Poll: Lincoln Trails All GOP Opponents

The number of working-class and poor uninsured wingnuts in Arkansas is truly staggering. Most of it stems from irrational fears about Obama (you know, the Kenyan "Muslin" socialist Hitler). The whole state is a textbook case of the Southern Strategy, among other things.

Actually that would be about as Darwinian move as they could make... opposing a measure that could improve their own health.

But in their defense, when they think about opposing the health bill, they don't think about poor white people like themselves benefitting from it, they think of poor minorities benefitting... and that's what drives their insane hatred of it.

The only way to deal with the situation she's in is to play it "feisty." It's the act that Snowe and Collins use to stay in office despite representing people who are much more liberal than they are. It's like, here's how I'm voting and I'm doing it because of my deeply held convictions (real or simulated) and you people are free to toss me out if it becomes obnoxious to you. In the end, people remember the display of "character" (real or simulated) and forget the particular issue where they parted company.

Nelson plays a varient of this scam, except in his case its the "standing up to my own party" variation.

Lincoln doesn't manage either varient. Instead, she's exactly the kind of Blue Dog who's doomed because she comes across as a cowering, spineless weakling who has been frightened into venal pandering to her constituients and it makes people think, "why should we have a gutless, character-free faux Republican who we know is voting against her own conscience to pander to us when we can have a real one?"

She's simply hosed. On one hand, it's way too late for her to fake "feisty" after five years of very public cringing cowardice. On the other, she can't vote her way out of trouble by acting Republican because it will be seen as just more evidence of her lack of character and the attack ads are going to be just as vicious regardless of how she votes.

At this point, it's like Shepherd Book said: "if you can't do something smart, do something right." Unfortunately, I have seen no evidence that she has sufficient brains to see and accept her prediciment or sufficient character to grasp the lesson.