By garrick feldman
Leader executive editor
Sen. Blanche Lincoln, who is winding down her Senate campaign far behind Rep. John Boozman, stopped by the Bar-B-Que Shack on Wednesday for the Jacksonville Lions Club meeting, shaking hands and making a last-ditch effort to salvage her troubled political career.
“I work very hard for you,” said Lincoln, who chairs the Senate Agriculture Committee and should be a shoo-in in a normal year since she has channeled hundreds of millions of dollars to Arkansas farmers, Little Rock Air Force Base and scores of other projects.
They were called pork, and every politician worth his salt used to brag about their ability to bring home the bacon. Even Boozman, her Republican opponent who is expected to win big on Tuesday, would send out press releases about the projects he funded for his district in northwest Arkansas.
He says there will be no special appropriations if he’s elected because the voters want smaller and leaner government—even if Arkansas rakes in hundreds of millions of dollars more than it sends to Washington.
Former state Rep. Mike Wilson was standing in the back of the room at the Lions Club meeting when Lincoln arrived. He was shaking his head, a little stunned, that voters would reject someone like Blanche, who’s pumped a lot of dough into the farm economy, including the White River water project at Des Arc and the Bayou Meto project at Scott.
Citing Lincoln’s chairmanship of the agriculture committee, Wilson turned to a reporter and said, “For a state that depends on agriculture, it would be insane to give that up, not to mention what she has done for the air base.”
Lincoln told the club she was the youngest woman elected to the Senate — that was in 1998, when she was 38 — and the second-youngest woman to get on the finance committee.
She’s 50 now, trying to win a third term, and the odds seem insurmountable.
Lincoln, who survived a bruising primary fight with Lieut. Gov. Bill Halter, said she tried to find a middle way in the Senate, but everybody has been beating up on her. A senator told her, “You probably had the hardest year of anybody here. You got it from both sides.”
She said Boozman’s national sales-tax plan would mean “a tax increase for 95 percent of Arkansans.” He would imperil Social Security if he pushed for privatization, she said.
Lincoln, who has campaigned 12 hours a day in recent weeks, hasn’t managed to close the gap with Boozman all year, and there are moments when her voice trails and listeners suspect she has accepted the inevitable.
Lincoln wasn’t the only woman campaigning in the area this week. State Sen. Joyce Elliott, who is fighting an uphill battle against Tim Griffin for Congress in the Second District, was at Camp Robinson on Thursday morning, then visited Jacksonville Towers, which is home to hundreds of seniors.
Lincoln and Elliott trail their opponents by about 20 points, but Elliott seems the most optimistic.
“I’d be surprised if we don’t win on Tuesday,” she told us, smiling.
She said she’s had good receptions in the outlying areas of the district, from Perryville to Morrilton to Beebe.
People have offered to campaign for her, she said, but Griffin is the better-financed candidate and will win easily.
These two bright women should have coasted to victory, but it will be all guys representing Arkansas in Washington.
