A little while back, in the course of marveling at the entertaining endorsements emanating from the Arkansas press corps, I flagged Ernest Dumas’s rather lackluster backing of Bill Halter, who’s challenging Blanche Lincoln for the Democratic nomination for a seat in the U.S. Senate. Here’s the key bit again:
Forget Senator Lincoln’s Agriculture chairmanship and her lovely personality and Halter’s wretched lottery and his off-putting ambition. Halter is a Democrat’s only chance, and in this cheerless year it is not a great one.
That “off-putting ambition” was chronicled in today’s New York Times by Shaila Dewan, a day before the June 8 runoff between Halter and Lincoln. John Brummett of the Arkansas News Bureau, who’s previously declared his support for Halter, links approvingly to Dewan’s piece, and in the process offers yet another backhanded endorsement:
But, while an arrogant opportunist, he’s a competent, disciplined one. If you’re looking for an outsider, he’s one, because he’s pretty much irked everyone in the inside.
If Halter prevails tomorrow, I kind of hope that he plays the “outsider” thing to the hilt in the general election and uses that full quote in his campaign mailers, perhaps under the tagline “Because Competence Matters More than Humility.” But I also kind of doubt it.
Greg Marx is an associate editor at CJR. Follow him on Twitter @gregamarx.