There have been a number of developments on the campaign trail these past few days.
A quick look at the most recent contribution report filings for the Republican and Democratic state parties has some interesting revelations.
The Democratic Party of Arkansas received non-federal contributions of $138,965 in the second quarter of 2010. Two of those contributions totaled $130,000. They include a $90,000 check from the Nix, Patterson & Roach law firm in Daingerfield, Texas and a $40,000 check from the Kell & Goodson law firm in Texarkana, Arkansas.
The Republican Party of Arkansas raised $91,572 during the quarter, according to its state-filed report. Its largest donor was the Republican National Committee, which gave $4,400. Both parties doled out a lot of checks to their nominees for statewide, regional and local races. That’s a standard practice to return all or part of the filing fees for the candidates who secured party nominations.
Card check is apparently still a campaign issue although it hasn’t received much attention since the end of the Lincoln-Halter primary. Second District GOP candidate Tim Griffin kicked out a press release on Wednesday quoting Pres. Obama at an AFL-CIO meeting.
"We’re going to keep on fighting to pass the Employee Free Choice Act," Obama told the union, according to D.C.-based political journal, The Hill. The article also states that a push on the bill could occur between Election Day and January when the lame-duck Congress is in session.
Griffin excites the left-wing base of the Democratic Party. This week, several rounds of discussion about Griffin’s role in the U.S. Attorney controversy and a purge of voter rolls in the 2004 Florida Presidential election elicited lengthy posts from members of the Arkansas blog-o-sphere.
An article from left-of-center editorialist Ernest Dumas of the Arkansas Times stirred the pot followed by conservative blogger Jason Tolbert’s defense of Griffin. That gave way to 2 liberal blogs – Blue Arkansas and Blue Hog Report – entering the fray with lengthy analyses of the voter caging and U.S. Attorney controversies.
Second District Democratic Congressional nominee Joyce Elliott has been laying low – maybe even taking a short vacation to recharge her batteries – while preparing for the fall run.
Elliott announced that Robbie Wills, her primary run-off challenger, would head up her Faulkner County campaign effort. That brought out a chorus of reminders of Wills’ attacks on Elliott in the run-off campaign.
We reported late Tuesday that a Sen. Blanche Lincoln spokesman told Politico that the senior senator would support Elena Kagan’s Supreme Court nomination. Sen. Mark Pryor has also reportedly offered his vote of confidence for Obama’s Supreme Court pick.
Finally, on Fox 16 News last night I shared my comments on the Missouri Proposition C vote, which denies the government from mandating the purchase of health insurance on its citizens. It passed overwhelmingly, but it won’t change anything about the new federal health care law.
It does send a signal to politicians about the voter anger towards perceived federal government overreach. Somehow, anchor Kevin Kelly and I were able to weave this discussion into a conversation about calling the Hogs, the right to hunt, fish and trap and the newest entry in the Arkansas Governor’s race – Elvis.
You can watch the video here.
