That would be the vote of John Brummett. Brummett’s stance is interesting to me primarily because it was only late last month that he wrote:
I would tell you how I’m newly thinking of voting in this race, but I don’t want to burden John Boozman. Honest to goodness: I know he’d vote against my wishes 9.7 times in 10. But he’s only guy in sight who’s stood up and told the brave truth, as with his vote on TARP. And he has the advantage right now of not making me sick.
I’m finding it harder and harder to reward Lincoln’s campaign with a vote. Her Senate service is worthy of the vote, however. I think a vote for Halter would be, in effect, a vote for Republicanization of the seat, since Halter’s associative liberalism kills him for November in a reddening state considering the current mood.
So what changed Brummett’s mind? The continued negativity and dishonesty of Lincoln’s campaign.
Discerning readers probably sensed what was happening over the last few weeks. I have related repeatedly — ad nauseum, some say — my festering disenchantment with Lincoln’s cynically dishonest campaign.
In the end I simply could not reward her campaign with a vote.
Lincoln has persisted in vile mailers falsely accusing Bill Halter of out-sourcing jobs and wanting to harm Social Security when all he did was sit on a board of a company that placed a tiny percentage of newly created jobs in India and acknowledge a debate questioner’s premise that we need responsible spending increases and benefits cuts to make Social Security work in the long run.
Another mailer, this one creepy, smeared Halter as a participant in “shady drug deals.”
Lincoln’s excuse is that she’s taken special interest hits for two years over health care and labor issues, and is entitled to fight back.
She certainly is. But the better way — better than exploitation and misrepresentation — is called rapid response. The better tack is counter-punching.
You vigorously defend yourself and scoff at your attackers. You call their hand by making the election a referendum on you, a choice between what they say about you and what you say back in confident, authoritative defense of yourself.
But Lincoln obviously has not been confident enough in herself to call for that referendum.
Brummett goes on to list some other campaign transgressions by Lincoln, but the one that most struck a chord with the BHR gang was this:
She has pandered to some voters by distancing herself from Barack Obama and to others by embracing the president. She apparently assumes that neither of these groups is smart enough to see what she’s doing. That is to say, she insults us.
Exactly. It’s this expectation on the part of Lincoln and her campaign that voters won’t check facts that has so irritated me and others. Hoping for (or even expecting) blind acceptance from voters does not suggest that you think very highly of those voters.
Now, despite voting for Halter, Brummett is still expecting a Lincoln win, followed by a November Lincoln loss.
So I went with Halter, who is smarter, supremely competent, superbly qualified by academic and work experience and perhaps more progressive.
I suspect, my little vote aside, that Lincoln might win without a runoff next week.
Anyway, all we’re doing here is picking someone to get beat in November.
While I absolutely don’t believe that Lincoln will win outright next Tuesday, I also don’t buy that a Boozman win in November is a foregone conclusion. There is a reason that Lincoln’s seat has been blue for over 130 years. Even with the general feeling that this state is becoming a little more red, I just can’t get past the idea of past as prologue here.