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Arkansas: Can the GOP Regroup?

January 14, 2009 — In 2005, the year before the 2006 election, Razorback Republicans were in their glory days. They were finishing ten years with Gov. Mike Huckabee (R) running the state and their popular Lt. Gov. Win Rockefeller (R) was 12 points ahead of Democrat Mike Beebe in the race to succeed Huckabee. Tim Hutchinson had represented the state in the US Senate, though he lost in 2002, while his brother Asa, who had succeeded Tim in Congress, was running for governor.  

By 2008, however, the Arkansas GOP failed to even field a candidate against US Sen. Mark Pryor (D), and is considered a long-shot in the gubernatorial and senatorial races in 2010.

Top Heavy GOP

So what happened? The simple answer is that the party became top-heavy and bottom-light.

In 2002, Tim Hutchinson lost his US Senate seat after a well-publicized divorce.

In 2005, Rockefeller learned he had an incurable cancer and withdrew from the race for governor; in 2006, he suffered a tragic and early death from cancer, removing one of the GOP’s stars from the political scene.

In 2006, Tim Hutchinson’s brother Asa, also a strong conservative -- both brothers are alumni of Bob Jones University -- lost his gubernatorial bid, in part because the ticket tilted too far to the right for Arkansas’s Deep South yet somewhat-moderate voters. “The perception was the Republicans were completely off the reservation,” says a pragmatic Little Rock insider (R).

In 2008, Huckabee ran for president, not for the US Senate against Pryor, as some GOPers had hoped, and is now commentating for Fox News.

At the same time the GOP was losing its top tier leadership, the scrappy Democrats survived their time out of power healthier than ever, with strong majorities in both houses of the legislature and three of the state’s four US House seats. They had solid contenders for major statewide offices and projected a pragmatic, moderate image that helped them win and hold both US Senate seats and the governorship. They even took the GOP’s 2008 Arkansas presidential sweep -- McCain got 59% in the state -- in stride.

With Rockefeller, Huckabee and the Hutchinsons off-stage, Republicans found themselves in 2008 without strong candidates. Rather than use energy and resources on behalf of a sacrificial lamb against Pryor, “We decided to focus on local races,” says Arkansas GOP Executive Director Karen Ray. And they were pleased with the results: Republicans picked up three seats in the state House of Representatives, bringing them to a 72D-28R ratio, and held their own in the Senate, including reelecting former state chair Gilbert Baker over a strong, well-financed Democratic challenger. (Nevertheless, the Arkansas legislature has a smaller share of Republicans than any other Dixie legislature.)

A Republican Recovery?

Can Arkansas Republicans stage a come-back?  A political party can’t prosper, even as the minority party, if it doesn’t compete for the top offices. So will the Arkansas GOP’s plans for 2010 include nominating candidates for governor and US Senator? “Absolutely,” says Ray.

That means tackling Gov. Mike Beebe (D), who will be seeking a second term and so far looks like a strong bet for re-election, as well as running against popular moderate US Sen. Blanche Lincoln (D). That’s a tall order. Indeed, SPR’s Little Rock insider (R) believes in 2010 the party should not “get bogged down in many campaigns they can’t win, like [against] Beebe. He can’t be beat.” Lincoln, however “is vulnerable,” he says, especially if she votes for such measures as the union-boosting bill that would abolish the secret ballot in unionization elections.

In any case, the party started recruiting 2010 candidates about two weeks after the 2008 election -- for both statewide and local offices. While GOP headquarters wouldn’t name names, potential candidates -- especially for Lincoln’s US Senate seat -- include Tom Cotton, a Harvard Law graduate and a US Army officer who served in Iraq and is now in Afghanistan; former US Treasury Official French Hill; and Patrick Calhoun, a Little Rock investment banker. SPR’s Little Rock insider says that Cotton could benefit from a statewide race, even if he loses: “He could energize voters and build name ID” for a future race.

There’s even GOP talk of running a strong campaign for the 2^nd District (Little Rock, etc.) congressional seat currently held by seven-term US Rep. Vic Snyder (D). While Snyder is popular, some Republican insiders believe that the 61-year old father of recently triplets may want to retire. That appears to be wishful thinking, however, as Snyder made clear in December that he plans to run again next year. Moreover, SPR would bet that the triplets (three boys) are likely to gain -- not lose -- votes for their already popular father.