Andanh.com

The Huck cross?

It was intentional. Or so this coverage says. Roll the tape.

Campaign adivisor Ed Rollins admitted recently on City Talk that the cross was pre-planned and the ad was run in order to get media attention. Hard to believe coming from a campaign that held a news conference to show a commercial they weren't going to air.

Maybe somebody will ask him about this little trickTuesday night. He'll be providing "insider" commentary on election coverage on MSNBarack, subbing for Joe Scarbrough as Harold Ford's opposite number.

Our web design isn't exactly intuitive concerning on-line comments on our regular articles for the print edition. Used to be, they appeared immediately after the article. Now, you must click the comments link at the top of a story to see them.

But, nonetheless, readers have figured out the puzzle. Some 80 comments and counting have been added to the article about Cecily Skarda's hard-hitting challenge of incumbent Circuit Judge Mary McGowan. Spirited, to put it mildly.

Here's the story.

Here's the link to the comment thread, (most recent comments at top) should you prefer to get straight to the bloodletting.

Obama dons the flag lapel pin to campaign in West Virginia.

That race for Court of Appeals in NWA is heating up. Ron Williams takes offense that Courtney Henry has distributed a mailer suggesting he's playing the partisanship card. Not him, he insists, his hiring of Republican firebrand Jim Holt for political help notwithstanding. Henry raises the issue through a John Brummett column that says Williams is from a cabal of Hutchinsons and Holtists.

Her mailer here.

His news release here.

U.S. News blogger says Mike Huckabee is at the top of McCain's list.

UPDATE: Mike Huckabee blogs today about the Robert Novak column mentioned earlier. He disputes the notion that he's in league with anti-McCain evangelicals. (He is speaking in a few days at Patrick Henry College in Virginia, the Harvard of the Religious Right.) And he tells about being in the crowd for Carrie Underwood's show last night.

 As a public service, a link to the White House photo gallery, from which this photo is taken, since the D-G didn't offer much this morning.

News release:

Lieutenant Governor Bill Halter and his wife, Shanti, are pleased to announce they are expecting their second child.  The Halters have an 18-month-old daughter.

"God blessed us with a beautiful baby girl, Lauren Renee, and soon she is going to be a big sister," Bill Halter said.  "A new life puts everything in perspective.  Shanti and I are excited and very happy."

The baby is due in mid-November.  Arkansas voters elected Bill Halter to a four-year term as Lieutenant Governor in November 2006, shortly after Lauren Renee's birth.

The Halters live in North Little Rock.

UPDATE: Halter has scheduled a "major" announcement Wednesday Tuesday on the state lottery amendment he's been pushing. Perhaps the signatures are in hand.

Argenta News is raising questions about the financial wisdom of NLR Commodore Pat Hays' idea to put an RV parking lot at the foot of the Rock Island railroad bridge across from the Clinton Library. (Aesthetically, it's a good match for the commodore's planned rusty mothball fleet just upriver.)

Wowsers and former wowsers will want to read on after the RV item for news about the reopening of the infamous Checkmate Club.

Photographer Brian Chilson's shot from Carrie Underwood's show at Alltel Sunday evening.

From Robert Novak's column today:

Some U.S. Christians are not reconciled to McCain's candidacy but instead regard the prospective presidency of Barack Obama in the nature of a biblical plague visited upon a sinful people. These militants look at former Baptist preacher Huckabee as "God's candidate" for president in 2012. Whether they can be written off as merely a troublesome fringe group depends on Huckabee's course.

Huckabee's announced support of McCain is unequivocal, and he is regarded in the McCain camp as a friend and ally. But credible activists are spreading the word that Huckabee secretly allies himself with the bitter-end opposition. That hardly seems possible considering his public backing, but critics of Huckabee's 10 years as governor of Arkansas say he is all too capable of playing a double game.

... One experienced, credible activist in Christian politics who would not let his name be used told me that Huckabee, in personal conversation with him, had embraced the concept that an Obama presidency might be what the American people deserve. That fits what has largely been a fringe position among evangelicals: that the pain of an Obama presidency is in keeping with the Bible's prophecy.

Call your mother today? Have a good memory to recall if you couldn't? It's a good place to start an open line today.

(OK, someone asked: The first thing I remember about my late mother -- after her single-minded determination to never, never fail to deliver on motherly duties and her belief in the perfection of her children and grandchildren -- is how often she had to come home from work to sew up pants I'd split at school. Grandma Betty could sew up a storm.) Yes, that's her with me, circa 1950.