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.
I'm guessing you feel dumped. Oh well! You will never find what you are looking for by blaming men for each failed marriage. Life is too short to dwell in the past. Get over it.
I'm not a woman. I'm a happily married man, who agrees with Teddy Roosevelt that adultery is wicked and socially destructive, and adulterers should suffer a social stigma. In TR's day, a politician or business leader who dumped his wife would lose his job right away or at the next election. Maybe Hutch's coming loss will signal that we're going back toward some standards that respect vows, promises, wives and families. (Oh, and I'm not bitter -- how could I be, I have a happy family; I'm just sad for all the children and wives who've been deserted by selfish, weak husbands in search of younger flesh)
Thanks again for first reply.......
No you are not.
Maybe?! We haven't heard her side of it yet.
Certainly not happy, and not much of a man either,IMHO.
Also, pause before you accuse people of being "bitter" because they support standards of fidelity to family and women. (I'm a happily married man, by the way) I caution you on this, because we pro-lifers are often accused of being biter people who can't forgive, because we're trying to uphold right and wrong and protect the innocent. Unlike you, I also believe a lot of innocent people are hurt by our easy, promiscuous attitude toward wife- and family-dumping. I'm not bitter as much as sad for the victims, and I'd like to see our society change in a direction that provides social stigmas that protect innocent wives and children in the future from such victimization (just as I want to see legal protections for the unborn) None of this makes me bitter - just as the pro-choicers are wrong to taunt you and the rest of us pro-lifers as bitter bigots. It's too bad you adopt their rhetoric to taunt someone who cares about families, children, wives, and character in public office. Try reconsidering. Take care.
Sure you are...help elect Mark Pryor because you don't think Tim Hutchinson fits your "MORALS". That makes a lot of sense because Mark Pryor is PRO-CHOICE.
Well, she feels a good deal more confident in her marriage, I suspect, than the wives of all the guys on this board who are offering defenses for Hutchinson's wife-dumping. IF my hubby thinks it's OK for Hutchinson, some wives might be asking, why wouldn't my hubby also think it's ok for HIM?
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