Democrat Challenges the Senator From Wal-Mart

Posted on Mar 1, 2010

lincoln.senate.gov

One of the Senate’s most conservative Democrats now faces a primary challenge on her left flank. Blanche Lincoln, who betrayed the unions that had supported her and who had bitterly fought off a public option in health care reform, was already headed for a tough race.

The White House has tried to block challengers, ostensibly to strengthen Democratic incumbents going into the midterm elections. But the president’s unconditional support may have helped open the way for these conservative legislators to throw sugar in his gas tank.

As David Sirota wrote in a September 2009 column: “Without vigorous primaries forcing Democratic legislators to face Democratic voters, those legislators feel free to defy the president’s Democratic agenda.”  —PZS

AP via Google:

Arkansas Lt. Gov. Bill Halter announced Monday that he’s seeking the Democratic nomination for Lincoln’s seat, becoming the first in the party to formally challenge Lincoln and underscoring a schism in an election year shaping up to be difficult for the party in power.

“Washington is broken. It’s working for the special interests, not Arkansas families,” Halter said in a statement.

Eight Republicans already have announced interest in the Senate seat as Lincoln’s popularity wanes in the GOP-leaning state. She has been under has been under pressure in Washington to support President Barack Obama’s health care overhaul.

Read more

More Below the Ad

New and Improved Comments

We are launching a major overhaul of our comments section.

In addition to more robust spam filtering and moderation, new features include the ability to rate other comments, sort how they are displayed and respond directly via e-mail or in a thread.

Unfortunately, commenters will lose their existing Truthdig identities. It's a pain, we know, but on the plus side you will now be able to log in with a plethora of options, including Google, Twitter, Facebook and Disqus accounts.

Before launching this system we spent months in discussion with our top commenters. We listened to the feedback and we hope you like what we've come up with.

Please direct any problems or concerns to us via our contact page.