Winners and Losers

49% Halter, 45% Lincoln, 6% Undecided
- Daily Kos/Research 2000 Poll, 06/02 - 06/04/10

52% Lincoln, 48% Halter
- Final vote count, June 8, 2010 Primary

On June 8, 2010 a “Super Tuesday” primary night, US Sen. Blanche Lincoln (D-Ark) survived a strong challenge from Arkansas Lt. Governor Bill Halter. She beat her opponent by 4 points. This after the last poll take before the primary had Lincoln down by four points, (http://www.pollster.com/polls/ar/10-ar-sen-dempr.php). With money and support from organized labor pouring in from all over the country to support Halter, everyone in the media had written Lincoln off. In addition, the “narrative” went, this is a toxic year to be an incumbent so she was bound to loose.

She defied the “narrative” and won.

Lincoln showed that running a good campaign focussed on constituents can win in any year. She successfully portrayed her opponent as someone who would put the interests of outsiders over the interests of the State. She ran commercials where she said she would do what was right for the State even if it cost her her Senate seat. This played into the perception that Halter was a man on the make and more interested in himself than his voters.

She also showed that good, basic campaign nuts and bolts matter. She has a strong geographic base in her former congressional district in Little Rock. Her campaign built an effective get-out-the-vote effort with a contact list of 120,000 identified Lincoln supporters which she effectively contacted and got to the polls.

Other centrist Democrats who are currently in trouble, like Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV) can look at Lincoln and start following her play book. You can bet Reid has already filmed his commercials describing his opponent Sharron Angle (R) as out of touch with Nevada and under the control of special interests. He has already begun running positive image advertisements to Nevadans on what he has done for them.

Presidents Bill Clinton and Barak Obama both showed they have coattails.

Clinton campaigned heavily for Lincoln and Obama made a number of robo-calls on her behalf They both proved that they can move voters when needed. It is no surprise that President Clinton is now scheduled to campaign in Nevada for Reid.

The big losers of the night were organized labor and liberal net-roots.

Arkansas, home of Wal-Mart, has one of the lowest union membership rates in the country. But organized labor poured $10 Million into Halter’s campaign, because Blanche Lincoln is firmly against “card check” which would make it easier for Unions to organize non-union shops. This gave Lincoln the perfect opportunity to appear to stand up against outside interests in favor of her State.

At the same time she was able to protect herself from appearing too pro-business by proposing some of the toughest new provisions, in the Senate’s regulatory reform package, aimed at controlling the excess of the financial industry. Halter could not come out in favor of card check because it would not sit well with Arkansas voters, He couldn’t come out against it, because it would anger the people who were bankrolling him. Trapped he could only squirm around the question, and look insincere.

The other big loser in Arkansas was the left-leaning net roots. Last year, on the Rachel Maddow Show, Jane Hamsher from the liberal website Firedoglake dared Lincoln to join the filibuster against Public Option in Obama’s health care reform package. If she did, Hamsher promised, they would find a strong primary challenger to Lincoln so fast it would make her spin.

She did and they did.

The left net-roots raised money and volunteers for Halter all across the country. Emboldened by their success in 2006 in using Ned Lamont to drive Joe Lieberman from the Democratic party, and their success in 2008 supporting Obama and Clinton, they felt they had the power to throw around.

They brushed off local issues and ran a campaign focussed on their pet national issues. But issues important to Firedoglake and the AFL-CIO are not necessarily important to local voters. Card check is a big deal to the AFL-CIO but not to votes in a State with less than five percent union membership, and home of one of the largest non-union businesses in the world. Conservative voters in Arkansas are not going to immediately embrace a large new government program no matter what the NYC-Washington corridor feel about Public Option.

Labor and the net-roots staked a lot of their image and reputation on this race and Halter’s loss hurts them. They created the perception that Lincoln was beatable and that they had her taken care of. By not defeating her they shrank themselves back down to size.

They forgot one of the central laws of election politics: “All Politics is Local.” Break that law and you will loose, no matter who righteous you feel your cause to be.

In politics winning is power.