John Kerry’s going to get a challenger in his Senate primary.  Defense attorney Edward O’Reilly is the guy, reports the Gloucester Daily Times.  He’ll need to collect 10,000 signatures by May 6, 2008, to gain a spot on the Democratic primary ballot.

“Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, on a book publicity tour in states that play early roles in the U.S. presidential race, said on Monday he would likely wait until November 6, a year before the 2008 election, to announce any campaign for the White House,” reports Reuters.  “A year is more campaigning than the American people need to endure,” he said.

“Mrs. Clinton, who is seeking the Democratic presidential nomination, said she would cut health care spending by $120 billion a year through prevention programs, coordinated treatment of chronic diseases and computerized record keeping.   In addition, she said she would reduce costs by allowing imports of cheaper drugs, more use of generic drugs and by having the government negotiate the prices of drugs covered under Medicare,” reports The New York Times.

Polls are generally meaningless this early in a presidential race.  But here’s one released yesterday that surprised me a bit.  John Edwards leads the democratic field in Florida with 25.7% of the vote.  Hillary Clinton is second with 24% and Barack Obama third with 18.9%. 

Florida moved its primary up to January 29th, which means that it will be a key player in the nomination race.

News swirled over the weekend that Alltel had agreed in principle to a sale of the company to private equity groups.  On Sunday night, Alltel CEO Scott Ford signed a merger agreement with Texas Pacific Group and Goldman Sachs Capital Partners for about $27.5 billion. 

Ford said that TPG and GS have bought Alltel as a platform to grow into the wireless industry, not to break it up and sell it.  “This is a group of investors that want to invest in the wireless business. They want to grow the wireless business. They are committed to both the urban markets and the rural markets that we serve… We will continue to invest in our business as we have in the past,” he said.

The Arkansas Democrat Gazette doesn’t seem as confident.  Today’s lead editorial is a plea for the new owners, whomever they may be, to keep the company in Little Rock.  Unfortunately, the editorial is only available to subscribers.   However, Arkansas Business publisher Jeff Hankins notes, “If it had been a publicly traded company inquiring these companies than we would have stood to lose hundreds of jobs because they wouldn’t have kept all of the back ended administrative jobs of these companies.”

It seems this deal involved a bit of good luck.  Ford admitted, “If Verizon or AT&T had been there and paid more, we would have sold it to them.”

If finalized, the Alltel deal will be the second major buyout of a Little Rock based company in the past week. Wednesday, Acxiom Corporation announced it had agreed to a $3 billion sale to ValueAct Partners and Silver Lake Partners.

The New York Post reports that takeover talk has been fueled in recent days for Arkansas-based department store chain Dillard’s.

“Former President Jimmy Carter was cited for a doozy over the weekend when he called the Bush administration “the worst in history” for its impact around the world. Though Mr. Carter tried to take it back on Monday, saying on the “Today” show that his remarks were “careless or misinterpreted” and that he was “not talking personally about any president,” he has still incited a tsk-tsking tsunami in the capital,” reports The New York Times.

A former President attacking a current President isn’t all that uncommon, although Carter’s comments may be considered tougher that what we remember from the past.  The New York Times notes, “Eisenhower was critical of John F. Kennedy’s domestic policies, the first President Bush pounded on Bill Clinton, now his pal, for his Haiti policy, and Nixon chided the first President Bush (for comparing himself to Harry Truman in his 1992 re-election campaign). Theodore Roosevelt was brutal in his assaults on Taft and Woodrow Wilson, said Patricia O’Toole, author of “When Trumpets Call,” a book about Roosevelt in the years after he left office.”

The Little Rock Parks and Recreation Commission has been reviewing plans and suggestions as to what do with War Memorial Park.   Currently occupied by a ratty 18-hole golf course, residents have urged the city to consider ripping up the golf course and constructing a pristine, urban park in the heart of Little Rock.

The advantages to developing an urban park, complete with walking and biking trails and wide open space for people to come together and enjoy the warm months, are limitless (think about the entertainment opportunities alone).   

Additionally, it appears that constructing the park would have practical advantages as well: it will reduce temperatures in the city.  According to research compiled by British scientists and published in this month’s issue of the journal Built Environment, cities “An additional 10 percent more green space could reduce surface temperatures by 7 degrees Fahrenheit.  Extra parks and green roofs could counteract the predicted rise in temperature until 2080 when summers are expected to be hotter and drier and winters wetter.”

The biggest hurdle seems to be cost.  It’s going to take millions of dollars to develop the park.  But this city should be scared off by these costs.  Opportunties this good don’t come along very often, if ever.  A centrally located park in Little Rock would bring all sections of the city together. Talk about community.

According to Anne Thompson’s Daily Variety blog, while at the Cannes Film Festival she “ended up at the Majestic Terrace, where [Michael]Moore was having a confab with PR advisor Chris Lehane and a bevy of Weinstein Co. marketing and PR people. He’s in for it.”  Moore, you may have heard, is is under investigation by the U.S. Treasury Department for taking ailing September 11 rescue workers to Cuba for a segment in his upcoming health-care documentary “Sicko.”

Lehane is a former political advisor to Al Gore, John Kerry and Wesley Clark.  Lehane has been working with since the release of his last film “Fahrenheit 9/11″. 

Paul D. Wolfowitz, ending a furor over favoritism that blew up into a global fight over American leadership, announced his resignation as president of the World Bank Thursday evening after the bank’s board accepted his claim that his mistakes at the bank were made in good faith, reports The New York Times.

Reports this morning confirm that Acxiom, the data company located in Conway and Little Rock, has sold.  Rumors have been swirling for months that Alltel, the nation’s 5th largest cellular technology provider also located in Little Rock is entertaining offers.  The Acxiom sale doesn’t appear to mean anything for the employees, at least not yet.  “There will be no big changes for employees,” CEO Charles Morgan added. The Acxiom name is expected to stay intact and its headquarters should remain in Little Rock, reports Roby Brock.

Pulitizer Prize winning author Nick Kotz  and Univeristy of Arkansas Professor Randall Woods, who both wrote books about President Lyndon B. Johnson and who both appeared at the recent Literary Fesitval in Little Rock’s Rivermarket, are doing a big time repeat peformance.

Kotz and Woods are speaking at the National Archives in Washington  D.C.on Thursday June 7 at 7 p.m..

Woods is the author of LBJ: Architect of American Ambition.  Kotz wrote Judgement Days: Lyndon Baines Johnson, Martin Luther King Jr, and the Laws That Changed America.

If you are going to be in Washington during this time, call 202-357-5000  or email publicprograms@nara.gov

Newark, New Jersey Mayor Cory Booker endorsed Barack Obama for President.  Booker, known for his tough campaigns for Mayor (the first, which he lost, was the subject of a documary film “Street Fight”), is a rising star in Democratic politics.  Overwhelmingly elected last year, Booker seems to have bucked the NJ political establishment (Governor Jon Corzine has endorsed Senator Clinton). 

Clinton maintains a comfortable lead in New Jersey and as many, including me often note, endorsements rarely mean much.  Nevertheless, it is a bit of a coup for Obama.  It will be interesting to see who Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick, another rising star in Democratic politics, endorses.  Patrick is a former senior official in the Clinton Justice Department and President Clinton campaigned heavily for him in the closing weeks of his campaign.

Obama, Patrick and Booker make up three of the most ambitious African-Americans in the Democratic Party.  All three are Ivy League educated.  Obama went to Columbia for undergrad and received his law degree from Harvard.  Patrick went to Harvard for both his undergrad and his J.D.  Booker went to Stanford and received his law degree from Yale.  Booker was also a Rhodes Scholar.  Watch out for all three in the years to come, no matter what happens in 08.

How much longer the Democrats can continue to call these largely symbolic votes on Iraq war funding?  Sure, they’re futile because President Bush will veto each one of them, but when they start failing in the way the vote failed today, with 19 Democrats voting with the Republicans, it begins to look like a misguided strategy.   

The Democrats are right to be pushing for change.  The political tide has turned against Bush.  Polls in heavily Republican districts, including northwest Arkansas, show that more than 50% of residents believe that the war in Iraq is  a mistake.  Absent a drastic change, the 2008 election is setting up to be an even bigger landslide than the 2006 mid-terms.  Even cozy Republicans will have to campaign for their seats.  The entire map should be in play for the DCCC in 08.

Nevertheless, the current political landscape may not look so rosy if the Democrats don’t start offering more than symbolic votes as a solution. 

In a release issued today by his Foundation, former President Bill Clinton announced the creation of the Energy Efficiency Retrofit Program where the Foundation in partnership with cities, banks, corporations and others will pursue measures to retrofit buildings with energy saving upgrades.   This is part of the Clinton Climate Initiative.

This is just another in a long line of good ideas by the former President.  And what makes it better is that before he fires off a release, he lines up his partners, gets his financial committments and begins the execution phase.  4 global corporations, 5 multinational banks, 15 cities.  Can you say most successful post-presidency in American history?

While I recognize that Little Rock isn’t one of the cities eligible for participation in the initial phase of the program (it was limited to C40 Large Cities Climate Change Group), I hope Little Rock will step up and be a leader among cities with 250,000 and less.  With the several “green” buildings including the Clinton Library and Heifer International anchoring the east end of the city, the time is now to step up and be leader on climate change issues.