spread over time, with states cycling through the process, perhaps lumped in georgraphic ways. That's worth thinking about. And let's make them all primaries. I know for sure that I opposed a caucus for Arkansas and still do.

Well, Max, I did a little figurin' based on the numbers of voters in Pulaski County in the Court of Appeals race, and it seem that our polling place, Pulaski Heights Presbyterian, had the second highest number of voters with 912. Fire Station No.10 had the most voters with 1,067, but those folks had contested races for House District 38 --- Republican AND Democratic --- and they beat us by only 155 voters. Once again, I am happy to be surrounded by people who vote, even if some of them vote wrong.

AP story about Griffen's loss going around this week... paints it this way: (at my name)

AR judge who sought free speech voted off bench. Some stories highlight his attempts to speak out against the war as a particular point of voter rejection.

Am curious what central AR residents think about the news claims?

Pavel-

"Once again, I am happy to be surrounded by people who vote, even if some of them vote wrong."

If we all thought the "right way" according to Pavel, there would be no need for elections.

Relax, Lawdog. I have a pretty good grasp of the democratic process. It was a little joke, intended for an audience with a sense of humor, which apparently wouldn't include you.

I agree.

The election was a disaster, and Tracy Steele is an triple-dipping idiot who is an embarrassment to the so-called "black community."

Hey, you're the guys who buy ink by the barrel and save back issues by the stack, so I invite YOU
to find your "thoughts" (in ink) at the time the issue came up in the Ledge.

:-)

I did perform an archive search on your home page but turned up nothing. Honestly, I don't think it showed up on your radar screen and never prompted really strong thoughts one way or the other, and that's ok. I do agree that the Chamber-like touts of an ecnomic boost were pretty weak but I don't think moving the presidential primary date was inherently a bad idea.

ARK. BLOG: We buy ink by the gallon-can and wrap fish with our back copies. I did a search, too, and found one brief blog reference, after the stampede began, in which I gave a half-hearted "maybe so" to a Daily Kos comment when oithers were pushing their dates up. He liked it because he, like me, didn't like Iowa and N.H. dominance over the process. I do remember talking personally with Tracy Steele about it -- back when we were talking -- and just not being enthusiastic about it. Worked up? No. But I do think we can agree it didn't work out so hot, whether anybody foresaw that or not.

Max - No, we can't all agree that it didn't work out so hot. It was a massive success.

My vote counted for once. If we did it your way, my vote for president would have been irrelevant.

Thanks for your search.

It's just really too easy to sit back now and say it sucked; no, it didn't; yes, it did; three years after the move was made.

ARK. BLOG: But if we don't say it sucked enough, it might not get changed.

STATE SENATE 33

Polling place Brown Elliott

109/112 - Pulaski Heights 110 579

Precincts 109/112 probably have the highest % of dedicated Arktimes readers in the state

Seems to me, Voter Galore, that any vote for a candidate other than Obama (probably) or McCain is irrelevant now, and a vote for one of those will be irrelevant after the general election. That's just the way it shakes out.
If I had my druthers, I'd compress the election season and have regional primaries on a round robin basis per Max's suggestion. Most of all, I'd compress the season.
BTW, hasn't anyone noticed that two primaries cost about twice as much. We have this much money to burn?

So I guess now you morons will want to move it back? Then the next time presidential primary will be over before May as most always are. Hell it was over before May this time too. At least this time we actually got to vote.

Regarding the illogical argument that it hurt turn out:

People don't normally turn out for presidential primaries in Arkansas because they are already over before May. The reason for the low turn out this time, was a lack of Democratic primary contests. Not a single state-wide or congressional office was contested on either side in the primary. THAT is why the turnout was low.