In the battle for Facebook, it seems Bill Halter is currently winning. This morning, after just two weeks in the race, Bill Halter’s fan page with 6,308 fans has eclipsed Blanche Lincoln’s fan page with 6,302 fans at the time of this post.

This is an important step for the Halter campaign since they will be relying on grassroots support and new media much more heavily than the Lincoln campaign due to the still 5.6 to 1.25 funding gap. Hopefully, the netroots have a second fundraiser in mind that will help even out this monetary problem for the Halter campaign. The good thing about small dollar donations is that the well stays full and can be gone to multiple times without draining all the water. Of course timing is key and news drives these things. Let’s see if the Halter campaign can make some news to inspire the netroots and the donors. If he doesn’t, Blanche Lincoln might make some news of her own if she votes against the Health Care Reform bill coming from the House. That might spur some donations on its own.

The Facebook fan page numbers have been rather steady in the last few days, so it is likely that one side may jump ahead of the other for the next few days, but the momentum is clearly in Halter’s court.

TPMDC

A labor source confirmed to TPMDC tonight that the AFL-CIO voted to back new Senate candidate Lt. Gov Bill Halter over Sen. Blanche Lincoln in the May 18 Democratic primary in Arkansas. Three unions within the umbrella group have committed to a $3 million independent expenditure on Halter’s behalf.

…

The backing of the AFL-CIO is an important one for any Democrat. For Halter, it signals that the unions are prepared to put their money where their mouth has been for almost a year now when it comes to Lincoln. When Lincoln came out against the “card check” provision in the Employee Free Choice Act, unions balked and threatened to fight her. Now it seems Halter has given them their chance.

The $3,000,000 will come in handy to take on Blanche Lincoln’s $5,000,000 cash on hand. As ARDem said yesterday, that is just about her only advantage left. With this support and the over $600,000 raised from small dollar donations in less than a day, Halter’s campaign will get an early boost. However, it should be emphasized that the $3 million will not be touched by Halter, but must be spent by the union itself.

Totals from MoveOn.org members are above $410,000 so far today. This combined with the totals from ActBlue, themselves over $90,000, mean that Bill Halter has raised over half a million dollars from small dollar donations in a single day. These are only the announced totals from two groups. There is likely many direct donations and other fundraising efforts taking place not in the total presented here. Blanche Lincoln is having a bad day indeed (and so are Republicans in the long run). Donate now: http://www.actblue.com/page/fbdraftbillhalter

Update: – 11:00 PM CST
He has raised over $600,000 as of this update.

Those of us who were helping out at the Draft Bill Halter group on Facebook set up an ActBlue page to get the donations rolling. The goal right now is to get 50 people to contribute to the campaign and show support for him running. We pledged support and he answered our call. Please donate now! Even $5 can make a difference. The more people that donate the better. Do so now: http://www.actblue.com/page/fbdraftbillhalter

Update:
Bill Halter has over 2,300 donations so far on ActBlue totaling over $50,000. That is an average of about $20 per donation. Compare this to the $1300 per donation average of Blanche Lincoln. Who is working for Arkansans and who is working for the special interests?

This coming from Max Brantley:

Another bit of evidence on the Halter-may-run theory is the near-instantaneous reaction to Berry’s gibe from Halter’s political spokesman Bud Jackson:

Congressman Berry’s comments are not surprising to us. After all, he did not support Halter’s campaign for lieutenant governor which beat the insiders and has now resulted in a scholarship lottery that will help thousands of Arkansans afford a higher education.

If getting under the skin of the insiders is the price for helping Arkansans, he’ll do it time and time again. Should he run for federal office Arkansans can look forward to more of the same because Washington is broken and it needs more people like Bill Halter who aren’t afraid to stand-up to special interests and insiders.

These words were in reaction to Marion Berry’s comments about Halter. This isn’t the kind of talking a spokesman gives if Halter is leaning towards not running. These are fighting words. I was starting to wonder if Halter had the will to run, but these kind of reactions show something is up in the Halter campaign.

And by the way, what is with all the hate for Halter on the Democratic establishment side. I understand that he ran for Lt. Gov. when he wasn’t “supposed” to, but Arkansans could care less about that. So, instead you have to make up issues and try to play “gotcha” with things like the Lt. Gov.’s staff numbers? Really? I noticed that Max Brantley said that Halter was tooting his own horn when the Scholarship Lottery passed yesterday, but did anyone in the Democratic establishment bother to give credit where credit is due? No. They would rather act like Halter never existed and try to take the credit for his plan. They even tried to blame the pay scandal on him when he warned them in March about the issue and they ignored him.

Senate, House Panels Advance Lottery Bills – March 18, 2009

Halter also said the legislation would allow the lottery’s executive director to be paid nearly $500,000 a year, which he said is “over the top.”

Wills said the legislation sets a salary for the director of $141,603 but allows a legislative oversight committee to multiply the salary by up to 2-1⁄2 times, which would bring the maximum to about $354,000, not $500,000. A follow-up bill, now in shell form, will clarify that point, he said.

So when the story broke in summer, guess what happened? Many blamed Halter for the salary that got put near $350,000 by the oversight committee. People who disliked Halter jumped on this as an opportunity to attack him, despite the facts of the issue. The point of this is not to attack Wills for the displacement of the blame, that happens a lot in politics. The point is that so many were willing to jump on that without a factual basis to back up the claims. If Halter does jump in, we should be ready for these kinds of baseless attacks, because when you hate someone, you don’t have to know that the attacks are true or meaningful to repeat them verbatim.

From MoveOn:

Well, that was pretty clear: More than 92% of Arkansas MoveOn members who responded to our survey late last week voted that we should urge Lt. Gov. Bill Halter to run against Blanche Lincoln in the U.S. Senate Democratic primary and to support his campaign if he does.

State MoveOn members were deeply dissatisfied with Sen. Lincoln’s performance in the Senate: Jennifer P. from Little Rock told us, “Lincoln never met a special interest she didn’t like. It’s hard to express just how awful she has been as a senator. I don’t know of anyone who will vote for her if she shows up on the November ballot.”

So today we’re sending Halter a petition telling him we’ll have his back if he decides to run. Can you sign our petition urging him to get in the race?

http://pol.moveon.org/billhalter/

The petition says, “We’ve had enough of Democrats like Blanche Lincoln who listen to big corporations instead of their constituents. We urge you to challenge her in the primary and we’ll work hard to support you if you do.”

Here are more of your comments:

“Lincoln has shown that she will do what special interests want her to and will cave to conservative pressure. We need an alternative.”—Conrad S., Conway

“I think he’s more electable and much more likely to support progressive legislation.”—Bill C., Pocahontas

“Health care and insurance costs are ruining America and causing skyrocketing deficits. Sen. Lincoln appears to be influenced by the insurance lobby, and has not been supportive of President Obama’s agenda.”—Pete G., Hot Springs

As lieutenant governor, Bill Halter led the successful campaign to establish a state-run lottery with all proceeds donated to tens of thousands of college scholarships for Arkansas students. He also recently helped organize a free medical clinic that provided care for more than 1,000 uninsured Arkansans. And he’s spoken out strongly against anti-gay ballot measures in Arkansas.

But he’s facing a tough fight, because Lincoln has raised millions in campaign contributions from corporate interests and has more than $5 million in the bank. So we need to show Bill Halter that progressives will support him if he decides to run.

Click here to sign the petition:

http://pol.moveon.org/billhalter/

Thanks for all you do.

–Adam, Ilya, Michael, Kat, and the rest of the team

They link to a petition to urge Bill to run.

The Draft Bill Halter “Phone Bomb” resulted in at least 40 people calling into the Bill Halter campaign office today to urge him to challenge Blanche Lincoln for US Senate. While our goal of 100 calls was not met, the effort galvanized support from Fayetteville, Little Rock, Jonesboro, and Conway to name a few places. Some callers were influential group leaders, university professors, political activists, and college students. And note how we got all this done by the grassroots alone. No national or state group had anything to do with our effort. We are supported by and made up of Arkansans who want to see a real Democrat keep this seat in 2010.

I talked to a Bill Halter staffer and he said that they liked the support they were getting. It seemed to me that they have yet to decide, but this kind of activism is getting them to take a hard look. The more they get from us, the more likely he will be to jump into the race. He had one idea that I think is great. Lets see if we can get different progressive groups from across the state together for a common purpose. He gave me the email of one such group and I intend to follow up on it tonight. If you belong to any Democratic or progressive groups in Arkansas, send them an email and let them know about the Draft Bill Halter movement and urge them to get in contact with one of the admins there. You could instead send the Draft Bill Halter admins a message about the group and we will get in contact with them. In this way, we can get started on building a coalition of progressive groups across the state.

The “Phone Bomb” appears to have attracted attention of many unrelated people and we intend to follow up the event with more activism. All it took was a group of individuals with a common cause and less than 3 days of planning in our spare time. While we may not all be experienced activists, we can make things happen by making a commitment to help each other. It won’t be easy, but if we want to change the status quo, we need to get it done one step at a time.

So far, there are about 100 people indicating they will call Bill Halter tomorrow with more than half the Draft Bill Halter group yet to respond. That is expected as we asked the group not to sign up until after they made the call so we could be aware of how many people actually called. The idea didn’t work perfectly, as we have 21 people already marked as such, but we should get a pretty good estimate anyway.

If we can get near 100 calls in a single day, it will send a strong message to the Halter campaign that Arkansans want a strong Democratic choice against the Republicans in November. That would equal a call every five minutes for eight straight hours. If that is the case, it may be hard for people to get through, so people may have to call multiple times to get a person to answer. To check out more about the event, see the post on facebook:

http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=300521148552&ref=mf

I attended a protest today outside Blanche Lincoln’s Fayetteville office where 20 people were protesting her support for the Murkowski Resolution. This would take away the EPA’s ability to regulate greenhouse gasses. I have included some pictures of the protest.

John Hicks, Blanche Lincoln’s Fayetteville Community Affairs Specialist, graciously received the “gift” (shown above) to Blanche Lincoln. He also took our names and addresses so that the Senator could respond to our concerns. Somehow I doubt I will receive a letter saying that she changed her mind.

Interestingly enough, the protest attracted the attention of KFSM 5 – Fort Smith. It also drew the attention of five counter-protesters who displayed their depth of knowledge of the issue by making signs that apparently desired the end of the EPA altogether. Notice the “Go Blanche GO” part of the sign. This highlights the fallacy of running to the right: none of these people would ever vote for Lincoln over Baker or Boozman. One had a Republican candidate’s button on his lapel.

Hidden in the crosstabs of the PPP poll is a very interesting story about Gilbert Baker vs Lincoln, Halter, and Clark. Also, some interesting information in the crosstabs shows why Halter and Clark are better choices for Democrats.

Baker vs Lincoln
Baker 50%
Lincoln 35%
Undecided 15%

(Lincoln -15% and Baker above 50%)

Baker vs Halter
Baker 45%
Halter 34%
Undecided 21%

(Halter -11% and Baker well below 50%)

Baker vs Clark
Baker 45%
Clark 39%
Undecided 16%

(Clark -6% and Baker well below 50%)

These numbers tell quite a different story from the comparisons when Boozman was the Republican. Here, we see that both Halter and Clark do much better than Lincoln and both bring Baker down to 45%. However, some things match up nicely. The difference between Halter and Clark appears to be entirely name recognition, as the crosstabs show that Clark simply gets more undecideds than Halter. This matches up with my analysis of the Boozman and Democratic favorability numbers, showing that Halter and Clark have lots of room to grow while people generally are against Lincoln.

It should also be mentioned that while Boozman does 8 points better than Baker in the PPP poll, he does just as well as Baker in the Rasmussen poll released today. And as mentioned in my last post, the two polls conflict, showing that the PPP poll may be skewed by favoring Republicans, perhaps by the inclusion of only 10% of those who are between 18 and 29.

Also, for those who are wondering why I am not talking up Clark over Halter, it is because as far as winning is concerned based on these polls alone, they are essentially the same. This is emphasized by the crosstabs where the entirety of Clark’s 8 point advantage in favorability numbers is due to the fact that “Liberals” are more undecided on Halter than on Clark. Again, this is likely just due to name recognition.

Rasmussen released another poll today showing Blanche Lincoln losing to all Republicans by double digits. It is interesting how the usually Republican leaning Rasmussen even has Lincoln fairing better than the PPP poll released today. She loses to Boozman by 19 points instead of 23 points. Also, possibly showing bias in the PPP poll, Beebe gets 73% approval instead of the 59% in the PPP poll. Gilbert Baker does just as well against Lincoln, beating her by 19 points. Other Republicans also beat her, but their leads are closer to 15 points.

Rasmussen

2010 Arkansas Senate Race
Kim Hendren (R) 51%
Blanche Lincoln (D) 35%
Some Other Candidate 7%
Not Sure 7%

2010 Arkansas Senate Race
Gilbert Baker (R) 52%
Blanche Lincoln (D) 33%
Some Other Candidate 6%
Not Sure 8%

2010 Arkansas Senate Race
Curtis Coleman (R) 50%
Blanche Lincoln (D) 34%
Some Other Candidate 7%
Not Sure 9%

2010 Arkansas Senate Race
Tom Cox (R) 50%
Blanche Lincoln (D) 36%
Some Other Candidate 6%
Not Sure 9%

2010 Arkansas Senate Race
John Boozman (R) 54%
Blanche Lincoln (D) 35%
Some Other Candidate 4%
Not Sure 7%

This does confirm that the generic Republican beats Lincoln, but it doesn’t tell us much about a possible primary on the Democratic side or how another Democrat would fair.

A poll is out showing Blanche Lincoln and Bill Halter both losing to Boozman by 23 points. Not a good poll for Democrats. Mark Pryor doesn’t seem to be doing too well either, although his negatives are not as high as Lincoln’s. The only Democrat who is within ten points of Boozman is Gov. Beebe. He won’t be running for Senate though. However, there is a message here for Democrats: Don’t run Blanche Lincoln and we have a good shot!

PPP

If the candidates for Senate this fall were Republican John Boozman and Democrat Blanche Lincoln, who would you vote for?
Boozman………………………………………………… 56%
Lincoln …………………………………………………… 33%
Undecided………………………………………………. 11%

If the candidates for Senate this fall were Republican John Boozman and Democrat Bill Halter, who would you vote for?
Boozman………………………………………………… 53%
Halter …………………………………………………….. 30%
Undecided………………………………………………. 17%

If the candidates for Senate this fall were
Republican John Boozman and Democrat Wesley Clark, who would you vote for?
Boozman………………………………………………… 51%
Clark ……………………………………………………… 36%
Undecided………………………………………………. 13%

However, things will close as we get closer to the election. That will be true even for Blanche Lincoln, but does she have much upward mobility?

Do you approve or disapprove of Senator Blanche Lincoln’s job performance?
Approve …………………………………………………. 27%
Disapprove……………………………………………… 62%
Not Sure…………………………………………………. 11%

Do you have a favorable or unfavorable opinion of Bill Halter?
Favorable……………………………………………….. 21%
Unfavorable ……………………………………………. 29%
Not Sure…………………………………………………. 50%

Do you have a favorable or unfavorable opinion of Wesley Clark?
Favorable……………………………………………….. 29%
Unfavorable ……………………………………………. 29%
Not Sure…………………………………………………. 42%

The short answer is a resounding no. 62% Disapprove of Blanche Lincoln’s performance. Note that we are comparing Blanche Lincoln’s Approval with the other two’s Favorability. Those are two different things, so caution should be taken, but since the other two don’t currently have the job, its the closest we can get from this poll.

Wesley Clark is within 15 points of Boozman, showing good numbers. The important point, however, is to look at all three of their numbers against Boozman and you can see what is happening.

First, we must assume that things will change as time moves on. Any Democrat will close this gap with Boozman unless they run a horrible campaign.

Second, look at how Boozman’s numbers go down when Halter or Clark are matched against him. For Clark, with slightly higher name recognition than Halter, he brings him down to 51%. For Halter he brings him down to 53%. Getting Boozman under 50% is the first step to winning this thing. Both Halter and Clark have a pretty good shot at doing this. Lincoln has him at 56%, with high name recognition. He isn’t going to move much from there with her as the opponent.

So, who has the ability for the most upward movement? It is all about the Undecideds and the “Not Sure” vote. Lincoln has almost nowhere to go with only 11% “Not Sure” of her approval rating. She is stuck at 27% with little room to grow. She is a known quantity. Clark and Halter have the same Unfavorablity rating at 29%. This means they are likely hitting the floor of the “I don’t like Democrats” vote. It is only 29% in reality. Note how the 8% of Arkansans who know Clark (42% Not Sure) and don’t know Halter (50% Not Sure) end up giving the Democrat a higher favorability rating Clark (29% favorable). What this may show, is that the more people know about Democratic candidates not named Blanche Lincoln, the more they like them. With so much room to grow, both Halter (50%) and Clark (42%) have a good shot at saving this seat for the Democrats with a good campaign.

The poll tends to concentrate on how Democrats in general are doomed, but I disagree, as will a lot of people in this state. It just doesn’t jive with the politics of the state. I think the 29% unfavorability of both Halter and Clark and the 22% unfavorability of Governor Mike Beebe show who are really the anti-any-Democrat voters. They are a small number that likely would vote against Democrats regardless of the political situation. Also notice how this poll only gives Beebe a 59% approval rating while he has above 80% in other polls. Do not read this poll to mean Democrats can’t win the Senate seat in November. Read it as, if we have any chance, we need to get a fresh face up against Boozman.

I think those of us trying to Draft Bill Halter need to step it up.

Please help us Draft Bill Halter.

This quote says it all.

PPP

Her approval among people who voted for Obama is only 54%. She still gets 70% of the vote against Boozman with those folks but that 16% gap between her support and her approval is a lot of voters who aren’t too enthusiastic about her.

An election would show low base support and likely very low turnout from her base, since only 54% of Obama voters (roughly 40% of the vote in 2008) will even vote. So, she might get about 20% of the vote because of her low base support. She would have to get 30% of the vote (taking her to 50% total) among independents and Republicans. This means she would have to get nearly half of the independents and Republicans to win. Considering she can barely get half of the people who voted for Obama, how is she ever going to get half the people who voted for McCain?

Interestingly, they say other Democrats actually fair better than her. If this includes someone like Halter, it would be huge news, even if it is only a couple points. Why? Name recognition. Lincoln has a very high name recognition, while Halter does not. That means Halter could end up picking up much more support between now and election day, while people have already made their minds up about Lincoln.

This is especially true if it can be shown that someone like Halter has higher support among the base. With solid base support, Halter would only need to win roughly a fourth of the independent and Republican vote, rather than needing half. This would be due to the larger support and the larger turnout of the base.

Another money quote:

…we tested a bunch of Democratic alternatives to her as well. They do better…

Joanna Pollock has called a protest against Blanche Lincoln’s support of the Murkowski Resolution by posting an event on Facebook. About 900 people have been invited so far. It is likely that the event will remain a small protest given the snow that is covering Northwest Arkansas this weekend (we have had at least 3-4 inches so far here in Lincoln).

They will be protesting Blanche Lincoln’s wishes to disallow the government from being able to regulate greenhouse gases, like carbon dioxide.

Not JUST a good old fashioned PROTEST
Senator Blanche Lincoln-1 of 3 Democratic senators to back this GOP Murkowski Resolution!

Date: Tuesday, February 2, 2010
Time: 1:00pm – 3:00pm
Location: 4 South College, Fayetteville

Senator Blanche Lincoln has disappointed and mortified us with her decision to cosponsor a resolution stripping OUR Environmental Protection Agency of the authority to regulate carbon dioxide! This is a gas that the EPA has determined is an endangerment to our health and safety under The Clean Air Act. Of course a pro-fossil fuel Senator like Murkowski from Alaska would create such a resolution because she clearly represents the interests of the oil, gas and coal industries. BUT our own Senator of Arkansas, as ONE of only THREE Democratic Senators, from the entire nation to cosponsor this resolution. This is really a crying shame that is an embarrassment to ARKANSAS! Are you disgusted and outraged? Let’s make this protest unique. Some ideas have been crime scene tape, personal letters, delivering climate change books to her door, puppets, we need visuals…we need PRESS COVERAGE. Bring your peaceful and creative ideas to the PROTEST from your heart!

They emphasize that Blanche Lincoln is only one of three Democratic Senators to support the bill. It will be interesting to see how this protest turns out. I will be attending, provided I can go during my lunch hour, to see and report what goes on.

I was really hoping that my next post would be a positive one. Unfortunately, Blanche Lincoln has made that impossible by calling the League of Conservation Voters (LCV) an “extremist” group.

The LCV named Blanche Lincoln as one of their “Dirty Dozen” who are not standing up for the environment in Washington.

Politico

LCV gave the moderate Democrat a lifetime score of 49 percent on environmental issues, the second lowest for any Democrat up for reelection this year.

“Most regrettable is the fact that Sen. Lincoln is walking away from her previous support for climate legislation — and given the scope, urgency and magnitude of this issue, she has more than earned a spot on LCV’s Dirty Dozen,” said Gene Karpinski, LCV president.

Blanche Lincoln used this as an opportunity to move further to the right and attack liberals and environmentalists as outside special interests.

The Hill

A “dirty dozen” designation may be a good thing for Sen. Blanche Lincoln (Ark.), a Democrat facing a tough re-election in a conservative state. She gets to defend herself against attacks by a “Washington-based,” “liberal,” and “extremist” “special interest.”

In a five-paragraph response, the Lincoln campaign managed to slip in all those political pejoratives in reference to the League of Conservation Voters, which was responsible for the dirty dozen tag. The campaign reassured voters that “threats” from a “special interest” wouldn’t keep Lincoln from being a “strong and independent voice” for her state.

…

“Threats from extremist groups from outside our state tell me I’m doing something right for Arkansas.”

John Brummett questions if this is really smart politics. We can see first hand that she has abandoned her base on issue after issue.

ArkansasNews

The question is whether the rules aren’t so simple this time in Arkansas politics. It is whether the unpopularity of her party’s president and the widespread resistance to the health care reform initiative — and her own exasperatingly evasive style — have so eroded her support elsewhere that the farm and business communities can’t sustain her as she trades away the fervent backing of her party’s liberal base with its quotient of environmental activists.

Arkansas Democrats may have gone along with her in the past given that these anti-liberal statements and actions were only occasional annoyances in the past. However, they are a daily occurrence at this point. Her support among Democrats is so low right now that she faces a massive uphill climb just to get out of a primary (if a certain Democrat would get in the race), let alone the general election. As unpopular as Barack Obama may be in Arkansas, this does not explain her numbers at all. Mark Pryor is not anywhere near her low approval ratings. Democratic Governor Beebe is soaring in popularity with over 80% approval. This isn’t about an anti-Democrat feeling in general. It is about Blanche Lincoln.

PS – I promise I will get to that positive post soon.