A RINO, if you didn’t know, is a Republican In Name Only.

It is a serious charge among Republicans, just as DINO is not a compliment when uttered by a Yellow Dog.

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I mention it because former Farm Bureau president Stanley Reed, making noise about a possible Republican race for U.S. Senate, talked to a Stephens Media reporter yesterday and this turned up:

Asked if he would support [Democratic U.S. Sen. Blanche] Lincoln in the race if he decides not to run, Reed said, “That’ll be a question later on down the road.”

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The Arkansas Republican echo chamber has not missed the significance of a potential Republican candidate reserving the possibility that he might support a Democrat in the fall. It’s not good form. (Tweeted the Republican Tolbert Report: “Huh?”) 

This takes me to my current pet peeve —  Republican candidates concentrating solely on their Democratic opponent. There’s a primary to be won first. It won’t be a coronation for the man with a pedigree and fat bankroll. It also will be a difficult little primary, maybe fewer than 100,000 votes dominated by four counties — Pulaski, Sebastian, Washington and Benton — many miles from Stanley Reed’s Marianna home. The farm vote, in years past, has not been a critical factor in the state Republican primary.

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Meanwhile, Republican opponents are already at work. Reed is not a particularly lavish campaign giver, but they note that he’s given to both Democrats and Republicans ($500 to the Democratic Party in 2006). That’s a break with standard GOP discipline nationally, if not in Arkansas. Cynical minds also see designs in Reed’s flirtation with candidacy to aid his desire to be the next president of the University of Arkansas System, a plan that his friend Jim Lindsey almost pulled off for him a while back until resistant UA Board members blew the whistle on the plot.

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