WASHINGTON — The president and the embattled Arkansas senator stand shoulder to shoulder, facing the camera and flashing broad smiles.
Beneath the snapshot, a caption reads: “She stood with him, now he’s standing with her.”
Facing a hard-fought Democratic primary, U.S. Sen. Blanche Lincoln is hoping Barack Obama can help her beat back a challenge by Lt. Gov. Bill Halter, without alienating the Arkansas voters who overwhelmingly rejected Obama in 2008.
The use of the president’s image in this and other campaign fliers and his voice in radio spots reflects an intense battle between the two campaigns to court black voters, according to Arkansas political observers. In the 2008 presidential election, Obama lost the state by a wide margin - scoring 38 percent of the vote compared with Republican challenger John McCain’s 58 percent. He remains unpopular in the state, according to several polls, but the president has overwhelming support among blacks, who vote heavily Democratic.
Over the course of Obama’s first year in office, Lincoln has backed Obama on several votes, including the economic stimulus plan. But she fought hard to keep government-run insurance, the so-called public option, out of the new health-care law, taking a high-profile stand against one of Obama’s highest priorities.
“I’m proud to be with the president when it’s good for Arkansas,” Lincoln said in an interview. “When it’s not good for Arkansas, I respectfully disagree.”
Lincoln said she began assiduously seeking Obama’s endorsement more than one year ago.
“I told him, ‘I’m going to need your support,’ and I told him that on more than one occasion.”
The Obama endorsement came in March. By late April, Lincoln’s campaign began distributing literature and airing advertisements that feature Obama on radio stations throughout the state.
In the ad, which is getting heavy play on black radio stations, Obama highlights Lincoln’s contributions to a pending banking bill in the Senate. “Blanche is leading the fight to hold Wall Street accountable and make sure that Arkansas taxpayers are never again asked to bail out Wall Street bankers,” he says.
Lincoln said the photo of her and the president on the fliers was taken at a “women’s event” in Washington sometime in the past year. She said her campaign staff wrote the copy for the radio spot and that it was then approved by the White House political staff.
Lincoln’s use of the Obama endorsement indicates that she believes Halter’s primary challenge is a life-or-death battle, according to David Rohde, a politics professor at Duke University.
“It’s fairly unusual for a president to mess in primaries,” he said. “They usually calculate that there’s more to be lost than to be gained.”
Rohde said Lincoln is willing to “trade off” the possible benefit Obama’s backing will bring her in Tuesday’s primary vote, for the negatives it is likely to stir up among Republican and independent voters in the general election.
“She has to survive the primary before she can even think about winning the general election,” Rohde said.
Asked whether she would continue to showcase the endorsement should she win the primary, Lincoln responded: “I’m proud to have his support, and I’ll continue to be proud to have his support.”
The Halter campaign said it had long expected Lincoln to receive a White House endorsement.
“It’s pretty typical,” said Laura Chapin, a Halter spokesman. “It’s standard procedure for presidents to endorse incumbents.” Arkansas Republicans, who say Obama is out of touch with most Arkansans, predict that the endorsement could come back to haunt Lincoln.
“It’s odd that our embattled Senator Lincoln would seek the endorsement of a president whose popularity in Arkansas is lower than hers,” said Doyle Webb, chairman of the Arkansas Republican Party, in a statement. Webb said Obama’s endorsement “proves that President Obama desperately needs her party vote to push forth his radical, liberal agenda.”
Obama is aware that endorsements like his can be double-edged swords.
In early November 2008, less than three days before the presidential election, Obama was on the other side of the endorsement equation.
He mocked then-Vice President Dick Cheney’s endorsement of Sen. John McCain, the Republican nominee.
“I’d like to congratulate John McCain on this endorsement, because he really earned it,” Obama told a crowd in Pueblo, Colo. “That endorsement didn’t come easy. Sen. McCain had to vote with George [W.] Bush 90 percent of the time and agree with Dick Cheney to get it.”
During that election cycle, several Republican candidates sought to distance themselves from Bush. For instance, Republican Rep. Jim Gerlach of Pennsylvania ran ads that told voters: “When I believe President Bush is right, I’m behind him. But when I think he’s wrong, I let him know that, too,” according to The Associated Press.
Steve Patterson, Lincoln’s campaign manager, suggested it was too soon for the campaign to focus on what Obama’s endorsement could mean after the primary. “We’ve got bigger problems than that,” he said. “We’ve got a volatile election year.”
Asked whether the fact that Obama lost in Arkansas in 2008 meant his support could ultimately be a negative, Patterson said: “I don’t know. He is the president. This is a different election.”
Patterson said that while the radio spot was being run on radio stations with a variety of formats throughout the state, the campaign made sure to place the ads on black radio stations “specifically targeted” by Halter allies.
While Lincoln and Obama disagreed on the public option, Patterson said that the two worked together throughout the health-care debate. Attacks by Halter and labor unions, Patterson said, necessitated “validation” from the White House that Obama and Lincoln are allies.
The Service Employees International Union has placed ads on Arkansas radio that criticize Lincoln for supporting tax cuts enacted during Bush’s presidency and the bank bailouts in 2008.
And an ad placed by the Communications Workers of America union criticizes Lincoln’s “shameful” behavior in trying to “embarrass” Obama during the health-care debate.
“Listen up,” a woman’s voices says in the communications union ad. “Have you heard the mess Sen. Blanche Lincoln has been talking right here on the radio? To hear Lincoln tell it, she’s been President Obama’s best friend. Nothing could be further from the truth.” The woman ends the pitch by asking listeners to call Lincoln and “tell her we need a senator who won’t take us for granted.”
The Arkansas chapter of the NAACP does not endorse candidates. But Dale Charles, the chapter’s president, was critical of Lincoln, giving her an F in his 2009 legislative report card. The entire delegation received a failing grade, except for Rep. Vic Snyder, a Little Rock Democrat, who received an A.
Among other things, Charles took issue with Lincoln’s opposition to the public option in the health-care debate and the fact that she did not initially submit a single black to the White House to fill open federal judgeships.
Now, he said, the Obama endorsement is being used to reach out to black voters.
“I think Sen. Lincoln has played up to black voters now more than ever,” he said.
The endorsement “will make some difference with the voters in the state, but a lot of voters are going to look at the issues.” The radio spot in which Obama endorses Lincoln is at
blancheforsenate.com/media?id=22
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Front Section, Pages 1 on 05/16/2010