Anyway, let’s get them some new followers – @ARStatePark. After all – Aren’t you glad we’ve got ‘em?

Republican Congressional candidate Beth Anne Rankin flew to New York last week to appear on “The Huckabee Show.” This is the new daily talk show hosted by Mike Huckabee not his weekend show on Fox News.  The show does not air in the fourth Congressional district where Rankin in challenging incumbent Democratic Rep. Mike Ross or anywhere in Arkansas for that matter, so I am not sure what the strategy is of appearing on a show that almost none of your potential voters will ever see.

Anyway, Rankin appeared with two other women running for Congress including Republican candidate for CA-37  Star Parker and Democratic candidate for NY-14 Reshma Saujani, which is in New York City where “The Huckabee Show” is both taped and airs.  Huckabee said he would vote for all three including the Democrat.

Rankin says she did not realize she was a part of a larger movement of women running for office but instead she was inspired by Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher.

The last we looked at “The Huckabee Show,” Mike Huckabee was busy interviewing the founders of a website that helps people have affairs.  Lots of free media for a horrible website from the king of free media. Anyway, the last of the six week trial run aired today and indications are this will be the end.

Sheffield Nelson was the unsuccessful Republican candidate for governor against Bill Clinton in 1990 and against Jim Guy Tucker in 1994.  He served as a member of the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission from 2000 to 2007 as an appointment by Gov. Mike Huckabee and served as chairman from 2006 to 2007.

The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette has an article from a couple weeks ago that discusses Nelson beef with the AGFC in depth.

“We are thrilled to be able to once again expand our coverage of this growing county and offer a new way for Saline County residents to stay on top of the news and learn more about their communities,” said Editor Kristal Kuykendall. “This publication will include news, sports and special-interest articles that are tailored especially for the Saline Record audience. In addition, articles are categorized within the publication according to the county’s geography. It will be easy for each reader to quickly locate stories of interest to him or her.”

In a bit of smart marketing, the first edition of the Saline Record will focus heavily on the Salt Bowl between Benton and Bryant and will be available at the tailgate party before Friday nights game tomorrow.

Matt blogs from the left but has a good grasp on the Arkansas political landscape.  His views will be an important balance as we re-evaluate our AEL ratings coming into the thick of the 2010 general election cycle.

We don’t plan to let the grass grow under our feet and will be taking a fresh look at all our ratings in the coming days.

Welcome Matt aboard and make sure check out his Blue Hog Report.  It will soon become your daily dose of left leaning Arkansas blog reading. You can also follow Matt on twitter at @BlueHogReport.

Keet has a practice of scheduling a press conference about once a week or so but he will usually put out at least a general idea of what he will be talking about. But the campaign is tight lipped on this one. And inviting questions from the Arkansas media is pretty daring.

It might be a boring one but it could be interesting. I will let you know.

UPDATE - I was able to listen in via the live feed from Gerard Matthews of the Arkansas Times. Thanks for supplying.

Keet challenged Gov. Beebe to a debate in all four Congressional district and complained about Beebe avoided him at the Hot Springs Arkanas Economic Developers forum (hearing the gumbles from Sen. Lincoln’s campaign echoing in the distance.)

The question and answer focused largely on the Arkansas Democrat Gazette’s story on his tax issues. Keet took issue with the story’s claim that he was blaming his wife for the tax mistake and confronted ADG reporter Seth Blomeley directly over the characterization.  He insisted all his tax liability is now paid up.

After about 15 minutes of question on the tax issue, Keet cut off questions and ended the press conference.

UPDATE II – Okay, I hate doing this but apparently the most recent press release I posted was sent to me in error. I was asked to remove it and as a courtsey to the campaign - I did.

On that front, the Arkansas Democrat Gazette has an editorial today that says the US Department of Agriculture is going to take special steps to keep anyone from finding out who gets the checks from the $1.5 billion pork package.  In the past, the USDA disclosed this but now ironically they say this will be too costly.

So much for transparency.

The Arkansas Legislature’s Joint Adequacy Evaluation Oversight subcommittee meet yesterday and this morning to consider the budget for state education for fiscal year 2012. Originally, they proposed 2.5 percent or $69 million increase but pulled back yesterday. Why? Wire reports…

…Gov. Mike Beebe and members of his staff also approached lawmakers with concerns, Beebe spokesman Matt DeCample said.

“Essentially we’ve asked for more time to look through and examine the impact of the numbers on the education budget and the budget in general,” he said.

He said how the increase would affect the rest of the budget is “always a concern.”

Last fiscal year, Beebe cut the state’s budget by $246.9 million because of decreased tax collections.

A state law requires that when revenue declines, education must be funded even at the expense of other aspects of state government, a measure known as “the doomsday law.”

Still, the governor needs to “take the rest of the state budget in mind,” DeCample said.

Setting the state budget will likely top the Legislature’s agenda during its 2011 session.

State Department of Finance and Administration Director Richard Weiss has said the official general revenue forecast for the next two years won’t be presented until Nov. 10, which is 60 days before the legislative session starts…

Yeah, let’s put this whole increasing the budget dealio off until November.  This is not something that we want to talk about right now.

Reading my blog over the past year is an interesting chronicle of a disenchanted Huckabee supporter.  But even I believed there was a level to which Huckabee would not go.  He has now crossed that level in pursuit of the almighty dollar.

Last week on his show, he had Noel Biderman on to discuss a popular website that promotes married or committed couples to find partners for affairs.  Biderman was joined by a current client and a former client to discuss the website’s benefits as well as the benefits of cheating in general.

Huckabee does the “aw, shucks” routine with his guest saying things like “I don’t get that” or “It’s very difficult for me to understand” but never denouncing the website. Instead he gives the owner over ten minutes of airtime to promote his product while launching him softball questions.

It is no surprise this website that promotes adultery is a sponsor of his FoxNews show.

Mike Huckabee, you really should be ashamed of yourself!

And also…For those of you breathlessly hoping that Huckabee will run for President in 2012, Iowa Politics - an Iowa blog – does not think the chance of that is very high based on the ground game in Iowa.  They quote Eric Woolson who was the campaign manager for Huckabee for President in Iowa in 2008 and is now the spokesman for Sen. Chuck Grassley’s re-election campaign.

“It sure seems like the campaign manager of the winning 2008 operation might get a call or two, but nobody has said anything to me about 2012 yet,” Woolson said.

Meanwhile…Huckabee wants to you to take a break from surfing for cheating partners to travel to Sacramento, California this weekend and fast and pray for the protection of traditional marriage.  It must be tough for Huckabee to serve the plethora of masters that advertise on his show and pay his speaking fees. Poor fella.