[BillyBoy]

>> I wish Alan Keyes had come to Arkansas to run for the Senate. <<

I have a tough time figuring Arkansas out. The general voting population is very conservative, yet the Arkansas GOP has less power than the Illinois GOP has right now (and bear in mind that the IL GOP suffered a total meltdown at the state level in 2002 in the aftermath of the criminal RINO governor we had):

ILLINOIS 2004
Presidential vote:
Reagan, Reagan, Bush, Clinton, Clinton, Gore

U.S. Senate:
1 D, 1 R
U.S. House
10 R, 9 D (with 3 RINOS, 1 DINO)
Statewide offices:
All RAT except Treasurer, she's a RINO
Illinois Senate:
32 Ds, 26 Rs, 1 "Independant" who votes with RATs
Illinois House:
66 Ds, 52 Rs
Illinois Supreme Court (elected by voters):
5 Ds, 2 Rs (3 Ds are DINOs, meaning court leans conservative)

ARKANSAS 2004
Presidential vote:
Reagan, Reagan, Bush, Clinton, Clinton, Bush

U.S. Senate:
2 D, 0 R
U.S. House
3 D , 1 R (1 DINO?)
Statewide offices:
All RAT except Governor
Arkansas Senate:
28 Ds, 7 Rs, (the "Rs" must get lonely)
Arkansas House:
70 Ds, 30 Rs (also a veto-proof RAT majority)
Arkansas Supreme Court (elected by voters):
7 NPs?

Now, both states have the RATs running every branch, but it seems to me the Arkansas RATs have a super-majority. How did this happen in a state like Arkansas? The only scenario that makes sense is DINOs running throughout the state, although the two U.S. Senators from Arkansas are fairly reliable liberal votes and it's hard to defeat either of them.

My uncle was born in Ft. Smith, AR, but he lives in Florida now and really couldn't tell me, maybe you can shed some light on that. Arkansas is so heavily RAT now I'm beginning to worry that pretty-boy Edwards & the RAT Senators might be able to tilt the state to Kerry! ::Shudders::

[Cedar]

Maybe someone local there in Arkansas can give a clearer picture, but thought I'd add a few words about the lack of GOP's there.

You might know this already, but the Southern states for years and years were Conservative Democrats. It's just been as the Dems party turned into liberal insanity that the Southern Republicans gained more power.

But some of the generations-of-Democrats families have continued to vote only Democrat, even though they may not agree with the more liberal social agenda of the party. They just cannot bring themselves to vote Republican.

This doesn't speak much for their principles, I know. But some things are so ingrained that it takes an act of God to get it out of the system.

[WillRain]

A guess? Based on a similar phenomena some years ago in Mississippi...fraud and power on the local level. Even though MS outside the Delta is basically solid GOP, with a Gov and both senators and two reps (and another who might as well be) in the GOP column, most of the statewide offices, the majority of the legislature, and virtually ALL local offices are held by 'rats.

for decades, we were a one party state and that party controlled the machinery of elections. Even now it takes an extraordinary man - and a complete failure on the Democrat ticket - to elect a GOP rep or state senator from my district even though virtually everyone's political views are aligned with the GOP. People do this because the legislature is controlled by the Dems...a self fulfilling curse, so to speak.

I assume Arkansas has much the same problem.

[Arkinsaw]

I have a tough time figuring Arkansas out

Its a fairly complicated story that goes back to the Civil War. Hope you have a few minutes LOL. The State has pretty much always been divided into the Northwest/Mountain Republican area and the Delta/Lowland Democratic area. Those areas that were in favor of the Union in the Civil War remained a poor Republican minority and the rest remained Democratic.

This remained so until Winthrop Rockefeller came to the state to get away from his family. He wanted a quiet life but could not ignore the corruption, intimidation, and ballot stuffing going on. He reinvigorated the almost dead Republican Party and recruited a majority of conservative citizens who voted Democrat based on tradition but who wanted reform. His reforms were stifled by the overpowerful and corrupt legislature. The Governor under our constitution is weak.

The citizens are socially conservative but at the same time are not opposed to government involvement. This stems from government intervention and funding for a poor state. Arkansas also has a serious inferiority complex (and I mean serious) and does not want to appear backward, or racist, or dumb. For this reason, media influence has an exagerated effect here. If Arkansas thinks the rest of the country is FOR some liberal idea then an Arkansan is seemingly more likely to go along with it even if they don't agree with it to avoid being perceived as "backward". Democratic politicians take advantage of this incongruity by voting liberal in Washington or Little Rock and then coming home and telling the locals "wink-wink, I don't really believe all that but I had to vote that way because the alternative is so....non-progressive."

For this reason you end up with David Pryor and Blanche Lincoln voting against gun rights but coming home and dressing in camo and praising the NRA. Our liberals are not Berkeley liberals, they are stealth liberals. They downplay their liberalism and promote themselves as conservative Democrats. But make no mistake, they are liberals and not old-time DINO's. They are very good.

Arkansas citizens (except Little Rock) are socially on the side of Republicans without doubt. But they remember the poorest days (my mother still hoards food in vast quantities!) and they know that Republicans are not in favor of the "safety net". Democrats play on this old fear by highlighting their support for the "safety net".

Arkansans also favor Republicans for executive positions. Currently, Arkansans have no problem voting for Republicans for Governor, Lt. Governor, or President and in fact favor them for such positions. They view Republicans as good managers, good executive decision managers, and more efficient at running the godawful bureaucracy. But they don't trust them to actually "make law" for the reasons listed above. They trust Democrats to "make law" that will make them not look "backward" and keep the wolf from the door.

We had a pretty good roll going for a few years, with a Republican Senator, two Representatives, Governor, and Lt. Governor. We were on the cusp of establishing a real two-party system in the State. Candidates were just starting to feel that they could run as Republicans and have a chance of winning instead of being forced into the Democratic Machine to have a chance to win. We got a favorable court ruling to make our primary competitive with the Democratic Primary.

But the Republican Party divided into two groups and started fighting with each other and some money came up missing. Conservative Republicans turned on our Senator because he got divorced and voted him out in a fit of spite (cutting off nose to spite face). Our conservative Governor started falling into the trap of wanting to appear "progressive" and started pardoning criminals and advocating school mergers and big bureaucracies.

The Republican Party here is about to fall back into the mountains again as a purely regional party. Our Governor is coming to the end of his term limits and given his recent performance the voters will decide that if you are going to have a Democrat no matter how your vote, why not just elect a Democrat. The Party feels creaky and tired and out of ideas. It has no new faces and no new voices. It advocates a watered-down version of the Democratic party as far as government goes and has had no appreciable influence on social ideas.

We have fallen back to traditional Arkansas one-party politics due to failure of the Republicans to put forward exciting candidates or do what they say. Boy, if someone like Keyes had come down HERE it might have relit the fire.

[norton]

MANY years ago I asked a neighbor [east of Texarkana] how a state made of of small town conservatives could possibly keep voting for William Fullbright.

He gave me two answers,
Everybody knows his name so he makes Arkansas famous, and
"Ol' Bill comes to our barbeque every year"

Later, of course, they elected WJC who surely made them famous...I bet he was just a hoot at those barbeques.