In what world does Blanche Lincoln's sort of "independence" leave anyone "smiling"? Apparently after watching this hackery, it does in CNN's Rick Sanchez's world. Sanchez and Gloria Borger have a nice little pity party for Senator Blanche Lincoln and do their best to paint her as being beaten up by extremists on both sides.
Since when is someone who's taking all kinds of corporate money and voting like a Republican make them either "independent" or a "centrist"? Borger and Sanchez should be ashamed of themselves for this segment. ConservaDem Lincoln has been acting in the interest of her campaign contributors and not the interest of the party she is supposed to belong to or the interest of her constituents. Sadly who she's taking money from and how that might be affecting her votes is too much to ask either Sanchez or Borger to point out.
SANCHEZ: Let me show you something else because the Democrats have their own problems. Look at Blanche Lincoln. This is Blanche Lincoln's ad. She's a Dem. And if you study the ad -- folks, I am going to play this for you. Watch to see how many times President Obama comes up in the ad. And tell me if she doesn't come off sounding more like a conservative than a progressive or a liberal. Play it, Rog.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
LINCOLN: I'm Blanche Lincoln and I want to show you what it's like in Washington these days. And your tax dollars? This is why I voted against giving more money to Wall Street, against the auto company bailout, against the public option health care plan.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SANCHEZ: She's voting against everything that could possibly increase your taxes, and there is no mention in that ad of, "I support the president" or let's do health care reform. You know, I'm sorry, but I'm looking at that thing and I'm thinking, she's sounding more conservative than she is progressive or liberal or whatever you want to call it.
BORGER: Well, look, she's in a very tough state. Arkansas is not an easy state for Democrats under the best circumstances. Now she has a challenger on her left, in fact. And she's got challengers on the right, in the Republican party.
So, you know, she has always portrayed herself as an independent Democrat. But she did vote with Democrats on the health care bill in the Senate. That health care bill didn't have a public option in it, which is why the liberals are so mad at her. So this woman has it coming at her from both directions. It's going to be a very difficult fight for her.
The liberal who is challenging her raised a million bucks in a day. You know, that hurts for Blanche Lincoln. I don't think you're going to see Democrats like this run away from Barack Obama the way Republicans ran away from George W. Bush. You're not going to see that because he remains personally popular. They're going to need his help in getting out the voters.
SANCHEZ: Yeah.
BORGER: But she's clearly not tying herself to him either.
SANCHEZ: It's interesting to see members of both party running away from parts of their own ideology. I think there's a lot of folks out there who call themselves independents or want to be in the middle or are angry with both parties, who are smiling now.
BORGER: Right.
SANCHEZ: I have to let you go. We're out of time.
BORGER: All right.
