Blanche Lincoln Continues To Lose Support

Blanche knows plenty of oil millionaires but I hope Arkansas voters aren't counting on her introducing them to Shep Huntleigh

When Blanche Lincoln announced that she was going to bend to pressure from her constituents and do some town hall meetings, she didn't actually mean town hall meetings per se. She meant, she would, in the words of Kevin Sack at the NY Times attend a few "controlled events before respectful crowds, like business forums and civic club luncheons." So when she finally did announce two semi-public events Blue America decided to run some more of the cable TV spots she seems to hate in the two places she had decided to favor with her presence. This morning I went through the logs to see what times of the day and which exact programs the spots ran on.

First of all I was delighted to see that the cable networks had all abided by the rule Blue America has is that we would rather pass on advertising than allow any of our ads to be run on the racism-promoting Glenn Beck Show. There were plenty of ads on O'Reilly, Hannity, Fox and Friends, Neil Cavuto, and Greta Van Sustren-- sickening enough to be a party to-- but not a single ad went to underwrite the anti-American gibberish that Glen Beck spouts daily. We'll hold to that policy under ColorOfChange asks us to reconsider.

The cable provider that covers Benton County in the extreme northwest of the state is out of Springfield, Missouri and they ran spots for us the day before, the day of, and the day after her appearance, mostly on CNN plus a few on Fox, a schedule similar, though smaller of course, than the one we ran in Little Rock-- everything from Larry King Live to American Morning and Anderson Cooper 360.

Meanwhile, Lincoln is running scared. Her re-elect numbers are in the toilet. In fact no senator in recent years has been re-elected with numbers a year out as low as hers are now. What she has going for her is the nature of Arkansas as a one-party state, the corporate party. She has a grotesque excuse for a Democrat, state Senate President Bob Johnson threatening to primary her from the right. Yes, as bad as she is-- among the 3 worst Democrats in the Senate-- Arkansas (a state whose voters say they prefer Rush Limbaugh over Barack Obama; I hope someone polls what they think of Glenn Beck next) has even worse ready to take her place. The moribund state of the Arkansas Republican Party is protecting her on that flank, since the 7 GOP pygmies huffing and puffing about running against her are all so much political chaff.

However there are two independents in the race, Greenland Mayor John Gray, running as a Green, and Afghanistan War vet/Teamsters Union member, Trevor Drown. The Greens have shown that they can be counted on to bring in double digit returns against a reactionary Democrat, as their candidate did last year against Mark Pryor (20%). Meanwhile Arkansas voters are waiting to hear more on where Drown stands on specific issues, while already impressed that his emphasis has been on ordinary working families rather than on powerful corporate interests-- like the politicians from two parties that have made up the one-party state. This morning he told me on the phone that he's worried the health care debate is missing the point. "It appears," he said "anger and party politics have overshadowed what the real need is-- affordable health care for Americans without coverage. The politicians need to think about the impact to the rest of country and come up with a workable solution which will alleviate all of our concerns. In history so many leaders and influencers have said a number of variations of this quote. It has never been more important than it is right now. 'Any society, any nation, is judged on the basis of how it treats its weakest members; the last, the least, the littlest.'"

If you'd like to watch the 3 ads or donate to keeping them on TV while Lincoln works with the GOP to undermine health care reform, Employee Free Choice, fair taxation and climate and energy legislation, please click here.