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Asa Hutchinson and Mike Ross advance to Arkansas governor’s race
U.S. Rep. Tim Griffin wins Republican primary for lieutenant governor
♦By Rich Shumate, Chickenfriedpolitics.com
LITTLE ROCK (CFP) — Two former members of the U.S. House — Republican Asa Hutchinson and Democrat Mike Ross — will meet in November in the governor’s race in Arkansas.
Hutchinson, 63, easily won the GOP nomination on May 20, carrying 72 percent of the vote against Little Rock businessman Curtis Coleman. Ross, 52, won a lopsided victory in the Democratic primary over Lynette Bryant, a Little Rock physician, with 85 percent.
Hutchinson served two terms in Congress, representing northwest Arkansas, before being appointed in 2001 as head of the Drug Enforcement Administration. He has lost three previous races for statewide office, including an unsuccessful bid for governor in 2006.
After the school shooting in Newtown, Connecticut, last year, Hutchinson signed on as the point man for National Rifle Association’s effort to combat school violence without imposing any new restrictions on firearms.
Ross served 12 years in Congress, representing southern and western Arkansas, before retiring in 2012. In the House, he was a member of the conservative Blue Dog Coalition and was one of the few Democrats to vote against Obamacare when it came to the floor of the House.
Former U.S. Rep. Mike Ross
Ross had initially said he would not run for governor, but he jumped into the race when the Democratic front-runner, Attorney General Dustin McDaniel, withdrew after admitting to an extra-marital affair with a woman who was later charged with manslaughter.
In the primary races for lieutenant governor, U.S. Rep. Tim Griffin of Little Rock won the Republican nomination over two challengers. He will face Democrat John Burkhalter, a former member of the state highway commission from Little Rock, in November.
Poll: Arkansas Senate race between Pryor and Cotton remains a dead heat
New poll shows Pryor with a slight lead that’s within the margin of error
♦By Rich Shumate, Chickenfriedpolitics.com editor
LITTLE ROCK (CFP) — Despite a deluge of negative television ads aired by both sides, a new poll shows the U.S. Senate race in Arkansas remains a statistical dead heat seven months out from the November election.
U.S. Senator Mark Pryor
The Talk Business Hendrix College poll puts Democratic U.S. Senator Mark Pryor’s support at 45.5 percent, compared to 42.5 percent for his Republican opponent, U.S. Rep. Tom Cotton. The remaining 12 percent are undecided or for minor candidates.
The poll’s margin of error is plus or minus 3 percentage points, which makes the race between Pryor and Cotton a statistical dead heat.
In that same poll in October, Pryor had 42 percent and Cotton 41 percent, which was also within the margin of error.
U.S. Rep. Tom Cotton
This latest poll of 1,068 frequent Arkansas voters was taken April 3 and 4, amid a wave of negative ads from outside groups against both candidates.
Cotton is being criticized him for his work as a corporate consultant before getting into politics, while Pryor is being hit for his vote in favor of Obamacare.
The poll shows Pryor with a 10-point lead among women and Cotton with a 7-point lead among men. Cotton’s lead among voters who call themselves independent was 50 percent to 34 percent for Pryor.
The poll also found that Pryor led Cotton in three of the state’s four congressional districts, including the 4th District, which Cotton represents in Congress. The only district where Cotton had a lead was in the heavily Republican 3rd District in northwest Arkansas.
U.S. Senator Mark Pryor drawing fire for remarks about opponent’s military service
Pryor says U.S. Rep. Tom Cotton gives off ‘sense of entitlement’ because of his Army service
♦By Rich Shumate, Chickenfriedpolitics.com editor
LITTLE ROCK (CFP) – Arkansas Republicans are demanding an apology from U.S. Senator Mark Pryor for saying in a television interview that his GOP opponent, U.S. Rep. Tom Cotton, has exhibited a “sense of entitlement” because he served in the U.S. Army.
U.S. Senator Mark Pryor
In an interview with MSNBC on March 5, Pryor was asked whether Cotton’s military service, which is prominently mentioned in his campaign, should be a qualification to become a senator.
“No, there’s are a lot of people in the Senate who didn’t serve in the military,” Pryor said. “In the Senate, we have all kinds of different people, all kinds of different folks that have come from all kinds of different backgrounds.”
“And I think that’s part of this sense of entitlement that (Cotton) gives off, is that almost it’s like, ‘I served my country, therefore elect me to the Senate.’ That’s not how it works in Arkansas.”
However, Pryor also said he has “total respect” for Cotton’s two tours of duty in Iraq and Afghanistan and thanked him for his service.
But the Arkansas Republican Party pounced on what it called Pryor’s “outrageous” comments.
“To suggest, as Senator Pryor has, that military service is not a qualification to run for office is an affront to every man and woman who has put on the uniform to serve this country,” State GOP Chairman Doyle Webb said in a statement.. “He should immediately apologize to them and to Congressman Tom Cotton.”
U.S. Rep. Tom Cotton
Responding to Pryor’s comments on the Fox News Channel, Cotton, who graduated from Harvard Law School before joining the Army, said, “I didn’t leave a good law job to join the Army out of a sense of entitlement. I left because I wanted to serve my country.”
“I’m not like Mark Pryor. I haven’t spent 25 years in politics, but I can tell you this — you learn a lot more about leadership at officer candidate’s school and Ranger school at Ft. Benning and leading troops in the streets of Baghdad than you learn in the halls of Congress.
Cotton also said he was “surprised that Mark Pryor doesn’t think we need more veterans in Congress. Frankly, I think if we had more people in the Congress who were veterans, Congress might be a little more respected, just like our military is.”
So far, Pryor has not apologized. His campaign did release a statement saying that while the senator is “grateful” for Cotton’s military service, the campaign should be a contrast between their records in Congress.
“Cotton has said himself that military experience shouldn’t be the sole or primary qualification for political office,” the statement said.
Watch Pryor’s comments on Cotton’s military service:
Arkansas U.S. Rep. Tim Griffin is running for lieutenant governor
Griffin, who announced in October that he was leaving Congress, enters a crowded GOP primary
♦By Rich Shumate, Chickenfriedpolitics.com editor
LITTLE ROCK (CFP) — Less than four months after announcing he would leave Congress to spend more time with his family, U.S. Rep. Tim Griffin has entered the lieutenant governor’s race back home in Arkansas.
U.S. Rep. Tim Griffin
In interviews with local Little Rock media February 13, Griffin said serving as lieutenant governor would allow him to remain with his young children in Arkansas rather than living in Washington.
The state’s number two spot would also set up Griffin for a potential run for governor in 2018.
Griffin, a former U.S. Attorney and aide to Karl Rove in the Bush White House, won his seat in the Republican landslide in 2010 and easily won re-election in 2012. His decision not to seek a third term in the House – at a time when he had $500,000 in campaign cash on hand — surprised the Arkansas political establishment.
His entry into the lieutenant governor’s race has already shaken up the GOP prmary, with one of the announced candidates, State Rep. Charlie Collins, exiting the race. Still in the running are State Reps. Andy Mayberry and Debra Hobbs.
Hobbs had been running for governor but announced February 12 that she would run for lieutenant governor instead.
On the Democratic side, John Burkhalter, a state highway commissioner, is the only announced candidate and has been endorsed by the likely Democractic candidate for governor, former U.S. Rep. Mike Ross.
The lieutenant governor’s office is currently vacant after Republican Mark Darr resigned rather than face likely impeachment for ethics violations. The state legislature is currently considering a bill to leave the office vacant until after the November election, rather than calling a special election to replace Darr.
Farm bill is front and center in Arkansas Senate race
U.S. Senator Mark Pryor is hitting his GOP opponent, U.S. Rep. Tom Cotton, for his vote against the farm bill
♦By Rich Shumate, Chickenfriedpolitics.com editor
LITTLE ROCK (CFP) — Democratic U.S. Senator Mark Pryor is blasting his 2014 Republican opponent, U.S. Rep. Tom Cotton, for his vote against a farm bill that cleared the House on January 29.
U.S. Senator Mark Pryor
Cotton was the only member of Arkansas’ all-Republican House delegation to vote against the bill. Trying to make hay of that vote, Pryor appeared at the State Capitol in Little Rock on February 1, with three Natural State farmers by his side.
“You have to find common ground, and you have to do right by the people that you represent,” Pryor said. “My opponent, however, does not share that view. His is a my-way-or-the-highway approach.”
The incumbent senator accused Cotton of doing the bidding of out-of-state campaign backers who opposed the bill. But in an interview with Little Rock television station KATV, Cotton defended his vote against a measure that he said cost too much money and didn’t do enough to reform the federal Food Stamp program.
U.S. Rep. Tom Cotton
“All farmers know, you can’t keep on spending more money than you take in,” said Cotton, who grew up on a farm in rural Yell County.
Arkansas is a largely rural state with a large agricultural sector. Pryor is clearly hoping that Cotton’s vote will fall flat with farm voters come November.
The other three Republicans in the state’s House delegation — U.S. Reps. Steve Womack, Tim Griffin and Rick Crawford — supported the $100 billion farm bill, which passed the House by a vote of 266-151.
The farm bill now heads to the Senate, where Pryor says he will vote for it. Arkansas’s other senator, John Boozman, has indicated that he, too, will likely support the bill..
Among Cotton’s major finaicial backers is the Club for Growth, a small-government group that opposed the farm bill.
The group charaterized the farm bill as an “unholy marriage of agricultural subsidies and Food Stamps.”
“It’s a ‘Christmas Tree’ bill where there’s a gift for practically every special interest group out there with a well-connected lobbyist,” the group said.
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