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Opinion: Liberals eating their own? Environmentalists go after Arkansas’ endangered incumbent Blanche Lincoln

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Blanche Lincoln is one of the most endangered Democrats on the political landscape this year.

The two-term Arkansas moderate is getting only about 38% or 39% against any of her little-known Republican opponents, according to a recent Rasmussen poll. Politico is putting her ‘at the top of the list of vulnerable Democrats.’ And providing President Obama with his 60th vote for healthcare reform in the Senate isn’t helping in a state where public opinion is running strongly against it.

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To stretch a metaphor, she’s more endangered than that infamous snail darter that delayed Tennessee’s Tellico Dam.

Now, the League of Conservation Voters is going after Lincoln for her opposition to a climate change bill. Putting her on its ‘Dirty Dozen’ list of prime targets, the league -- which in last cycle spent $1.5 million battling opponents -- is vowing to put up mega-bucks to defeat her.

“Most regrettable is the fact that Sen. Lincoln is walking away from her previous support for climate legislation -- and given the scope, urgency and magnitude of this issue, she has more than earned a spot on LCV’s Dirty Dozen,” said Gene Karpinski, the group’s president.

Asked whether the organization isn’t in danger of hurting Obama’s agenda by robbing the Senate of another Democratic vote, Karpinksi told The Ticket that the league is not a democratic organization. ‘We are not a Democratic organization, we are a nonpartisan issues-based organization, and our issue is the environment.’

He added: ‘The fact of the matter is that we support the president’s agenda that he reiterated in the State of the Union -- passing bipartisan comprehensive clean energy and climate legislation -- and unfortunately Sen. Lincoln does not.’

-- Johanna Neuman
twitter.com/johannaneuman

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