Bill Halter is NOT the Progressive Hope!
by on Wednesday, March 3, 2010 at 3:26 pm in Politics

Bill Halter’s fantasy of being a progressive belongs on Fantasy Island along with Ricardo Montabaln. In fact, when it’s all said and done, Bill Halter will be Ann Coulter’s new favorite Democrat now that Harold Ford, Jr. is not running for the Senate.

This is not the post of some blogger who is passionate. I am an Arkansan, a liberal, and a former candidate for Lt. Governor against Bill Halter. I have watched ever since 2006, when this millionaire moved back to my state after 25 years and enacted an essential corporate takeover of the Lt. Governor’s office. He bought “credibility” and bought the office after four Democrats, including myself, had spent 9 months criss-crossing the state, talking to the voters, earning voter support. The difference in that election is Halter had $1 million and the rest of us, even though three were legislators, had not raised nearly a third of that amount. He dominated the airwaves and won a low-voter primary runoff against a less-than-stellar conservative Democrat.

In the General Election, Bill Halter supported a gay parent foster ban and opposed marriage equality. Oh, but you know about the speech right, in 2008? One speech, an activist does not make. If Bill Halter is such a supporter of GLBT Rights, why has he ignored numerous calls of assistance to speak out against anti-equality bills in the State Senate or has supported cuts in HIV-AIDs Funding for the Arkansas AIDs Foundation?

In an interview with John McCardle, Bill Halter has back-tracked on EFCA as well as a Public Option.

Come on seriously.

Look, I considered a primary challenge to Blanche Lincoln. All the oxygen in my bid was sucked up by Halter and his ability to buy a command presence. If he was a true progressive, I would support him, but Bill Halter is the single most self-serving individual in American politics today. He’s bad news and will become part of the problem in Washington, D.C., not the solution.

Don’t Drink the KOOL-AID, Progressives. Research, vet, and talk to people in the home states about these progressive wunderkids before you donate your money and our community’s support.

One last thing….why is it Bill Clinton and Wesley Clark, whom Halter claims are his strongest benefactors, not supporting Halter and not even speaking out in his defense? I think thats rather telling, don’t you think?

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1 Comment

  • | 162#
    Stan
    Mar 3rd, 2010 at 3:32 pm

    I admittedly know very little about Bill Halter, but I do know that I detest Blanche Lincoln. She is a corporate shill, and had destroyed any chance at getting a meaningful health care bill to pass the Senate.

    I’ll be curious to learn more about Bill Halter as the press vets him in the coming weeks. Here’s a post from TPM where they asked him some questions on things such as the public option, card check, & cap and trade.

    Here’s what he said on the public option:

    On this topic, Halter was very clear — he supports a robust public option, modeled on Medicare, that would compete directly with insurance companies. He said that if he were in the Senate today, he’d support using reconciliation to add a public option into the current Senate bill.

    On the trail, Halter said he’ll use better messaging to sell his proposal to voters. “If you ask 100 Arkansans what [“public option”] means, you’re going to get 100 different answers,” he said. “People don’t know what it is. So rather than go around talking about a “public option,” I’m going to outline for people exactly what my plan is.”

    That position alone, makes him a superior candidate than Blue Cross pawn, Blanche Lincoln.