DEMOCRATIC KAMIKAZES – AT 7:58 P.M. ET:  Blanche Lincoln is the moderate Democratic senator from Arkansas.  Being moderate from a moderate state isn't enough to satisfy the leftist enforcers in the Democratic Party.  She's impure, she won't stick to the script.

Now the left is taking on Lincoln in a primary.  They reason that she's grown so unpopular that she'll lose in November anyway, so why not run a genuine Democrat who's been cleared by the Inquisition.  From the Washington Post:

Backed by national labor unions and Democratic activists, Lt. Gov. Bill Halter is attacking Lincoln from the left as an uncertain senator who too often tilts right on issues from Wall Street and health care to the environment.

Halter contends that the seat is as good as lost to resurgent Republicans if the centrist Lincoln wins the May 18 primary. He said after leaping into the race last month, "My sense is that people want somebody to fight for them."

To paraphrase the immortal Bill Clinton, it depends on what "people" means.  You get the feeling that Halter defines "people" as the top five percent of Ivy League graduating classes, and the law firms they're headed to.

Halter's challenge, which came as little surprise to the Arkansas political establishment, quickly became a national story. Liberal Democrats, frustrated with President Obama and Congress, cheered the chance to make Lincoln pay for her opposition to a government-run health insurance option and the Employee Free Choice Act that would make it easier for workers to organize.

I'm no Blanche Lincoln fan, but it would be good for the two-party system if she beats back this onslaught from the left.  The Democratic Party is getting narrow enough.  It doesn't need a revolutionary from Arkansas.

While Arkansans are "very moderate," Lincoln said, Halter's support "comes from the far left of our party, whether it's the labor unions or the MoveOn.orgs or some of the others out there who think he's the end all, be all. I think he's wrong."

You'd think, in reading this piece, that there won't be any Republican candidate in November.  There will be, and there's a good chance for a turnover to our favor, no matter which kind of Democrat gets the nomination.

April 4, 2010