Open thread: The Arkansas Democratic primary
posted at 7:56 pm on May 22, 2012 by Allahpundit
Tonight’s the big night. If you read this post last week, you already know why. The odds of O actually losing this race are somewhere south of one percent, I’d guess, but they’re not absolute zero. Remember, a poll taken in Arkansas’s Fourth Congressional District roughly 10 days ago had The One leading attorney John Wolfe by seven thin points with 17 percent still undecided. Greatest upset evah?
“I’ve raised less than $2000,” says Wolfe. “My biggest contribution was $50; my smallest was $0.44.” The money helped him drive his Ford Edge from his Nashville home over to Arkansas, and to pay for some penny apiece robo-calls. These supplemented the 3000 calls that Wolfe has made personally, “just talking to voters.”…
Two weeks ago, a convincted felon and frequent candidate named Keith Judd won 41 percent of the Democratic primary vote in West Virginia. He took seven counties away from the president. Reporters, conducting interviews at the polls, learned that voters were willing to support anyone who wasn’t Obama, no matter what he did. Vice President Biden even absolved these people.
The Judd comparison is extremely unflattering to Wolfe. He’s an upstanding citizen, and reasonable, with an “economic populist” policy agenda that could fit snugly on Dylan Ratigan’s MSNBC show. When I call Wolfe, he’s ready with a 10-minute monologue about the need to restore Glass Steagall, the unfairness of the bailouts, and the good that a transaction tax could do.
As usual, Jay Cost is thinking big picture:
The real reason [southerners] have bolted their ancestral political home has to do with the evolving shape of the Democratic party. Historically, it was a working class coalition of urban workers and rural farmers. That identity anchored the party really up through the 1960s. But then it began to develop a decidedly “New Left” ethos – turning decidedly leftward not only from cultural conservatism but also on middle class, quality of life issues (feminism, environmentalism, consumer rights, etc) that are of much more concern to “enlightened” liberals in the big cities than rural voters in Arkansas.
Think of it this way: Your average Obama voter on the Upper West Side might think the “SmartCar” is great, but a plumber working in Hot Springs would just laugh his you-know-what off if he saw a coworker drive up in one of those absurd vehicles. That’s a cultural/social/economic divide that our political parties mimic.
And so Southern whites in the Border South have found a home in the GOP. Again, not because of race but because there is a cultural and regional affinity to be found for these people in the Republican party. The GOP has long been home to rural people in places like Pennsylvania, Michigan, Nebraska – so is not a huge surprise that, when the center of gravity in the Democratic party moved into San Francisco and Hollywood, these voters would join an alliance with people in Altoona, Pennsylvania and Aberdeen, South Dakota.
Do note, this is an open primary so some untold number of Republicans may have showed up today and requested a Democratic ballot just to mess with Obama. I’m a little surprised, in fact, that there’s been no concerted effort a la “Operation Chaos” to make that happen, but maybe it’s for the best. If there had, Wolfe’s showing would be blamed on GOP mischief. As it is, that spin will be a bit harder.
The polls close at 8:30 ET. I’m expecting Obama to win by 15-20 points; if he underperforms and his margin ends up being in single digits, conservative media will enjoy a Muntz-ian “HA-ha” tomorrow the likes of which we’ve scarcely seen. Here’s the Secretary of State’s page so that you can follow the returns. While we wait, enjoy Joe Biden blaming America’s economic troubles on the damned tea party that elected a Republican House and, I guess, stopped them from wasting who knows how much on a new stimulus package.
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Sweet. How sweet it is.
Finally, Obama’s chikkinzzz are coming home to roost.
petefrt on May 19, 2013 at 8:22 PM
This.
When you have to plead incompetence to defend against charges of malfeasance, you know you might be in trouble.
petefrt on May 19, 2013 at 8:36 PM
ear relevant…
driguana on May 19, 2013 at 8:59 PM
Flush this lying tudd down the drain with the rest of the Obamacrap.
kemojr on May 19, 2013 at 9:34 PM
This was Dan Pfeiffer’s week in the barrel, like Susan Rice he was given the White House talking points and sent on a mission. He really needs to get copies of these tapes and watch them and see how foolish and unbelievable he looked and sounded. The White House is losing the little credibility it still had by sending these shills out every week trying to do damage control. Community organizers make poor leaders.
savage24 on May 19, 2013 at 9:42 PM
Pfeiffer’s statement that the law is irrelevant because the IRS conduct was “outrageous” and “inexcusable”, tells us all we need to know about this administration.
However, the follow-up should have been, “On what standard do you judge their conduct to be outrageous and inexcusable since the law is apparently not an appropriate standard?” (At least in Pfeiffer’s mind.)
What this comes down to is this: “if the Administrative deems something “outrageous” and “inexcusable,” then it is declared such. As we have seen in so many other areas, if the Administrative deems something to not be “outrageous” and “inexcusable,” then it is declared such.
In their mind, the law is – in fact – irrelevant. That’s what makes this situation so dangerous.
It’s not socialism. It’s worse.
EdmundBurke247 on May 19, 2013 at 10:36 PM
Irrelevant = “What Difference Does It Make?”
jaydee_007 on May 19, 2013 at 10:41 PM
A fitting capstone to Ed’s story about loss-prevention (aka employee theft) and management’s “permission structure” in this post.
(Not to mention the jaw-dropping statements of Eleanor Clift in this one.)
AesopFan on May 19, 2013 at 11:40 PM
I enjoy popcorn and hope it is a long week.
Drill and Fill on May 20, 2013 at 12:41 AM
Hey give Barky a break. He had to get his sorry ass out to Vegas.
tbear44 on May 20, 2013 at 4:49 AM
Of course they sent Pfeiffer out to do the Sunday shows. He was the most senior expendable staff member they had . . .
BigAlSouth on May 20, 2013 at 5:39 AM
Pfeiffer… The guy with the red shirt in the landing party…
Boudica on May 20, 2013 at 5:53 AM
Perfect!
lea on May 20, 2013 at 7:11 AM
Does anybody else remember the campaign in 2008 when Obama defended his lack of administrative experience by saying he was just so smart and tuned in that his instincts were better than experience. Someone needs to dredge up these sound bites and play then with the current line about the government being too large to control and that the White House only knows what it reads in the newspaper.
bartbeast on May 20, 2013 at 8:43 AM
If where the president was during the Benghazi crisis is “irrelevant”, then he wasn’t where one would expect the Commander-in-Chief to be. So, where was he? Was he watching a movie in the residence? Was he bowling? Or was he having a bi-curious outing with his good buddy Reggie Love? If Obama was AWOL, as I suspect he was, it is he who is irrelevant. This entire stinkin’ criminal Obama Regime must go and now!
SpiderMike on May 20, 2013 at 9:31 AM
If this continues all week, it will be ‘O’ himself doing the rounds on the Sunday talk shows – except for Fox, of course. (‘O’ can do everything better than everyone else as he has been known to say.)
He then gets the extra benefit that no one will challenge him like they have begun to do with his minions.
Carnac on May 20, 2013 at 11:00 AM
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