Among the handful of Democratic senators who have threatened to support a Republican filibuster, Lincoln is alone in facing reelection next year. Her weakness in recent polls, which suggest that well under half of her home state’s voters approve of her performance, has clearly frightened her and emboldened nearly a dozen Republican candidates who want to run against her. Despite careful pandering to right-wing opinion, she has inevitably become a prime target of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, which has vowed to punish her for voting with her party on healthcare.

But as that fateful tally approaches, Lincoln is at last feeling serious pressure from Democrats as well. The man who brought the free clinic to Little Rock — along with “Countdown” host Keith Olbermann — is Lt. Gov. Bill Halter, who could be encouraged to enter a primary against her should she uphold the Republican filibuster. A former Clinton administration official and Rhodes scholar, Halter raised his profile by establishing a popular statewide lottery, with proceeds dedicated to education.

When Halter was asked on “Countdown” whether he might run for Lincoln’s seat, he didn’t say no. No doubt he knows that the activists who belong to Moveon.org and Democrats for America have vowed to raise millions of dollars to support a primary opponent for Lincoln unless she votes for cloture.

Lincoln’s position is especially perilous at the moment because no matter what she says or does, her ratings seem to decline. Back in July, she wrote an Op-Ed essay on healthcare reform for the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, the state’s largest daily newspaper, indicating that she supported “real” reform, including either “a quality, affordable public plan or non-profit plan that can accomplish the same goals as those of a public plan.” In that same essay she went on to berate “the opponents of reform, who have no real plan for improving health care,” for reviving the “tired arguments of the past,” with their warnings about “a Washington takeover of health care which will raise your taxes, get between you and your doctor, and eliminate private insurance.” She warned Arkansans not to be misled by those who would use such “misinformation” to stimulate fear and block change.

But as her poll numbers plummeted and her position shifted sharply to the right, Lincoln herself quickly became a purveyor of misinformation, particularly concerning the public option. In a September speech at the University of Arkansas medical school, the senator described a bill that does not exist. “For some in my caucus, when they talk about a public option they’re talking about another entitlement program, and we can’t afford that right now as a nation,” she said. “I’m not going to vote for a bill that’s not deficit-neutral, and I’m not going to vote for a bill that doesn’t do something about curbing the cost in the out years, because it would be pointless … I would not support a solely government-funded public option.”

As Lincoln certainly knows by now, because she claims to have read every page of the pending bills, the public option is neither an entitlement nor solely government-funded, but is to be financed with premiums from its beneficiaries. As for the cost of reform, she also knows that the Senate bill saves hundreds of billions of dollars over the next two decades, according to Congressional Budget Office scoring.

Running away from reform, Lincoln looked weak rather than thoughtful, and cowardly rather than centrist. Her numbers have not improved, and the Republicans are mocking her as a flip-flopper. The damage to her standing among Democrats could make the difference on Election Day, because many voters who pulled the lever for her in 2004 will simply fail to show up. A Democratic state senator who has supported Lincoln in the past told me that she recently sent a message to Lincoln’s office: Healthcare is a “line in the sand,” not just another issue.

It was Bill Clinton who uttered the most pungent criticism of Lincoln in recent days, however, although he didn’t mention her by name. Speaking at a luncheon to celebrate the fifth anniversary of the opening of his presidential library in Little Rock on Wednesday afternoon, he berated the opponents of reform for preserving a system that spends far more than other developed countries for worse care — at least $900 billion annually, according to his back-of-the-envelope calculations.

Clinton asked his audience, which included hundreds of Democratic donors and activists, to imagine a scenario in which he could somehow run for a third term as president (which drew enthusiastic applause). Then he asked them to consider what would happen if he offered the following campaign promise:

“If you elect me again, the first thing I’m going to do is put a $900 billion tax on you … I’m going to have the government print the money, and put it on elevated flatbeds, and display it along the national mall. And we’re going to broadcast this ceremony on national television. And then I’m going to motor myself from one end of that $900 billion to the other, sprinkling Kerosene on it, and then I’m going to set it afire and watch it burn.

“How many people do you think would vote for me?” he demanded. “If you don’t want to reform healthcare, that is your position. That is what you are advocating.”

Lincoln wasn’t there, but she could have heard the roaring laughter all the way back in Washington.

Although a bill with the public option is indeed expected to be deficit neutral, Lincoln has a lot of other things to worry about. Though she’s one of the more conservative members of the Senate Democratic caucus, polls of voters in her red-leaning state have shown her trailing little-known challengers. A Public Policy Polling survey has her behind newly-declared Republican challenger state Sen. Gilbert Baker, 40 to 42. And another recent Democratic poll pegs disapproval of the president’s healthcare proposals at 60 percent, with only 29 approving.

If these are the numbers for Lincoln, they can’t be much different for Democrats like Sens. Mary Landrieu, Ben Nelson, Kent Conrad and Bill Nelson. None of those senators have officially announced their opposition to the public option, but they’re trending that way, and the White House must be keeping a worried eye on them. Meanwhile, the only other member of the Democratic caucus who’s come out against the public option is Sen. Joe Lieberman, I-Conn., and the only Republican who looks like a possible yea vote at the moment is Maine’s Olympia Snowe. (Democrats are also, of course, still down a vote thanks to the open seat in Massachusetts.)

No wonder that the Democrats are talking about both using the budget reconciliation process, which could help dodge the 60-vote threshold, or making further compromises.

Meanwhile, Republican fund-raising titan Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky has announced a willingness to work with Sen. Christopher Dodd to “find a meeting of the minds” on campaign finance reform, according to a deftly planted piece in the Washington Post. And in his farewell address on Feb. 25, even Flynt-fragged almost-Speaker Bob Livingston instructed his colleagues that “Tolerance is a necessity. ‘Politician’ is not a dirty word. And compromise is the glue that renders democracy possible.”

What the Hill needs now is love, sweet love.

Amid all this hand-holding, it came as a surprise to many around Congress — and no doubt across the country — that one of the first legislative horses out of the gate post-impeachment is the divisive, perennial but usually ill-fated proposal for a constitutional amendment prohibiting the burning of the American flag.

“They introduced it already?” one senior GOP aide asked incredulously, unaware that Rep. Randy “Duke” Cunningham, R-Calif., and John Murtha, D-Pa., not only had officially introduced a flag-burning amendment bill on Feb. 24, but had already secured more than 260 co-sponsors and, reportedly, at least 306 supporters in all. (It needs 290 votes — a two-thirds majority — to pass.) There is no way, the aide said, that congressional leadership wants to see the flag-burning amendment debated at least until some more-important, tangible work had been accomplished. Such as, say, passing a budget. Or restoring the public’s faith that its government cares about issues of importance. Little things like that.

But they might not have much of a choice.

“The right wing is not happy,” observes Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass. “They are Salome without the head of John the Baptist. So the leadership is saying, ‘Let’s find some things we can give them that respond to their emotional demands’ … without alienating the rest of the country.” Frank says he thinks the GOP’s move is a bold miscalculation. “It’s a mistake for them to make this one of their big issues,” he says. “I think even people who, if asked, say they would support it would not want this to be a priority.”

When asked if he’s surprised that the Republicans in Congress would make such a dubious strategic decision, Frank expresses confusion at the question. “Of course not,” he says. “That’s what they are, that’s what they do. Am I surprised that fire burns things? Or that rain makes things wet?”

Historically, the House has voted overwhelmingly in support of the flag-burning amendment — often with the wink-wink knowledge that the more deliberative, statesmanlike Senate would either refuse to vote on the bill or would kill it. In June 1995, the House cranked out 312 votes in support of the amendment, only to see the Senate kill it a few months later. In June 1997, the House shepherded the bill to victory again, this time with 310 votes, only to have the Senate put off voting on it indefinitely. Last July, the Senate Judiciary Committee held some rather low-key hearings on the amendment, with such notable supporters as Tommy Lasorda and “Dukes of Hazard” star John Schneider marshaling the support of what are no doubt dozens of die-hard fans.

Voting to ban flag burning has always been an easy way for House members to look patriotic to their constituents, while secretly trusting the Senate to protect the Constitution — which currently has only 27 amendments, mostly dealing with lofty issues like voting rights, freedom of speech and association, and protection from the excesses of government. (The most recent amendment to pass, ratified in May 1992, put off all congressional pay raises until the next session of Congress. The amendment before that lowered the voting age to 18.) Flag-burning supporters in Congress include “a healthy mix of [genuine believers] and those who say, ‘Hey, they trot this out every year and it’s a good vote for me,’” says the top GOP House aide. Frank says that “if this were voted on in a secret ballot it would not get” the 290 votes.

The House Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on the Constitution has decided to make Cunningham and Murtha’s bill its No. 1 priority for the 106th Congress, Frank reports. The House votes are already there, after all, supported not only by Republicans but a number of craven Democrats such as Al Wynn of Maryland, Jim McGovern of Massachusetts and New Jersey’s Robert Menendez.

- – - – - – - – - -

But there’s one glitch in the traditionally fail-safe plan to let the bill pass the House and die in the Senate: This year the Senate might actually have the votes. In 1995, the measure — which requires at least 67 senators to pass — went down with 63 in favor of the bill, 36 opposed. (Bob Packwood had just resigned and his seat had yet to be filled.) The numbers and players have since changed, and House members who held their noses and voted for the amendment in the past can no longer rely on the Senate to do the “right” thing and flush.

Amid last fall’s Monicacophony, for instance, few outside the Senate Chamber noticed when, on Oct. 7, Trent Lott suddenly rose and out of nowhere attempted to push the flag-burning amendment toward a quickie vote. Amendment opponent Sen. Bob Kerrey, D-Neb. — a Congressional Medal of Honor winner who lost a leg in Vietnam — objected, and the matter was dropped for the time being.

Amendment supporters kept fairly quiet after Kerrey’s objection because the 1998 Senate bill — sponsored by Senators Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, and Max Cleland, D-Ga. — clearly didn’t have enough votes to pass. The GOP just wanted to force a pre-election stand on the issue, to shake the high wire under Democratic senators thought vulnerable: California’s Barbara Boxer, Washington’s Patty Murray, Wisconsin’s Russ Feingold and Carol Moseley-Braun of Illinois. Marty Justice, executive director of the Indianapolis-based Citizens’ Flag Alliance, or CFA, says that his organization dropped about $1 million on “issue” ads targeting amendment opponents last November, though he acknowledges that he “can’t say that they did” have any impact on a race one way or another.

But this year, according to Justice, amendment supporters in the Senate already total 65. That’s only two votes away, and the opening whistle has yet to blow. The narrowing of the already-close vote margin on the amendment came from Moseley-Braun’s loss to Sen. Peter Fitzgerald and the replacements of retiring Sens. Dale Bumpers and John Glenn, who opposed the amendment, with Blanche Lincoln, D-Ark., and George Voinovich, R-Ohio, who support it. And now that the votes may be there, Judiciary Chairman Hatch — reportedly under fire from hard-right elements in his party for cooperating with the Democrats during the impeachment hearings — is preparing to shore up some of his conservative street cred. According to a spokesperson for the Senate Judiciary Committee, Hatch is currently signing up co-sponsors and hopes to introduce the bill some time in the next few weeks.

Hatch can rest easy in the knowledge that two more votes isn’t that far to go, especially considering that CFA has yet to lock and load. Justice, a Vietnam veteran on loan to the CFA from the American Legion, says that his members have just begun targeting the 35 senators who have either voted or spoken against the amendment in the past with e-mails, faxes, letters, cards, personal visits, phone calls, “everything we can do.” A spokesman for freshman Sen. John Edwards, D-N.C. — an amendment opponent — says that he hasn’t heard much about the bill as of yet, though he knows that its supporters are “dedicated and well-organized.”

Most leadership Republicans and Democrats would probably love it if they woke up and both CFA and its raison d’être had vanished. Republicans are eager for tranquillity and achievement; the impeachment hearings torpedoed their party’s favorable ratings, and a debate on the flag-burning amendment will do little to heal the wounds or convince the nation that the GOP is all about the people’s business. Democrats, for their part, are in no hurry to be on the wrong side of one hell of a loser of an issue. And if this controversial bill does, in fact, pass, it will go to the states for a vote in 2000 — a rogue and unpredictable element added to an already combustible and high-stakes political landscape.

But the single-issue CFA has spent more than $13 million on this fight ever since the Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of flag burning in 1989, and neither the organization nor its resolve are getting any weaker. “CFA is learning from its past mistakes,” says a Hill activist who has worked hard to defeat the amendment in the past.

Oh, the drama! Will pathetically vulnerable Sen. Chuck Robb, D-Va., reverse his anti-amendment position in the face of a tough challenge from his likely opponent for reelection in 2000, the unfailingly popular former Gov. George Allen? If CFA is able to get Robb or another Democrat to shake, will past GOP opponents of the amendment — like Kentucky’s McConnell or Utah’s Robert Bennett — be willing to stand as the one obstacle between war veterans and the flag they so love? And if McConnell or Bennett come through for the Grand Old Party, will coldly calculating, amendment-supporting Democrats like California’s Dianne Feinstein waver? The only safe bet is that such a debate, probably slated for Flag Day, June 14, will get ugly, and fast, and at a time when few on the Hill are up for such a fight.

None of which, obviously, is going to help improve the perception of Congress as ground zero for Sound and Fury Signifying Nothing. One of the CFA’s strongest arguments, after all, is that an overwhelming majority of Americans — up to 80 percent, if you believe polls — support the 17-word amendment to the Constitution. “But the Republicans have just spent the last year ignoring the public, and making a point of doing so,” Frank says. “Usually, there’s a three-month moratorium on blatant hypocrisy.”

Meanwhile, Republican fund-raising titan Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky has announced a willingness to work with Sen. Christopher Dodd to “find a meeting of the minds” on campaign finance reform, according to a deftly planted piece in the Washington Post. And in his farewell address on Feb. 25, even Flynt-fragged almost-Speaker Bob Livingston instructed his colleagues that “Tolerance is a necessity. ‘Politician’ is not a dirty word. And compromise is the glue that renders democracy possible.”

What the Hill needs now is love, sweet love.

Amid all this hand-holding, it came as a surprise to many around Congress — and no doubt across the country — that one of the first legislative horses out of the gate post-impeachment is the divisive, perennial but usually ill-fated proposal for a constitutional amendment prohibiting the burning of the American flag.

“They introduced it already?” one senior GOP aide asked incredulously, unaware that Rep. Randy “Duke” Cunningham, R-Calif., and John Murtha, D-Pa., not only had officially introduced a flag-burning amendment bill on Feb. 24, but had already secured more than 260 co-sponsors and, reportedly, at least 306 supporters in all. (It needs 290 votes — a two-thirds majority — to pass.) There is no way, the aide said, that congressional leadership wants to see the flag-burning amendment debated at least until some more-important, tangible work had been accomplished. Such as, say, passing a budget. Or restoring the public’s faith that its government cares about issues of importance. Little things like that.

But they might not have much of a choice.

“The right wing is not happy,” observes Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass. “They are Salome without the head of John the Baptist. So the leadership is saying, ‘Let’s find some things we can give them that respond to their emotional demands’ … without alienating the rest of the country.” Frank says he thinks the GOP’s move is a bold miscalculation. “It’s a mistake for them to make this one of their big issues,” he says. “I think even people who, if asked, say they would support it would not want this to be a priority.”

When asked if he’s surprised that the Republicans in Congress would make such a dubious strategic decision, Frank expresses confusion at the question. “Of course not,” he says. “That’s what they are, that’s what they do. Am I surprised that fire burns things? Or that rain makes things wet?”

Historically, the House has voted overwhelmingly in support of the flag-burning amendment — often with the wink-wink knowledge that the more deliberative, statesmanlike Senate would either refuse to vote on the bill or would kill it. In June 1995, the House cranked out 312 votes in support of the amendment, only to see the Senate kill it a few months later. In June 1997, the House shepherded the bill to victory again, this time with 310 votes, only to have the Senate put off voting on it indefinitely. Last July, the Senate Judiciary Committee held some rather low-key hearings on the amendment, with such notable supporters as Tommy Lasorda and “Dukes of Hazard” star John Schneider marshaling the support of what are no doubt dozens of die-hard fans.

Voting to ban flag burning has always been an easy way for House members to look patriotic to their constituents, while secretly trusting the Senate to protect the Constitution — which currently has only 27 amendments, mostly dealing with lofty issues like voting rights, freedom of speech and association, and protection from the excesses of government. (The most recent amendment to pass, ratified in May 1992, put off all congressional pay raises until the next session of Congress. The amendment before that lowered the voting age to 18.) Flag-burning supporters in Congress include “a healthy mix of [genuine believers] and those who say, ‘Hey, they trot this out every year and it’s a good vote for me,’” says the top GOP House aide. Frank says that “if this were voted on in a secret ballot it would not get” the 290 votes.

The House Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on the Constitution has decided to make Cunningham and Murtha’s bill its No. 1 priority for the 106th Congress, Frank reports. The House votes are already there, after all, supported not only by Republicans but a number of craven Democrats such as Al Wynn of Maryland, Jim McGovern of Massachusetts and New Jersey’s Robert Menendez.

But there’s one glitch in the traditionally fail-safe plan to let the bill pass the House and die in the Senate: This year the Senate might actually have the votes. In 1995, the measure — which requires at least 67 senators to pass — went down with 63 in favor of the bill, 36 opposed. (Bob Packwood had just resigned and his seat had yet to be filled.) The numbers and players have since changed, and House members who held their noses and voted for the amendment in the past can no longer rely on the Senate to do the “right” thing and flush.

Amid last fall’s Monicacophony, for instance, few outside the Senate Chamber noticed when, on Oct. 7, Trent Lott suddenly rose and out of nowhere attempted to push the flag-burning amendment toward a quickie vote. Amendment opponent Sen. Bob Kerrey, D-Neb. — a Congressional Medal of Honor winner who lost a leg in Vietnam — objected, and the matter was dropped for the time being.

Amendment supporters kept fairly quiet after Kerrey’s objection because the 1998 Senate bill — sponsored by Senators Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, and Max Cleland, D-Ga. — clearly didn’t have enough votes to pass. The GOP just wanted to force a pre-election stand on the issue, to shake the high wire under Democratic senators thought vulnerable: California’s Barbara Boxer, Washington’s Patty Murray, Wisconsin’s Russ Feingold and Carol Moseley-Braun of Illinois. Marty Justice, executive director of the Indianapolis-based Citizens’ Flag Alliance, or CFA, says that his organization dropped about $1 million on “issue” ads targeting amendment opponents last November, though he acknowledges that he “can’t say that they did” have any impact on a race one way or another.

But this year, according to Justice, amendment supporters in the Senate already total 65. That’s only two votes away, and the opening whistle has yet to blow. The narrowing of the already-close vote margin on the amendment came from Moseley-Braun’s loss to Sen. Peter Fitzgerald and the replacements of retiring Sens. Dale Bumpers and John Glenn, who opposed the amendment, with Blanche Lincoln, D-Ark., and George Voinovich, R-Ohio, who support it. And now that the votes may be there, Judiciary Chairman Hatch — reportedly under fire from hard-right elements in his party for cooperating with the Democrats during the impeachment hearings — is preparing to shore up some of his conservative street cred. According to a spokesperson for the Senate Judiciary Committee, Hatch is currently signing up co-sponsors and hopes to introduce the bill some time in the next few weeks.

Hatch can rest easy in the knowledge that two more votes isn’t that far to go, especially considering that CFA has yet to lock and load. Justice, a Vietnam veteran on loan to the CFA from the American Legion, says that his members have just begun targeting the 35 senators who have either voted or spoken against the amendment in the past with e-mails, faxes, letters, cards, personal visits, phone calls, “everything we can do.” A spokesman for freshman Sen. John Edwards, D-N.C. — an amendment opponent — says that he hasn’t heard much about the bill as of yet, though he knows that its supporters are “dedicated and well-organized.”

Most leadership Republicans and Democrats would probably love it if they woke up and both CFA and its raison d’être had vanished. Republicans are eager for tranquillity and achievement; the impeachment hearings torpedoed their party’s favorable ratings, and a debate on the flag-burning amendment will do little to heal the wounds or convince the nation that the GOP is all about the people’s business. Democrats, for their part, are in no hurry to be on the wrong side of one hell of a loser of an issue. And if this controversial bill does, in fact, pass, it will go to the states for a vote in 2000 — a rogue and unpredictable element added to an already combustible and high-stakes political landscape.

But the single-issue CFA has spent more than $13 million on this fight ever since the Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of flag burning in 1989, and neither the organization nor its resolve are getting any weaker. “CFA is learning from its past mistakes,” says a Hill activist who has worked hard to defeat the amendment in the past.

Oh, the drama! Will pathetically vulnerable Sen. Chuck Robb, D-Va., reverse his anti-amendment position in the face of a tough challenge from his likely opponent for reelection in 2000, the unfailingly popular former Gov. George Allen? If CFA is able to get Robb or another Democrat to shake, will past GOP opponents of the amendment — like Kentucky’s McConnell or Utah’s Robert Bennett — be willing to stand as the one obstacle between war veterans and the flag they so love? And if McConnell or Bennett come through for the Grand Old Party, will coldly calculating, amendment-supporting Democrats like California’s Dianne Feinstein waver? The only safe bet is that such a debate, probably slated for Flag Day, June 14, will get ugly, and fast, and at a time when few on the Hill are up for such a fight.

None of which, obviously, is going to help improve the perception of Congress as ground zero for Sound and Fury Signifying Nothing. One of the CFA’s strongest arguments, after all, is that an overwhelming majority of Americans — up to 80 percent, if you believe polls — support the 17-word amendment to the Constitution. “But the Republicans have just spent the last year ignoring the public, and making a point of doing so,” Frank says. “Usually, there’s a three-month moratorium on blatant hypocrisy.”