Billie Sue Hoggard is concerned. The chair of the Craighead County Republican Committee, Hoggard was concerned even before last Tuesday night, when Mitt Romney lost one, two, three ballotings — Missouri, Minnesota and Colorado — to a candidate a lot of her fellow Republicans liked, still like, and prefer as their standard-bearer.
“They’re kind of torn, really, between Santorum and Newt,” Hoggard said, referring to former Senator Rick and former Speaker Gingrich. “I’ve heard some Republicans say they would vote for (Romney) over Obama because they’re scared of four more years. But they’re not as enthusiastic.”
Romney remains the front-runner for the Republican presidential nomination, albeit rather less presumptively than before Tuesday’s Rick-romp. But as Hoggard acknowledges, misgivings among the likely GOP electorate, however, are manifest.
To be certain, the outcome of the presidential race in Arkansas is beyond anyone’s doubt: whoever takes the Republican nomination will take our six electoral votes. Neither major party nominee is expected to do more here than wave from 30,000 feet, nor will he send money, candy or flowers. There is scant indication thus far that the Democratic National Committee and its affiliates see much chance of regaining Arkansas’s First and Second Districts, which fell to the Republicans two years ago, or of keeping the Fourth, where incumbent Mike Ross is stepping down.
The pressing question is what else the GOP here will take, or keep. The answer will involve the candidates each party offers, of course. But Republican hopes for dominance may well depend as rarely before on what some of its leaders acknowledge is of fresh concern: voter turnout. The tidal wave that swept Arkansas Republicans to within a whisker of capturing the state House of Representatives, a tsunami brought on by tectonic opposition to Barack Obama’s policies, seems unlikely to be repeated, even if the president remains a profoundly unpopular figure.
Independent reporting for Pine Bluff & Jefferson County since 1879.
“I don’t think it’s going to be a record low turnout, just low, and I think the Democrats are marginal beneficiaries of that,” said Jay Barth, a professor of political science at Hendrix College and a student of Arkansas voting behavior. Mr. Obama “has a proven disconnect” with Arkansas voters, Barth noted, and Romney’s Mormon faith and Wall Street wealth leave him “certainly not someone Arkansans can easily relate to.”
“I don’t think (Christian conservatives) will be as passionate about Mitt as another candidate,” concurred Jerry Cox, director of the Family Council of Arkansas and a Santorum admirer. There are, to be certain, dissenting view. Al Parr, the immediate past chair of the Poinsett County GOP Committee, remains enthusiastically pro-Romney. “I don’t think turnout will be a problem at all,” Parr said. “I still sense a desperate need to get anybody but Obama. And I see enthusiasm for whoever” is the Republican nominee.
Then there’s Steve Hollowell, who heads the St. Francis County Republican Committee, concurring that his voters “just want to get rid of Obama.”
Parr’s Poinsett cast about 6,000 votes in the 2010 congressional election, with Republican Rick Crawford taking the county by 234 votes. Crawford lost to Democrat Chad Causey in Lawrence by fewer than a hundred. St. Francis helped put Crawford over the top with 63 percent of its 6,700 ballots. In Craighead, the First District’s big prize, Crawford crushed Causey by 16 points, and in the absence of a strong, well-financed candidate the seat seems for the moment to be safe for the GOP. Still, Jonesboro’s Hoggard acknowledged some angst on the part of her members, many of whom are wary of Romney’s conservative credentials.
“I’m a little bit concerned over the enthusiasm level because the more enthusiastic they are the harder they’ll work. If they’re not they may stay home,” Hoggard said. “I’d like to see it higher.”
• • •
Steve Barnes is a native of Pine Bluff.