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Presidential campaigns work to get out vote in Arkansas Tuesday, Feb 5, 2008 By John Lyon Arkansas News Bureau LITTLE ROCK - Volunteers for presidential contenders fanned out across Arkansas on Monday to knock on doors and wave campaign signs in get out the vote efforts for the Super Tuesday primaries. Favorite son Republican Mike Huckabee held a made-for-TV news conference and local supporters at Democrat Hillary Clinton's Little Rock campaign office were to take part in a nationally televised prime-time town hall meeting featuring the former Arkansas first lady. Arkansas supporters of Democrat Barack Obama also stepped up efforts Monday. "We're in full-out GOTV (get out the vote) mode," said Tim Fraser, Arkansas political director for Obama's campaign. "We're out knocking on doors, making phone calls, doing visibility (i.e., holding up campaign signs in highly visible locations), reaching out and persuading some last-minute undecideds, and making sure we're turning out our supporters." The Obama campaign is scheduled to hold a watch party starting at 7:30 p.m. tonight at Vino's restaurant in Little Rock. At Clinton's state headquarters in downtown Little Rock, volunteers were keeping phone lines busy Monday. "We've got a full shop right now working on making phone calls," said Jamie Oliver, volunteer coordinator and media representative for Clinton's campaign in Arkansas. "We've probably got two dozen people in here doing phone calls. ... We've got visibility things going on in Jonesboro, Fayetteville, Little Rock - pretty much all over the state." Clinton supporters also were preparing for a national town hall meeting scheduled for 8 p.m. Monday, to be broadcast live on the Hallmark Channel and streamed on Clinton's campaign Web site. Clinton was expected to answer questions from people in 22 cities via satellite link during the event. State Attorney General Dustin McDaniel, co-chairman of Clinton's campaign in Arkansas, was announced as the moderator for the Arkansas portion of the event, held at the Willy Hinton Center in Little Rock. The Clinton campaign is scheduled to hold a watch party starting at 6:30 p.m. tonight at Cornerstone Deli and Pub in North Little Rock. Huckabee, who lately has been concentrating his campaign efforts in several Southern states with Super Tuesday primaries, was the only presidential candidate to visit Arkansas on Monday. The former governor held a rally in Texarkana Monday afternoon and a news conference outside his national campaign headquarters in Little Rock Monday evening. Huckabee is scheduled to attend a watch party starting at 7 p.m. at the Clear Channel Metroplex in west Little Rock. Huckabee declined to say how many states he expected to win in today's primaries and caucuses. "Winning states is not how one wins the nomination," he said. "It's delegates. What we want to do is pick up delegates in all of these Southern states." Huckabee added that "until someone gets 1,191 delegates, there's still a race," and noted that the New York Giants were not expected to win Sunday's Super Bowl. "Before everybody pops the corks for the nomination, let's see how it actually turns out," he said. Huckabee held the news conference at 6:01 p.m. Little Rock's ABC, CBS and NBC television news affiliates broadcast some or all of Huckabee's news conference live at the top of their 6 p.m. newscasts. The Fox affiliate in Little Rock does not have a 6 p.m. newscast. Ron Heverling, news director for Little Rock NBC affiliate KARK, said the station's editorial board debated whether to go live with the news conference - effectively giving Huckabee free television time on the eve of the primary election. "Somebody said, 'We're just being used.' Well, I guess you could say that, but we (air live) political speeches as part of our campaign coverage all the time," Heverling said. "You could say it's free air time for them, and it is, but at the same time, if people are watching and trying to make a decision on who they want to vote for, I suppose we're giving them an opportunity to put their word out and the voters can decide," he said. |
