Arkansas Blog

Question is: Will they face off in the Republican primary where Blanche"s politics are best represented?

How much does being a Senator pay? It's certainly more than selling cars these days. All this would really mean is more failed legislation for motorcycle helmets.

The REAL question is, will we be able to tell any difference if he wins.

What does this announcement mean for the chances of Tim "Cager" Griffen?

ARK. BLOG: AMF. (Adios, my friend.)

Has Kim Hendren been reading this blog?
Ya betcha!

Did he not introduce the "tarp law" every year he's in in the leg?

I find it hard to believe that "the change" we need is to send Asa Hutchinson's brother in law to Congress. He's 70 years old and already has his tombstone standing in the Gravette cemetery. We don't need to monkey with that planned trajectory.

Given the choice between Lincoln and Hendren I'll not be leaving a hanging chad for either. But checking the stadium clock, I see we still have plenty of time for a real Democrat to throw his or her hat in the ring. By November, 2010 the Obama magic will give a big boost to a real Democrat in a race with Lincoln. Blanche has no stellar Democratic voting record to run on. She can be easily painted with a Bush-enabling Republican brush and cannot answer.

Come on Democrats.....look around your hood and find us a real Democrat to run against these 2 Republicans. I have the perfect guy for the job, but he laughs and starts backing away when I bring the subject up. But I'm not finished with him yet! Let's make a break from the past....No Lincoln and No Hendren-Hutchinson!

Look at that guy.. Somebody get him some tan in the "John Boehner" can and perhaps some more blood. What did they do, prop him up in a casket before that snapshot?

He looks older than Faubus.... just the generation we need. Somebody do some digging... I bet Blanche or her Wal-Mart financial backers paid this "shills" price of admission.

They can make a new movie regarding this effort: "Dead Man Talking." He"s 71 or will be this year. Time for him to take it to the house-his house!

You people are so predictable. Just like most liberal "talking points" against John McCain -- somehow his old age disqualifies him. Kim Hendren would be a breath of fresh air as a U.S. senator. I will be campaigning for him as a private citizen for sure.

"Kim Hendren would be a breath of fresh air as a U.S. senator. "

Huh oh. Shades of Marion Crank.

Let's look at this logically. Blanche has already got a ton of money in the bank. She's carrying water for the Walton's and Tyson's on the estate tax and card-check issues. Surely she gets some payback on that. Then the Republicans trot out ASA!'s brother-in-law? Another re-tread.

There's only one issue right now for Republicans in Arkansas (and elsewhere). It's what the so-called Tea Parties were about. It's about race. Sad to admit, but true. You can see it all across the country. If they were truly about deficit spending, they would have loved Clinton and hated Bush and Reagan. Not that consistency is their hallmark.

Republican chances in 2010 are all about race. Sad, shameful, embarrassing, and true.

I love old people so much I'm becoming one. Hendren's age doesn't worry me much, it's unearthing another member of the Hutchinson Political Grave Yard.

The only way to get a breath of fresh air is by finding new breath coming out of a new person. We need someone without the taint of the past on them. The era of Justice Jim Johnson is over......time for a newbie.

"We, Arkansas state legislators, have maintained a balanced budget.."
Hendren.

Damn, I wish Bill Clinton had never run on that proposition so often.
Of course they can all claim "balanced budget" because Ark's Constitution leaves them
no choice. However the last R guv we had sure tried like hell to get around Ark's mandate
of no deficits.

Libertus, I don't know if you noticed but Senator Kim has a webpage for his Ford Car dealership
in Espanol! How's that going to sit with the anti-immigrant crowd he will farm?

blue

Oh boy....we get to choose between Republican-light, Bush-enabling Lincoln and a seventy-year-old real Republican who's Asa Hutchinson's brother-in-law. Now that's Change I can believe in.

(But I am thrilled that Tim/Gilbert's hopes got deflated...it's the little things sometimes.)

Well, eLwood, the huge amounts of money from the feds makes it possible for the Arkies to balance their budget while moaning about excessive federal spending and indebtedness. Kinda like the texas teabaggers, for example.

Max,
Thanks for the 1982 campaign results page.

Do I recall 1982! It was the year of my second marriage and just to celebrate how
bizzare I could be...I voted for Monroe A. Schwarzlose in 1982.

I think Monroe was indeed an outsider. Some later said he was used to split the vote.

What year did Hendren have his R change operation? After RayGun had run up the largest deficits in U.S. history until the Texas Village Idiot came along?

I believe it was Hendren who submitted a bill for Ark to have a special day for Raygun instead of one honoring our current president.

Kiss Jefferson County goodbye Kim.
.

eLwood, the group I worked with would create a pool and guess the number of votes Monroe A. Schwarzlose would get in these elections and the closest got the pot. The winner was always one who was the one most in the dark politically.

Dang, what bad grammar.

The Hendren pic keeps coming up alongside that hideous varicose vein ad. Kind of makes me wonder if he was the volunteer for the picture.

"No lefties will abandon her for Hendren come the general election, no matter how grumpy they are about her rightward tilt."

This lefty will vote for him. Of course only because he can't win. If the 60 votes in the senate were not an issue, I'd be rooting for him to win.

I would vote for a Ficus tree over Blanche Lincoln. Good year to run as a Green or Independent. Any takers? I will help run your campaign.

I'd run as an Independent, but I'm 24 and have no political experience or money.

>>If the 60 votes in the senate were not an issue, I'd be rooting for him to win.

John Doe, in case you missed it Blanche has already screwed that pooch. She's part of
DINO group of "moderate U.S. Senators," kinda similar to Marky's gang of 14 which
ended up validating each one of Bush's federal bench appointments.

With Blanche's new stance I have no idea of how long after the election before she
might tiptoe back to the Demo side of the aisle.

She will do nothing about improved health care other than a little more subsidy to the
current non-working systems, no support for EFCA, and will give out all the bailouts to
financial elites as Geithner calls upon them to do.

She's screwed every consumer in America who may ever get into credit card debt trouble and
done nothing to curtail horrendous abuses of added charges for any infraction of
explicit and implicit rules arbitrarily set by credit card companies. I would like to see how
much of her $millions in campaign coffers came from credit card companies.

Blanche is definitely in office for the benefit of OnePerCent America.
If you're part of OnePerCent America then she's your gal.
.

Hey, can't we get a decent DEMOCRATIC opponent for Miz Blanche? And Little Markie's seat too, when next his time comes around?
Now far be it for me to offer a suggestion or two to the Repubs -- well, until I start mouthing -- but does it make sense for that party to fall in behind a 71 year old who vows to serve only one term if elected? Isn't the august body to which he aspires built on a solid tradition of power and political sway linked to longevity of service? Seems to me the gops would want a young'un, relatively speaking of course, to carry their standard.
Uhm, forget I said that. Wouldn't want to give 'em any bright ideas . . .

Libertus, it was pretty obvious you "have no political experience " when you said earlier that "Kim Hendren would be a breath of fresh air as a U.S. senator." If he offers "fresh air," get me some oxygen, or even better, get some for him!

This documents so many problems with both this state and the GOP here. Kim Hendren is a lightweight. Nice guy, but no U.S. Senator. Whatever you think about their poiltics, French Hill or Scott Ford could go to DC and be a player. Hendren could not. Worse, if Blanche is at all vulnerable (a questionable proposition) it would take someone like one of those two (more likely Scott, with a less partisan past) to knock off a sitting Senator.

But the GOP will run probably our 23rd-best candidate from a statewide perspective because the party is contolled by two counties out of touch with the state. And the state will get the quality of Blank Lincoln because we don't have real competition for statewide office. Shame.

Vic Snyder needs that seat.

I think the groundswell for a write-in campaign for "None of the Above" may be building.

doc,
I agree. I am also sick and tired of voting against . I voted for Vic Snyder the first time he was elected. Then, somehow, he forgot to listen to ALL of his constituents. I am so disappointed in him. I love him lots as a person, but, as long as he or ANY elected official begins to vote upon PARTY lines and become so out of touch with those outside of the "inner party circle", I will vote against them.
The only reason folks affiliate with party lines is $$$$$. How said we have begun to elect officials who represent US based only on the National Party and not vote the wishes of those they represent.
For me, the same rules apply to local, county, state and national elections.
Sorta reminds me of an old adage. Nuts don't fall far from the tree. Guess I am loojking for the ones who land farthest from the tree and need ground and grass to support them.
Curious

doc,
I agree. I am also sick and tired of voting against . I voted for Vic Snyder the first time he was elected. Then, somehow, he forgot to listen to ALL of his constituents. I am so disappointed in him. I love him lots as a person, but, as long as he or ANY elected official begins to vote upon PARTY lines and become so out of touch with those outside of the "inner party circle", I will vote against them.
The only reason folks affiliate with party lines is $$$$$. How said we have begun to elect officials who represent US based only on the National Party and not vote the wishes of those they represent.
For me, the same rules apply to local, county, state and national elections.
Sorta reminds me of an old adage. Nuts don't fall far from the tree. Guess I am looking for the ones who land farthest from the tree and need ground and grass to support them.
Curious

I'm a devout Democrat, but Blanche ticks me off, because she is not. I would say that if you're going to run as a Democrat and not hold to the standards of your Party, but more importantly, the people you represent (the estate tax resolution will benefit virtually no Arkansans, but the programs the tax funds does), you'd damned well better be the smartest person in the room and make good decisions.

I know French Hill. Like his politics or not, he's still almost always going to be the smartest guy in the room. That being said, I like his politics a hell of a lot better than I like Hendren's, Baker's, or Griffin's.

If you define voting against both the Iraq War and the Stimulus Bill as voting along party lines, then you're not going to be happy with anyone who doesn't vote your way on your favorite issue, whatever it may be in your case. After which, said politician can do no wrong.

It's people like you who the founding fathers thought about when they made this a republic and not a pure democracy. There is always a need for elected officials who vote their conscience rather than be carried along with the mob.

I'm sure he and Senator McCain will have too much fun telling the younguns to stop running for political office...should he win, which I doubt it.
We need a young libertarian. Too bad I'm not old enough to run for office.
Lincoln is no Democrat but I'd rather have her than this old bag.