I’ve written plenty about the potential derivatives loophole in the Senate Wall Street reform bill, which Maria Cantwell felt concerned enough about that she tried to block a cloture vote on the entire legislation (although she did give consent to waiving the Budget Act at the last minute, which also could have held up the [...]

I tend to agree with the position that anti-Lincoln votes in the first-round primary on Tuesday won’t morph into pro-Lincoln votes in the runoff. I also believe that it’s harder to get voters for an incumbent excited to vote for them the second time in three weeks. Therefore I see Bill Halter with a slight [...]

Karen Ackerman, the political director of the AFL-CIO, just held a conference call/victory lap touting their success in a number of primaries last night, particularly PA-12 for Mark Critz and AR-Sen, where Blanche Lincoln was held to 45% and a runoff. Labor came out strongly in support of Bill Halter and against Lincoln during the [...]

If Blanche Lincoln thinks she can rally in three weeks and win a runoff election against Bill Halter, she simply is blind to the import of what happened last night in the US Senate. Among the Republican obstruction, the Democratic facilitation through a cloture vote, etc., Chris Dodd brought up a weakening amendment to Lincoln’s [...]

Just a quick word on the primaries last night, because most of what needed to be said has been said, and it all happened while I was watching the astonishing crumbling of financial reform (more on that in a minute, and how it ties into all this). By now you know the basics: Joe Sestak [...]

Earlier today I mentioned that the Senate club was working to protect Blanche Lincoln, first by allowing her to offer up a kabuki derivatives bill which was strong enough for her to counteract claims of being too tight with Wall Street, then by delaying the eventual watering down of that piece in the overall bill [...]

In the primary race between Blanche Lincoln and Bill Halter, one side is being fairly up-fron about their loyalties and their interests. Labor unions have made their preference known and are supporting Bill Halter with mailers and TV ads and the normal business of campaigning, along with full disclosure in cooperation with FEC regulations. And [...]

Bill Halter, rising in the polls with a couple weeks to go in the Senate primary challenge of Blanche Lincoln in Arkansas, has filed an FEC complaint to try and force disclosure of the donors to the shadowy “Americans for Job Security,” who are financing subtly racist attack ads alleging that Halter helped outsource Arkansas [...]

Bill Clinton has cut some radio ads for Blanche Lincoln, endorsing her for supporting his job-creation and budget efforts in the early 1990s, which clearly is the terrain on which Lincoln’s primary campaign against Bill Halter will be run. But those aren’t the ads that have Arkansans talking. This outright racist affront to the Indian-American [...]

The SEIU has a new ad out in the Arkansas Senate race, which actually builds upon a previous ad in the race put out by Blanche Lincoln. In it, she claimed to have “saved” 1,700 jobs at the Cooper Tire and Rubber Company in Texarkana, AR. A member of the United Steelworkers named Greg Knowles, [...]

Research 2000 finds the trend line in favor of Bill Halter in the Arkansas Senate race, with Halter gaining to within a single-digit deficit with Blanche Lincoln, 43-35. An earlier poll by the same outfit had Lincoln in front by 13 points, 44-31. Importantly, Lincoln stands well below the 50% threshold needed to move on [...]