Posted on 06/19/2003 7:23:51 AM PDT by JohnnyZ
Andy Lee, a colorful former sheriff known for his spartan operation of the Benton County jail, said he’ll decide by autumn whether to run for the U.S. Senate next year. "I’m leaning that way. I will say that," Lee said Wednesday.
Republicans are looking for a nominee to take on U.S. Sen. Blanche Lincoln, a first-term Democrat who has announced that she’ll run for re-election in 2004. GOP officials have mentioned Lee as a prospect, among other, more widely known possibilities such as Gov. Mike Huckabee or Asa Hutchinson, undersecretary of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.
Huckabee has said he’ll consider it. Hutchinson is on record as saying he won’t. Lee said he’ll consider the possibility over the summer, but he’s already talking like he’s running. "This is not going to be a race against Blanche Lincoln," he said. "I won’t be attacking her on her record. My issues will be what I think we should do with our federal government."
He said that would be to shrink it, taking much of its funding base and shifting it to state and local governments. For example, Lee said the federal government doesn’t need a Department of Transportation or a Department of Education. "Government was created originally for one reason and one reason only: the protection of its people," he said.
The government should take less tax money and keep more of it locally for responsibilities such as roads and education, rather than sending it to Washington where it’s harder to control, he said.
Lincoln has said she expects to have a tough opponent, with the Republican Party of Arkansas already labeling her as too liberal for Arkansas.
Ron Oliver, chairman of the Democratic Party of Arkansas, said he wouldn’t consider Lee a "top-tier" Republican candidate. "I just think they’re going to have trouble getting one of their top echelon people to take on Sen. Lincoln," Oliver said.
That’s because she’s popular and will be hard to beat, he said.
Lincoln, 42, of Little Rock was elected in 1998. She previously represented eastern Arkansas in the U.S. House from 1993-97.
Oliver said Lee wouldn’t be the toughest competitor the Republicans could offer. "I’ve heard lots of things, almost none of them good," he said of the former sheriff.
Marty Ryall, chairman of the Republican Party of Arkansas, said it’s true that Lee isn’t in the top tier, in that he does not have statewide name recognition or a strong organization. "That’s not to say someone else, whether it’s Andy Lee or someone else, can’t develop an organization and become a toptier candidate," Ryall said.
He said he hasn’t had a chance to visit with Lee about his possible candidacy. "But I think he does have the potential to develop a statewide base," Ryall said.
Lee, 55, of Bentonville said that just about everywhere he goes people recognize him, and he has supporters across the state.
He entered politics as a Bentonville City Council member in the mid-1980s. As Benton County sheriff from 1989-2002, he acquired a reputation for, among other things, running a jail without televisions, hot meals or tobacco; posting his own version of the Ten Commandments in the jail before a federal judge made him take it down; and filing a defamation suit against political foes who had filed a series of failed lawsuits and grand jury petitions against him.
He said Wednesday that he built up the sheriff’s office from a "hole in the ground" in 1988 into the multimillion-dollar operation it is now. His tenure included the construction of a state-ofthe-art county jail.
He enjoys his reputation as a tough lawman and said if he runs for Senate he’ll campaign as "Sheriff Andy Lee," although he knows he can’t have his name printed on the ballot that way.
Lee didn’t run for re-election last year, in part because he hoped to be chosen for a U.S. marshal’s job. He was one of three nominees put forward by then-U.S. Sen. Tim Hutchinson in 2001, but President Bush didn’t pick Lee for the job.
Since he left the sheriff’s office, Lee has been building houses for a living. He recently incorporated his home-building operation called Sheriff Lee’s Construction LLC.
He collects two public pensions — a disability pension from the Metropolitan Police Department in Washington, D. C., and state retirement from the Arkansas Public Employees Retirement System for his years as sheriff.
Asked how he can collect disability benefits while working in construction, he said it’s because by Washington police definitions, he is eligible to collect the pension. Lee was in a traffic accident while on duty and ruptured a disk in his back.
Because he was unable to completely heal from the injury, by the Police Department’s standards, he’s eligible to collect the benefits, he said. "That doesn’t prohibit me from going out and getting a job doing anything," he said.
Lee said he’s satisfied that there are no skeletons in his closet. He cited as proof: numerous lawsuits and investigations spurred by people he describes as political opponents. The investigations include those by the Metropolitan Police Department and the U.S. Department of Justice regarding the disability pension. None turned up anything, Lee said. "I’m the most reviewed person there is," he said.
Whether he runs for Senate or not, Lee said he definitely won’t run for sheriff again. "I’ve done my time. It’s time for it to be under someone else’s guidance," he said of the sheriff’s office.
Lee said a friend asked him recently what makes him "Senate material." "You don’t have to have any special quality to be a politician. The best way to represent people is to be a common person, and that’s kind of what I am," he said.
Oh, I wouldn't see it that way at all! Andy Lee has nothing BUT fire in his belly. But Blanche Lincoln has tried to be as inoffensive as possible, mostly, and if he tried to attack a pretty, 43-year-old mother of twins I'm pretty sure it would backfire. He'd end up with 10% of female votes rather than 40%. The impression I got from the article was that he'd campaign as a fighter, not an attacker.
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