The Democrats' Arkansas Project
WEBB, KANE
The Democrats' Arkansas Project Can David Pryor's son take back his dad's seat— and the Senate—in 2002? BY KANE WEBB Little Rock, Ark. ON A POSTCARD PERFECT spring day, Tim Hutchinson is in a...
...Jim Bob Duggar sounds like the kind of Arkansas character some Hollywood scriptwriter would make up...
...He's very good at this type of thing...
...In one corner, you've got Pryor, a political comer with a heavyweight name and a lightweight résumé, a young man who beat cancer and bounced back to win statewide office...
...Back at the hearing on the nursing shortage, I'm reminded why Tim Hutchinson was elected in the first place...
...And Jim Bob's entry into the race brings up the D-I-V-O-R-C-E in a way a Democratic opponent never could...
...Hutchin-son suddenly has two challengers...
...In Arkansas, a name may still be more powerful than an idea...
...Voters who twice elected him governor and sent him to the Senate for three terms knew him simply as David...
...Races have to start early...
...So if ideology doesn't separate Tim H. from Jim Bob, what does...
...Add in soft money and spending by independent groups— campaign-finance reform permit-ting—and this might be Arkansas's first $20-million campaign, and without a Clinton in sight...
...Indeed, when reporters rush him after his hearing at the medical center, one of the first questions is personal...
...A place where the word divorce is still whispered, so as not to offend...
...Before we get started," he teases, "does anybody have any questions about the nursing bill...
...Northwest Arkansas is also the most conservative part of an increasingly conservative southern state...
...Yet he wants a piece of one of the nation's premier races in 2002—one of those few races that could decide which way the 50-50 Senate falls...
...In the other, you've got the first Republican elected from Arkansas to the Senate since Reconstruction, an experienced legislator, a courageous voice for human rights in China, and a social conservative whose divorce and remarriage has been the most talked about unspoken issue of the campaign...
...An Arkansas journalist once dubbed him the state's unofficial pet rock...
...But he remarried a former staffer, and he labors under an unfair political stereotype—that he's a social conservative who ran strictly on Family Values and hence is a hypocrite...
...It's got marquee appeal...
...Pryor, they say, and that's all...
...What's more, the senator from Arkansas voted to convict the president from Arkansas...
...Many Arkansans will play both sides...
...His chief of staff explained that his boss has a job to do, and the race is young, and he doesn't want to get into campaign issues just yet, and . . . well, okay...
...He's a state legislator from northwest Arkansas, the fastest-growing part of the state and one of the fastest-growing regions in the country thanks largely to companies like Tyson and Wal-Mart...
...Which brings us to the tabloid portion of our show: Tim Hutchinson is divorced...
...It changes the dynamic across the country...
...Other than the God stuff, he won't say...
...The reporters laugh and start asking questions about the 2002 campaign...
...Well, ideology...
...I jot down a list of Hutchinson qualities the Democrats will underestimate: his experience, his grasp of and interest in the issues, his ability to articulate a position, his energy, and, finally, his lack of horns and tail...
...A few days before, he got word of the first challenge to his Senate seat— from within the Republican party...
...And according to the National Journal's congressional vote ratings, there's nobody farther to the right than the senator from Arkansas...
...The party of Bill Clinton isn't considered an authority on family values...
...Oh, and money...
...Hutchinson says he'll have to raise between $3 million and $4 million, and he expects Pryor to raise at least as much...
...To his credit, Pryor didn't drop the chalupa...
...Anything less is better—for Tim Hutchinson...
...Mark Pryor inherited his father's just-folks appeal...
...But his most visible act as attorney general seems to be his decision to run for the U.S...
...He's the kind of regular guy you could find playing basketball at the local Y, and the kind of Arkansas politician that everybody seems to know...
...Jim Bob says the Lord made him do it...
...Now, a more formidable opponent has stepped forward—Mark Pryor, the state's Democratic attorney general and son of David Pryor, the man Hutchinson replaced in the Senate...
...So I'm thinking about all this as I drive back to the office, when I notice not one but two faded bumper-stickers on cars that rumble by...
...ON A POSTCARD PERFECT spring day, Tim Hutchinson is in a windowless conference room at a teaching hospital in Little Rock...
...You wouldn't think so...
...The hearing wouldn't ordinarily make news, but the place is swarming with cameras and reporters...
...So I slide into one of the last empty seats in the sterile conference room as the newly vulnerable incumbent Kane Webb is assistant editorial page editor of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette...
...Well, one thing's for sure: Some of the Shi'ite Republicans aren't...
...He has managed to secure some headlines for his work protecting consumers against tele-marketers and also keeping the tobacco lawyers at bay as the state smoked out a settlement...
...Funny thing about Republicans in Arkansas, and especially Republicans in northwest Arkansas, they come in three varieties: conservative, more conservative, and Shi'ite Republicans (so dubbed by the governor, Mike Huckabee, a conservative Republican himself...
...Marty Ryall, the executive director of the state GOP, welcomed Pryor the Younger into the race by declaring that he'd "ridden his daddy's coattails about as far as he can, and if his last name wasn't Pryor, he'd be a busboy at Taco Bell...
...But he's still mainly known as David's boy, and one wonders if the political-instincts gene skipped a generation...
...In Little Rock...
...An obscure legislator from northwest Arkansas named Jim Bob Duggar announced that he would run against his friend even though he (a) agreed with him on the issues and (b) probably wouldn't vote any differently were he in the Senate...
...This will be one of the top five in the country, and we'll see millions pour in...
...The place is packed with tired-looking young people in white lab coats and scrubs—and the press...
...In the cult of personality that is Arkansas politics, David Pryor was the ideal combination: a self-effacing southerner with charm...
...He called Ryall's comments "zesty...
...In the native tongue of this small, populist state, a state that was once so yellow-dog Democrat it barked, the name Pryor translates into votes and cash...
...The senior senator from Arkansas is spending part of his Easter recess at a field hearing on the shortage of nurses...
...The event raises a state record, $1.06 million, more than half of what Hutchinson spent to win his seat five years ago...
...For Senator Tim Hutchinson...
...And why else would Jim Bob Duggar, family man, challenge Hutchinson...
...warms up the crowd—and then proceeds to win it over with an impressive combination of wit and erudition...
...Tim Hutchinson has his hands full...
...It's a little early, isn't it...
...It's such a unique year with a 50-50 split in the Senate," says Bill Paschall, a political consultant who managed Pryor's successful campaign for attorney general...
...A couple of weeks later, George W. Bush will headline his first major fund-raising event as president...
...This in a state where shaking hands and slapping backs and eating chicken-fried steak is still a major part of campaigning...
...Surely there will be other issues, but right now there seem to be only two: Mark Pryor's name and Tim Hutchinson's vulnerability...
...It's hard to tell whether the stickers are from David's last race in '90 or Mark's last race in '98, and then I wonder if it really matters...
...Jim Bob may be the only living politician to the right of Tim Hutchinson...
...Is God not happy with Tim Hutchin-son...
...But before the main event, there's the preliminary bout...
...When the hearing is over, the locusts descend...
...Then again, it might be the perfect strategy when your name is Pryor and you're running for statewide office in Arkansas...
...Still, there's no denying that Hutchinson's personal life has become an annoyance to his fledgling reelection campaign, like a low-grade fever...
...With cameras aimed, microphones extended, Hutchinson smiles...
...But it seems like a strange way to campaign...
...Jim Bob, 35-year-old father of 12 with another on the way, is not known as an overly eager pol...
...Just listen to what Hutchinson has to say about him: "The thing about David Pryor is, regardless of whether you agree or disagree with his politics, everybody recognizes him as a gentleman...
...Fast-food talk aside, Mark Pryor is running for his father's old seat, and David Pryor is about as beloved as any politician the state has known...
...In truth, the '96 campaign was run on national issues like Medicaid and taxes and Social Security reform...
...Meanwhile, over in the party of Hutchinson, the ghost of Lee Atwater hovers...
...Mark Pryor served two undistinguished terms in the Arkansas House and has been on the job as the state's top lawyer for just two years...
...I don't know what is the most expensive race to date, but this one will put it and others to shame...
...Hutchinson-Pryor spending will blow everything away," says one of the state's veteran political operatives...
...The nurses, who looked like they were ordered to show up, are nodding along at things he says...
...You set somebody up as a fire-breathing zealot, demonize him long enough, and expectations are for the very worst...
...In addition, the Clinton presidency has opened many new national fund-raising opportunities for Arkansas candidates like Mark Pryor...
...David Pryor is one of the most likable people around...
...No, it's not early...
...Hutchinson asks, knowing full well it's not...
...Tim Hutchinson, nicknamed No-Tax Tim by Bill Clinton, never made family values much of an issue in his race...
...And his younger brother, Asa, prosecuted the president as one of the House managers...
...Big deal...
...Accommodating as he usually is, Pryor wouldn't talk to me for this story...
Vol. 6 • May 2001 • No. 35
