Posted on 11/02/2002 5:10:45 PM PST by MadIvan
Arkansas residents will today and tomorrow witness what the rest of the country never got a chance to see: a political contest between George Bush Jr and Bill Clinton.
On the stump at Ouachita Baptist University, deep in rural Arkansas, the Republican senator Tim Hutchinson is standing in front of a cardboard cut-out of the President of the United States.
"I have a personal relationship with George W. Bush," he tells an audience of 300 students. "He is a good friend of mine. And President Bush will be here on Monday to push us over the finish line in the closest and most important Senate race in America."
Sixty miles away in Little Rock, the capital of Arkansas, the local Democratic Party chairman, Ron Oliver, is also preparing for a distinguished visitor - one whose credentials are more local if not quite as current.
"Mr Clinton will arrive back here on Sunday," said Mr Oliver, whose office walls are lined with photographs of the former president in his youthful days as governor of the state. "We will have the help of the best political campaigner of the previous century, back on his own patch, to give us the edge and get the vote out."
Control of the Senate is in the balance in Tuesday's congressional elections, with each party currently holding 49 seats, one seat vacant and one held by an independent.
Arkansas, the small southern state best known for its catfish suppers and the escapades of Bill Clinton, has once again taken political centre-stage.
The Senate race between Mr Hutchinson and the Democrat hopeful, Mark Pryor, is too close to call. The prize, amid the most tense congressional elections in recent memory, is valuable enough to have attracted the biggest names that the Republican and Democratic party machines can offer.
Anticipating the loss of at least one seat to a Republican in a handful of tight Mid-West contests, Democrats believe that they require a "flip result" of their own in the south to maintain control. Arkansas, which became a Republican Senate seat for the first time since the Civil War at the last elections, is the top target.
President Bush will speak at the Republican stronghold of Fayetteville tomorrow afternoon, on the eve of the national poll. Ex-president Clinton will speak today to the black Democratic heartland of Jefferson County. No other state can match that line-up.
In Little Rock, Mr Clinton's power base when governor of Arkansas and presidential candidate, it is quite like old times. Doe's Steakhouse is again full of politicians, strategists and hangers-on.
Waitresses at the Plaza Grille restaurant wistfully remember the times when tips were good and the gossip was even better. "It was never a dull moment with Bill Clinton," said one.
Pardon me whilst I'm sick in the corner - Ivan
In a race defined by who the two candidates know rather than what they say, the Republicans countered the Clinton factor with an extraordinary array of star appearances last week. Rudy Giuliani, the former mayor of New York, toured the state yesterday.
Charlton Heston, known locally as "Moses" after his most famous film role, spoke on the same platform as the Republican candidate the day before. Oliver North also made the trip to Little Rock.
The two candidates have meanwhile made a spirited attempt to keep a grip on their campaigns. Mr Hutchinson accused his opponent of favouring tighter legislation on gun ownership, a certain vote-loser in Arkansas. Mr Pryor responded by appearing in a television spot wearing military fatigues and brandishing a rifle.
Democrat campaigners have gleefully accused Mr Hutchinson, who is closely associated with the religious Right, of lax moral standards following his divorce and subsequent remarriage to a member of his Senate staff. To ram the point home, Mr Pryor appears on the hustings with a Bible. The poll ratings remain stubbornly even.
Among young Republicans at Ouachita Baptist University, there was a distinct air of apprehension. "Clinton is an operator and a pretty unscrupulous one at that," said Stuart Jones, the chairman of the university Republican group.
As he spoke, a student removed the cardboard cut-out of Mr Bush. With a fraught Senate campaign reaching its final stages, Mr Hutchinson will be relieved to see the President in the flesh tomorrow.
Just as I thought. Reminds me of all the divorced men who demanded that Elian be sent back to Castro - - - getting divorced colors one's outlook on a lot of things
LOL! If you believe the Rat spin on this crap, he deserves child support and is not getting it from the evil senator. LLLLLLLLOOOOOOOOOLLLLLLLLLLLLLL!
People who judge others as immorals and worthless sometimes get the same things in their own families. I suppose your family is PERFECT? Or, maybe members of your family just don't tell you because they would fear being JUDGED by you? I wouldn't tell you anything that's for sure!
"Forgive us our trespasses AS WE FORGIVE those who trespass against us."
If we truly believe that God answers our prayers and this is a prayer taught us by our Lord Himself, then we must take this to mean that if we forgive the sins of others then our sins will be forgiven but if we refuse to forgive then neither will we be forgiven.
Your posts are ludicrous and nonsensical. This is an election for the Senate, not Sunday School. What's more, Churchill would not have much patience with you and your twisted logic. You seem to have a real anger towards men. Very self righteous twit you are.
If I were married to you, you would be just as gone.
BTW! Since you made up your mind about Hutch on so little data, and you now made up your mind about me, I'll tell you the same thing I told the Catholic church when they asked me to release her or whatever it is catholics do when a divorcee tries to re-marry into the church.
I said....."This woman tried to convince me the a blow job was not sex so she really had not broken her vows."
Sound familiar?
$68,000 Contributions
ROTFL! Why don't you give us your HONEST opinion? Sure wish you were gonna be there tomorrow.
I was waiting to see if somebody was going to point this out.
Wishin ya'all a good FReep!
Pryor is backed by prominent centrist groups like the New Democrats Network and the Democratic Leadership Council -- an organization co-founded and formerly chaired by Bill Clinton.
Like some other Arkansas Democrats, however, Pryor has distanced himself from the former president preferring to associate himself with his father's record and legacy. When Pryor missed a fundraiser in West Memphis where Clinton was the keynote speaker, his campaign said that he was preparing for a debate against his opponent, incumbent Sen. Tim Hutchinson. Political observers said that Pryor, who they say is seeking to take advantage of Hutchinson's recent divorce and remarriage, doesn't want to associate himself with Clinton.
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