Lt. Gov. Bill Halter has finally begun sitting down for interviews about his Democratic primary loss to Sen. Blanche Lincoln and what the future holds after he leaves office in early 2011...
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The conventional wisdom was that there was a lot of outside money coming in, that you were being supported by the far left. But you lost Pulaski.
Yeah. This was something I discussed during the campaign that just did not get picked up and I'll say the exact same thing that I've been saying for months. The idea that this was a liberal – that this race was being conducted on a left-right spectrum -- really does not convey what was going on in the race. It was about whose side are you on. Who is fighting for middle-class families? Who's willing to take on powerful interest? It was a more populist versus corporatist race than any other sort of dimensions. If you look at where the turnout was heavy for us, it was in a lot of rural areas across Arkansas and what was being expressed there by those voters was a significant amount of discontent with the way things were going in Washington.
Here's the other thing. You have to be careful in all these analyses to be mindful of the fact that it's a primary election and you have two Democratic candidates. So, you can over-read a lot of things. I think the endorsement by President Obama was clearly very helpful to Sen. Lincoln. I don't think there's any question about that looking at precinct analysis in Jefferson County or Pulaski County.
It seems like the Democratic establishment in the state – the elected officials, long time party volunteers – didn't really like you for some reason, or tended to support Lincoln. It also seemed to me that you had a lot of support from younger Democrats. Is there any truth to the idea that a rift exists between the Democratic establishment and Bill Halter?
That's where I'm going to have to go through it with you and give you a bunch of comments. Because I think this is something that gets exaggerated. First, we had Democratic state legislators that endorsed us, county officials, mayors, activists, people that worked in the Democratic committees across the state that were actively for us. We had very key parts of the Democratic Party, broadly, that were supportive of us. I think when you talk about representatives of working men and women, those folks that have been involved with the Democratic Party for a long time. I think if you look at groups that have traditionally been identified with the Democratic Party, they were with us as well. I think the clear distinction that you drew in your question about this side versus this side, I don't think that holds.
Let's go to some of these other folks. The attorney general. You have written and others have written and it's been reported over and over again that we were widely viewed as rivals for the governorship or some other office. So I don't think it should be a surprise. The other people who were supportive of Sen. Lincoln, who were elected officials, they identified with Sen. Lincoln and endorsed her even before I got into the race. So you don't expect people to reverse themselves.
Let's go to another point that's related. We had tremendous support from Young Democrats around the state who were working hard. We had tremendous support from other folks who have been involved with the Democratic Party and identify themselves as Democrats. The more important point about this is in 2006 I competed in a four-way primary for lieutenant governor and lead that race, strongly led it. Had a runoff and won that decisively, with over 56 percent of the vote, against somebody who had been around for a long time. Then we went directly to the people and got the scholarship lottery passed in 2008 by an almost two to one vote. In this race, in terms of voting, in the primary there was a two percent difference between Sen. Lincoln and myself and in the runoff we had 48 percent of the vote. Both of those outcomes reflect well over 100,000 votes cast. I guess, what I'd say is that you can fall into a lot of analytical traps here.
I'm far more concerned with voters than I am with any one individual, elected official, or whatever because they make their own minds up and they decide. You're not going to win every vote, ever.
Anytime you have a competitive primary, there are going to be folks from both sides. If you have a two person race in a primary there will be folks supporting both candidates, especially in a race this close.
Read the full article at: http://www.arktimes.com/gyrobase/bill-halter-no-political-plans-yet/Content?oid=1258463&storyPage=1
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