Arkansas Senator Primary news

[LiberalArkie]

• AR-Sen: We chuckled a bit when we saw press releases hit our inboxes the other day announcing that the DSCC was endorsing former U.S. Attorney Conner Eldridge in Arkansas. For one, does Eldridge really want the imprimatur of the national Democrat [sic] Party for a Senate race in Arkansas? For another, there's no one else running—or at least, so we thought. But it turns out that former Lt. Gov. Bill Halter appears to be conducting a poll about his viability for a second Senate bid, so presumably the DSCC's move is an attempt to tell Halter to get lost.

But Halter's ignored much sterner warnings in the past. In 2010, he challenged Sen. Blanche Lincoln in the Democratic primary, a race in which the DSCC spent millions trying to stop him. (It worked: Lincoln won renomination.) However, after Halter briefly tried to return to public office last cycle with a run for governor, he abandoned his bid once the establishment rallied around ex-Rep. Mike Ross, saying he wanted to "avoid a divisive primary." So perhaps Halter's feelings about party unity changed, or perhaps he just thought Ross was less beatable than Lincoln.

Whatever the case may be, Halter has to decide very soon: Arkansas' filing deadline is Monday. He'll have to think very hard, though, about whether he wants to chase yet another booby prize. Both Lincoln and Ross got killed in their respective general elections, and Daily Kos Elections currently rates next year's Senate race as Safe Republican.

That said, the NRSC is now using public channels—i.e. sharing dour comments with CNN—to tell GOP Sen. John Boozman to step up his weak fundraising. But this probably is not any kind of signal that Boozman is genuinely threatened; rather, it's likely a preventive measure, to make sure Boozman doesn't get caught Rip van Winkling in a cycle when Republicans are playing a ton of defense. After all, it was only a few weeks ago that NRSC sources were claiming that Rand Paul looked to be in poor shape for re-election. No one's saying that now.


http://www.dailykos.com/stories/2015/11/9/1447264/-Morning-Digest-Edwards-eviscerates-Vitter-in-new-ad-says-he-chose-prostitutes-over-patriots