| He smiled and said, Oh, it makes all the sense in the worldYou may be a lot of things, Bill, but you aint dumbYoure the very least likely one to ever raise those car tags again, so Im for youI added his impeccable logic to my stump speech for the rest of the campaign
On May 25, I won the primary election with 42 percent of the voteUnder the counterassault of my ads and the strength of our organization, Jim Guy Tucker fell to 23 percentJoe Purcell had parlayed his issue- and controversy-free campaign into 29 percent of the vote and a spot in the runoff, two weeks awayIt was a dangerous situationTucker and I had driven each others negative ratings up with the attack ads, and Purcell appealed to the Democrats who hadnt gotten over the car-tag increaseThere was a good chance he could win just by being the un-ClintonI tried for ten days to smoke him out, but he was shrewd enough to stay in his van and shake a few handsOn the Thursday night before the election, I did a poll that said the race was dead evenThat meant Id probably lose, since the undecided vote usually broke against the incumbent, which I effectively wasI had just put up an ad highlighting our differences on whether the Public Service Commission, which sets electric rates, should be elected rather than appointed, a change I favored and Joe opposedI hoped it would make a difference, but I wasnt sure
The very next day, I was handed the election in the guise of a crippling body blowFrank White badly wanted Purcell to win the runoffThe governors negative ratings were even higher than mine, and I had the issues and an organized campaign on my sideBy replica gucci handbags contrast, White felt certain that Joe Purcells poor health would become a decisive factor in the general election campaign, guaranteeing White a second termOn Friday night, when it was too late for me to counter on television, Frank White began running a TV ad attacking me for raising the car-tag fee and telling people not to forget itHe got the time to run it heavily all weekend by persuading his business supporters to pull their commercials so that he could put the attack ad upI saw the ad and knew it would turn a close raceI couldnt get a response to it on television until Monday, and by then it would be too lateThis was an unfair advantage that was later disallowed by a federal regulation requiring stations to place ads that respond to last-minute attacks over the weekend, but that was no help to me
Betsey and I called David Watkins and asked him to open his studio so that I could cut a radio adWe worked on the script and met David about an hour before midnightBy that time Betsey had lined up some young volunteers to drive the ad to radio stations all over the state in time for them to be run early Saturday morningIn my radio response, I asked people if theyd seen Whites ad attacking me and asked them to think about why he was interfering with a Democratic primaryThere was only one answer: he wanted to run against Joe Purcell, not me, because I would beat him and Joe couldntI knew most Democratic primary voters intensely opposed the governor and would hate the thought of being manipulated by himDavid Watkins worked all night long making enough copies of our ad to saturate the stateThe kids started gucci tote bag driving them to the radio stations at about four in the morning, along with checks from the campaign to purchase a heavy buyThe radio spot was so effective that by Saturday night, Whites own television ad was working for meOn Monday we put our response up on television too, but we had already won the battle by thenThe next day, June 8, I won the runoff 54 to 46 percentIt was a near-run thingI had won most of the big counties and those with a substantial number of black voters, but was still struggling in the rural Democratic counties where the car-tag issue wouldnt dieIt would take another two years to repair the damage completely
The fall campaign against Frank White was rough but funThis time the economy was hurting him, not me, and he had a record I could run againstI hit him on his utility ties and lost jobs, and ran positive ads on my issuesHe had a great attack ad featuring a man trying to scrape the spots off a leopard; it said that, just like a leopard, I couldnt change my spotsDick Morris did a devastating ad taking White to task for letting utilities have big rate increases while cutting back from four to three the number of monthly prescriptions the elderly could get under MedicaidThe tagline was: Frank WhiteSoft on utilitiesOur funniest radio ad came in response to a barrage of false chargesOur announcer asked if it wouldnt be nice to have a guard dog that would bark every time a politician said something that wasnt trueThen a dog barked, Woof, woof! The announcer repeated each charge, and the dog barked again just before he answered itThere were, as I recall, four woof, woofs in allBy the time it had chanel denim handbag run a few days, workers were good-naturedly barking Woof, woof! at me when I shook hands at plant gates during shift changesWhite further solidified the black vote by saying blacks would vote for a duck if it ran as a DemocratShortly after that, Bishop LWalker of the Church of God in Christ told his people they had to get Old Hoghead out of office
There comes a time in every campaign when you know in your bones whether youre going to win or loseIn 1982, it happened to me in Melbourne, the county seat of Izard County in north ArkansasI had lost the county in 1980 over the car tags despite the fact that the local legislator, John Miller, had voted to raise themJohn was one of the most senior members of the legislature and probably knew more about all aspects of state government than anyone else in ArkansasHe was working hard for me and arranged for me to tour the local McDonnell Douglas plant, which made component parts for airplanes
Even though the workers belonged to the United Auto Workers union, I was nervous, because most of them had voted against me just two years beforeI was met at the front door by Una Sitton, a good Democrat who worked in the front officeUna shook my hand and said, Bill, I think youre going to enjoy thisWhen I opened the door to the plant, I was almost knocked over by the loud sound of Willie Nelson singing one of my favorite songs, Steve Goodmans City of New OrleansI walked in to the opening line of the chorus: Good morning, America, how are you? Dont you know me, Im your native sonAll of them but one were wearing my campaign buttonsI made my way down each aisle, shaking hands to cartier pasha the music and fighting back the tearsI knew the election was overMy people were bringing their native son home
Near the end of almost all my campaigns, I turned up at the morning shift at the Campbells Soup factory in Fayetteville, where the workers prepared turkeys and chickens for soups it was the earliest shift change in ArkansasIn 1982, it was cold and rainy when I began shaking hands in the darkOne man joked that he had intended to vote for me, but was having second thoughts about voting for someone with no better sense than to campaign in the dark in a cold rain
I learned a lot on those dark morningsIll never forget seeing one man drop his wife offWhen the door to their pickup opened, there were three young children sitting between themThe man told me they had to get the kids up at a quarter to four every morningAfter he took his wife to work, he dropped the kids off with a babysitter who took them to school, because he had to be at work by seven
Its easy for a politician in this mass-media culture to reduce electioneering to fund-raisers, rallies, advertisements, and a debate or twoAll that may be enough for the voters to make an intelligent decision, but the candidates miss out on a lot, including the struggles of people who have their hands full just getting through the day and doing the best they can for their kidsI had made up my mind that if those folks gave me another chance, Id never forget them
On November 2, they gave me that chanceI won 55 percent of the vote, carrying fifty-six of the seventy-five counties, losing eighteen counties in Republican western Arkansas and one in south rolex replica supplies Arka |
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