Reply #8: The article weirdly depends to a large degree on the opinion of one person, [View All]

[karynnj]

a woman who was involved in the Clark campaign. It oddly does not say if she is neutral on this race or for for Lincoln. It is very easy to assume that she is against Halter. In addition, the charges are extremely vague culminating and saying that he is an "opportunist". Now, over time, I have observed that "opportunist" is most used to describe anyone who is an outsider and who refuses to toe the line of one of the establishment groups. It is never used for a politician, who always votes or takes the union position or one who always stays with the leadership. Oddly, I have found it can often be the best indicator of a genuinely independent, thoughtful politician. Strangely, it is less often used to describe people who I would be more likely to see as opportunists - those who always go with the "side that's winning within their party".

In addition, we actually reward true opportunists, because they rarely are on the politically unpopular side of an issue. Bill Clinton is a good example of this. You could call his shifts opportunistic, or a result of triangulating -- or you can say he followed popular will. (a negative description, a mixed description that when first used was used to attest to Clinton's intellectual agility and later became negative, and a positive description - and there is likely some truth to each.)

The fact is that the left has been careful this time in most of the stronger articles to acknowledge that Halter IS pretty conservative. It is also clear that he is running a "populist" campaign. The left blogosphere has always been a sucker for populist campaigns - as could be seen by the Webb campaign or Edwards, for that matter.

I actually prefer Halter, not because I really believe that he will end up with an immensely better voting record - though I hope for a slight improvement. My reason is a reason that can not be used in Arkansas. Halter, as a freshman Democrat would give the same vote to Reid as Majority Leader, but he will not have the same power that Lincoln did. Lincoln now heads the Agriculture Committee, which has a role in anything from derivatives (they started for agricultural commodities) to environmental and energy legislation. Looking at the members list, it looks like Stabenow would become the new chair. (http://ag.senate.gov/site/cmtemembers.html - as Leahy is chairing the Judicial committee, Harkin is chairing HELP, Conrad is chairing Budget, and Baucus is chairing Finance. (Stabenow now chairs Democratic Steering and Outreach Committee.) This could shift the committee to the left.