Lincoln's Last Laugh

This post renders yesterday's comments about Blanche Lincoln, alas, moot.

The incumbent Arkansas senator won the Democratic U.S. Senate runoff primary last night in an upset, defeating Bill Halter. Not since 1993, when Christine Todd Whitman unexpectedly eked out a one-point victory in the New Jersey gubernatorial election, has such an odious woman staged such a big political upset.

Note to wise guys: Senate candidate Carly Fiorina's win in California last night was expected.

Even more upset than Halter are his supporters. Lincoln's win takes momentum out of an already stagnant progressive movement, not just in Arkansas but all over the country. Lincoln had the support of the Democratic establishment and corporate donors, and her victory proves that if you have both, you'll stay in power; if you have neither, you can forget about it.

This Senate seat in Arkansas is almost certainly going to go Republican. Progressive groups and primary voters who worked for Halter are less likely to support a nominee they don't like. And why should they? Lincoln has been largely ineffective on financial reform, such as in regulating derivatives, and she opposed the public health insurance option in the health care reform law. These voters will be too disillusioned and demoralized to face an already bloodied candidate they bloodied up themeselves as she goes into the fall campaign to battle Republican John Boozman in November.

Senator Robert Menendez of New Jersey, the head of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, quickly defended Lincoln as an independent voice trying to regulate Wall Street and accused Boozman of "putting political interests first in order to defend the big corporate interests." Nice try, but it won't help. My advice to Menendez? Concentrate on holding Connecticut.

I don't want to talk about Fiorina, it's too damned depressing. . . .