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From Center Street to Pennsylvania Avenue Monday, Feb 4, 2008 By Doug Thompson Arkansas News Bureau FAYETTEVILLE - Seven candidates are left in Tuesday's presidential primary elections. Two spent at least 10 years living at 1800 Center St. in Little Rock - the Arkansas Governor's Mansion. New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton lived there as first lady from 1979 to 1981, and returned from 1983 to 1992. She then moved to 1600 Pennsylvania Ave., Washington, D.C., as the nation's first lady before moving to New York and being elected as U.S. senator. Now she's running to enter that Washington address again as president. Clinton faces U.S. Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., in the Democratic presidential race, which also includes former U.S. Sen. Mike Gravel, D-Alaska, though Gravel has won no delegates so far. Clinton is leading in the race for Democratic delegates, with 232 to Obama's 158. Republican Mike Huckabee lived at the mansion as governor from 1996 to 2007 - he spent months living in a mobile home parked on the grounds while the mansion was being renovated. The former governor is running for the GOP presidential nomination. U.S. Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., had 97 delegates going into Super Tuesday. Former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney has 74. Huckabee has 29 and U.S. Rep. Ron Paul, R-Texas, has six. Arkansas is still a small state where much of the population lives in small towns, U.S. Census figures show. This makes it a training ground for the type of person-to-person politics that help win early contests like Iowa, where Huckabee won, and New Hampshire, where Clinton did, said Jay Barth, a political science professor Hendrix College in Conway. Others agreed, including both the state's major party chairmen and University of Arkansas professor Andrew Dowdle, a specialist in presidential primaries, in recent interviews. A cadre of volunteers from Arkansas who know the candidates well and traveled to Iowa and New Hampshire were very important in those victories as well, Barth and others said. "A lot of people from Arkansas will personally know a U.S. president" if Clinton wins the campaign, said Brett Kincaid, spokesman for Clinton's state headquarters in Little Rock, when asked what the biggest effect Clinton's former residency would have on the state. "We have a dynamic 75-county organization that didn't take long to put together, either, and we have 10 requests for every yard sign we have," Kincaid said. Huckabee supporters gave a similar response, and the former governor himself acknowledged his home-field advantage in the state: "Better schools, better roads, better health care, 10,000 kids that have health coverage, and better state parks," among other achievements during his 10 1/2 years as governor, he said. Having Arkansas among the early primaries also has its disadvantages, observers said. A loss here would be an embarrassment for Clinton or Huckabee, they said. Therefore, Clinton and Huckabee have to spend some time and resources here that could otherwise be spent elsewhere. Also, Arkansas is no longer a "winner take all" state and it is a small state. The number of delegates is small and is now split with other contenders, said Hoyt Purvis, a University of Arkansas political science and journalism professor. "You can tell there hasn't been a lot of visible campaigning in the state or advertising on television," he said. |
