Is Hale Who Arkansas Democrats Are Looking For?
by January 31, 2012 7:53 am 413 views
I talked about my trip down to Gillett for the Coon Super in my column last week for the Arkansas News Bureau. One story was an interesting conversation with Congressman Mike Ross. Ross has gotten heavily involved in support of Clark Hall for Congress over in the First district, but has not yet shown his hand in the race to replace him in south Arkansas.
With two announced candidates – State Sen. Gene Jeffress and D.C. Morrison – I tried to get him to change that but had no such luck. He insisted that the “field is not yet settled,” which sounds to me like he either has heard of someone else who might get in or is hoping someone else will.
Indeed, the Democrats have gone through a long list of hopefuls that for a variety of reasons have not been willing to pull the trigger.
The latest name that has popped up is Greg Hale, a Little Rock political consultant. Hale is a legitimate Arkansas political insider. He has worked on the campaigns of both Bill and Hilliary Clinton. In fact, his consulting firm – the Markham Group – has worked for just about every major Democrat in the state. His ties to Gov. Mike Beebe are quite numerous both professionally through his consulting work and personally with his wife, Mica Strother, having worked on Beebe’s staff. In 2009, Beebe appointed Hale to the Livestock and Poultry Commission.
His ties to the Fourth District are in Sevier County, where he grew up and still owns a cattle farm, although some wonder how much these ties will help him.
Anyway, it is interesting to watch the Arkansas Democratic Party, that once boasted of their deep bench, struggle to find a candidate not only in the Fourth district, but also in the Second where no one has announced. Former State Rep. Jay Martin seems the most likely candidate. And over in the First, the campaign of State Rep. Clark Hall is crowing about raising more than Congressman Crawford in the fourth quarter by $233, although Crawford has close to three times the amount of cash on hand.