Votin' Day
Update: Haley at 46% and... Climbing
47.6%
48.4% With 66% In
AP Calls It; Barrett/Haley Runoff

With 90.7% in... Haley is thisclose to 50% +1, at 48.9%. But she'd have to get over 90% of the last 10% to make it up to 50% +1 vote.

It's unknown to me if absentee ballots could make up this gap.

Correction: I wrote it was a Haley/McMasters run-off. It's Barrett who placed, not McMasters.

Update: It is early -- 8.5% in -- but Haley's pulling 40% to McMaster's 28%, which will not be enough to avoid a runoff.

Update: But her lead is growing... now up to 43-25. Hmmm...

Urrrp... 45%, now. Guess the Ace of Spades Decision Desk pulled a "network news" and called it too early.

Zoooinnkss... 46%.

Ummmm... 47.7%. Boy, looks like I got a little ahead of myself on saying she'd be stuck in the low forties.

Larry Marchant just emailed me to say Nikki Haley is rising faster than the chandelier in Phantom of the Opera.

Surge Halted... Now she's slipped back to just under 46%.

Okay, I guess we're not going to know tonight.

Politico has results along the top, selectable with a tab-click. Right now Nikki Haley is in a shootout with Andre Bauer, all knotted up at 0.0% to 0.0%, but I expect that will probably change.

Allah runs down all the links and stuff you need to know.

Blanche Lincoln, a centrist (kinda) from Arkansas, is set to lose (probably) to true-blue fire-breathing liberal Bill Halter, despite Bill Clinton endorsing her and telling Arkansas the unions were "manipulating" them by flexing their power to push out anyone who ever crosses them.

And, of course, I need hardly tell you the MFM did not and will not portray this as an evil purge of "centrist bipartisan compromisers" by a radical, dangerous fringe extreme, but instead, just a feel-good Cinderella story we can all enjoy.

To be fair, Politico does mention this angle, but note too how positively they portray the left's power-play:

Sure, this race is about ambition — no one has ever described Lt. Gov. Bill Halter otherwise — but the real story of the runoff is in its implications for Democratic centrists across the nation.

Fueled by progressive support, Halter’s campaign accelerated from zero to 60 in almost no time, rapidly closing the gap on a well-funded, scandal-free two-term incumbent who carried the White House imprimatur.

Whether Halter topples Lincoln or not — he had a slight edge in the most recent poll — the lesson many moderates will take from Arkansas is clear: Don’t mess with the left.

Don't mess with the left, because they're powerful and they remember. No hint whatsoever that this exercise of political power is brutish or dangerous or bad for America.

Whenever an upstart, conviction conservative upsets an establishment Republican, of course, the story line is not, as Politico has it for the left, "Don't mess with the right," but rather "What the hell is wrong with the right? Why are they evil?"

Ah! Fantastic! As I Was Just Saying!: Here's the WaPo on Blanche Lincoln's likely impending defeat.

Do they blame the unreasonable, hyperpartisan, overly-ideological left for her troubles? Do they cry out about the lack of moderation and openness to ideological compromise this "purge" represents?

No, of course not. They blame Blanche Lincoln's "missteps" -- her deviations from party orthodoxy.

Right in the headline, in fact.

Sen. Lincoln's missteps put her at risk in today's Ark. runoff

By Shailagh Murray
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, June 8, 2010; 1:52 PM

Blanche Lincoln's predicament in Arkansas can be attributed to any number of factors: an angry electorate determined to shake up the status quo; a sense that she has spent too much time in Washington and lost touch with her farming roots; the fact that moderates just aren't in fashion these days.

But some of Lincoln's deepest wounds are self-inflicted. After years of cautious maneuvering, the Democratic senator committed a series of blunders that riled labor unions and other liberal groups and that added new obstacles -- creating an opening for primary challenger Bill Halter in Tuesday's runoff -- to what already was shaping up to be a difficult general election battle for a third term.

Lincoln's first mistake came in April 2009, when she reversed herself on the Employee Free Choice Act, the "card check" bill that would make it easier for workers to form unions. For labor groups, the act was a top priority, and they were counting on Lincoln's support to secure the 60 Senate votes needed to break a filibuster. But the senator turned against the measure, saying the economic downturn had caused a change of heart.

Then, as President Obama's health-care overhaul moved through the senate, Lincoln ran into the buzz saw of the public-option debate. Liberal groups had rallied around a government insurance option as the litmus test of a loyal progressive. At first, Lincoln seemed to be on board, writing in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette in July: "Individuals should be able to choose from a range of quality health insurance plans. Options should include private plans as well as a quality, affordable public plan or non-profit plan that can accomplish the same goals as those of a public plan."

But by Sept. 1, Lincoln had changed her mind. "I would not support a solely government-funded public option," she said at an event in Little Rock. "We can't afford that."

There were other missteps, less obvious but duly noted by Lincoln's colleagues in the Senate and by competitors back home in Arkansas.

So Blanche Lincoln attempted to navigate a centrist path as the MFM always urges on the GOP. Her liberal base is now punishing her for it.

Does the Washington Post salute her for her courage in standing up to partisans, as it did with regard to Bennet's supporters?

Of course not -- for a liberal, accomodations to the center are deemed "mistakes," "missteps," and "blunders."

Did Senator Bennet make mistakes, missteps, and blunders? No, of course not, he did the right thing by reaching out to the left and was punished by unreasonable (and unreasoning) partisan purists.

Funny how extremism in the defense of liberalism is no vice.

Thanks to dang ass straights.

McCain: My Opponent's a Washington Insider! Yup. Guy must have been a hell of a pilot, because he's got stones the size of dump-truck tires.

Arizona Sen. John McCain launched two ads Tuesday that seek to shine a spotlight on his opponent's past work as a lobbyist.

McCain is locked in a re-election battle with former Arizona Rep. J.D. Hayworth. The two ads - one for television and one for radio - paint Hayworth as a Washington insider that was voted out of office in 2006 because of his ties to lobbyists.

"Hayworth was paid thousands by a Florida corporation to lobby the very committee he used to serve on," the television narrator says. "Outsider? A lobbyist is as inside Washington as it gets."

Slublog sent that along, confessing disbelief that McCain would accuse someone else of being a Washington insider, to which Dave in Texas resignedly said, "And yet, it happened."

(The McCain/Hayworth primary is not today, but in August, sayeth a commenter.)

Will Folks, The Wedding Singer? With apologies to the great Dan, Content Warning for content you've seen eight thousand times:

Thanks to lacyunderalls. But obviously Dan of The Dan Band is much, much better looking than Will Folks.

posted by Ace at 07:12 PM

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