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Tuesday, May 11, 2004
Kerry & Bush in Arkansas
Posted byPresident Bush is scheduled to give a speech on his No Child Left Behind Act today, at a Van Buren, AR high school. The stop in the Republican controlled region of NW Arkansas will mark the third trip to Arkansas for Bush since the start of the year. In his 2000 campaign, against Al Gore, Bush made a total of eight trips to the state.
John Kerry is scheduled to make his first campaign trip to Arkansas on Wednesday and Thursday. Kerry will be accompanied on his trip by retired General Wesley Clark. They will attend a fund-raiser reception at the Peabody Hotel in Little Rock and on Thursday Kerry will make a speech on health care, before leaving the state.
Arkansas is often touted as a must-win state for President Bush and he has campaigned heartily here, while Kerry has yet to spend much time in the state. Arkansas has lost 40,000 jobs in the past 3 years and that is certain to hurt President Bush, while giving Kerry a boost in the state. In response, the Bush campaign has been running 30 second ads claiming that Kerry voted against Patriot Missiles, Bradley Fighting Vehicles, and BlackHawk Helicopters, noting that they're "all built here in Arkansas."
Retired General Wesley Clark - who is increasingly being mentioned as Kerrys' running mate - recently announced the creation of a new political-action committee, titled WesPAC - Securing America's future. General Clark plans to use the PAC money to "replace the current, radical administration and its political allies" and to advocate the Democrat Party as the emerging party of strong leadership on national security. In addition, he plans to continue making trips to key battleground states to speak for Kerry and praise the candidate on television appearances.
Hal Bass, a political-science professor at Ouachita Baptist University, had expected Bush to win Arkansas, but now believes it could go to John Kerry, instead. He notes recent information coming out of Iraq as harmful to Bush and opening the door for Kerry in Arkansas - a state where the latest poll has Kerry and Bush tied.
Posted at 03:03 PM in Arkansas | Technorati
Comments
Great post - thanks for the color. Do you have a link to anything where this Bass fellow discusses his reasoning? Also, have you seen any of the Kerry ads in Ark. yourself, and if so, do they mention anything Arkansas-specific, or are they just his main bio ads?
Posted by: DavidNYC at May 11, 2004 07:14 PM | Permalink | Edit Comment | Delete Comment
The Hal Bass information came from an article in the states largest newspaper; the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. The reason I decided against citing a link to the article is because the papers website requires a paid subscription to view - unless something has changed recently. Regardless, here's the link:
Senator to speak, hold fund-raiser during visit to LR on Wednesday
I haven't seen any Kerry ads specific to Arkansas, however, I don't spend much time watching local stations that might be running them. I didn't see the Bush ads that were specific to Arkansas either, but I've read about them in the local press. Most of the Kerry ads designed for swing states have been running here regularly and I've seen many of them, although not as many as the Bush ads.
-rob
Posted by: LiberalAce at May 11, 2004 10:02 PM | Permalink | Edit Comment | Delete Comment