The College Fix

Down here in Arkansas, we don’t get much respect from the Obama administration. Obama has never been here. He won’t come even to support the four candidates at risk of losing previously secure Democrat Senate and House seats.

Wednesday, however, we got the official booby prize. Bill Clinton just showed up for the second time to, as the AP put it, “help struggling Democrats in his home state.”  The AP is a tad confused. Billy lives in New York where they have their own bunch of struggling Democrats, but then who doesn’t?

No matter, Clinton continues to amuse, entertain and of course sling the bull as ever, touting himself as the “most fiscally conservative president you’ve had in your lifetime.”

Arkansas is about to turn dark red. The congressional delegation currently consists of two Democratic senators and three Democratic congressmen. Assuming the latest polls are legit, in two and a half months Arkansas may have one Democratic Senator and zero Democratic congressmen.

Clinton, like everyone else, has written Blanche Lincoln off. He campaigns for the Democrat congressional candidates while she stands on the podium staring off into space. Her race was decided the day Congressman John Boozman beat seven primary opponents  to win the Republican nomination last May without a runoff. The first polls  after that stunning victory showed Boozman with a double digit lead over Lincoln and that lead has held to this very day.

The Real Clear Politics average of three statewide polls as of mid-October has Boozman with a 19.7 percent lead over two-term incumbent Lincoln, pretty much where it was back in May.

What’s up with this? Simple. A big majority of Arkansans hate Obamacare and Lincoln got caught trying to play them.

For years she’s voted left when it counted while positioning herself to the folks back home as a moderate conservative. She got away with this scam, largely because the anemic Arkansas Republican Party was unable to nail her and the public didn’t care they were being lied to. Arkansas has a long tradition of Democratic politicians who vote one way in D.C. and say the opposite at home. It’s one of the charms of living in the Natural State.

This time the game didn’t work. Ms. Blanche gave Harry Reid the key votes in committee and on the floor he needed to squeak Obamacare through, and immediately the bottom fell out of Lincoln’s reelect numbers.

Ms. Blanche’s opponent is also Arkansas’ only Republican Congressman. John Boozman is the nicest, most bland and boring politician ever to hold public office. A former minor football player for the Arkansas Razorbacks he went on to become an eye doctor and then got elected to Congress  nine years ago due to a political fluke. Boozman’s record in the House is predictably party-line Republican. He has no signature issue. He can’t give a speech without putting the audience into a deep coma.

It don’t make no nevermind. Nothing she or her campaign has said or done has moved the polling needle since last May. She’s done.

And all this while tax-cutting incumbent Democratic Governor Mike Beebe easily coasts to reelection and Arkansas Democrats maintain a firm grip on the state legislature.

When you get down to the lick log, it’s all about that disaster called Obamacare.

Arkansans by close to 2-1 are all hope and change about the prospects for repeal, or at least defunding that assault on their health care system, and they intend to send that message to Washington in just under three weeks.

Larry Ash is a columnist for the Arkansas Traveler. He is a member of the Student Free Press Association.

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