Blanche Lincoln has responded to the Arkansas for Change ad attacking her record, saying that it was paid for by large labor unions and that she doesn’t work for them. She also manages to blame Bill Halter for running a negative campaign, when the ad was an independent expenditure.

In what will probably become a major point of contention in the campaign, Lincoln claims that she voted against “giving more money to Wall Street,” which is technically true but not the entire story. Lincoln voted for the TARP bailout but voted No in early 2009 to deliver the second tranche of TARP money – $350 billion – to the Treasury Department for their use. That resolution of disapproval failed, and the money went to Treasury anyway. Also, interestingly all the numbers of her votes to “keep jobs in Arkansas” come from 2004 and 2005. Clearly, there’s been no need for job creation measures in the last 5 years. They come to your home to give you jobs these days.

I wonder how the votes on the lobbyist-written bankruptcy bill, or the opposition to ending bank subsidies in the student loan process, add up to “working for Arkansas.”

The spot prefigures what will be a contentious and nasty campaign, although hitting Halter for breaking his word about going negative because of an IE spot that he cannot control seems gratuitous. In fact, Halter’s campaign spots have been entirely positive. Here’s his latest one.