Hays Talks Jobs, Negative Advertising In Second District Congressional Campaign

Democrat Pat Hays says “jobs” are the No. 1 issue in his bid for the open Second District Congressional seat, but the main subject voters and political observers are talking about at this juncture is the suddenly negative advertising in the race.

Hays, who faces Republican French Hill and Libertarian Debbie Standiford, appeared on this week’s edition of Talk Business & Politics, which airs Sundays at 9 a.m. on KATV Ch. 7. The winner will replace Cong. Tim Griffin, the GOP nominee for Lt. Governor.

“People are concerned about their livelihood, their future, certainly their family, and what government can or can’t do, what government should or shouldn’t do in order to partner with them in making their lives better and it’s really the key, number one item – jobs,” Hays said.

The former long-time mayor of North Little Rock, who also served one term in the Arkansas Legislature, noted that one year ago his decision to enter the Congressional race was made when the federal government shut down.

Hays said the move, led by Congressional Republicans, “tipped me over the scales” to enter the race. This past week, while Hays and Democrats were reminding voters of the anniversary of the shutdown, Republicans were reminding voters of the one-year anniversary of the botched Healthcare.gov rollout.

While Hays says the “rancor and discord” of the federal government is different than what he saw as North Little Rock mayor, he admits that his race seems to have drifted in the direction of national politics.

“I didn’t have any desire to do anything other than talk about my record because I’m proud of it. I think that’s what I want to continue to talk about. But when someone makes some comments about you and your history and your record, you know, you respond and I did,” Hays said.

In the last two weeks, Hill launched a TV ad saying Hays had attacked him. The Hill campaign cited rhetoric from Hays and a tracker showing up to their headquarters as source of the attack.

Hays countered quickly with a TV ad tying contributions made by Hill and his banking colleagues at Delta Trust and Bank to disgraced former State Treasurer Martha Shoffner, who resigned from office after accepting bribes from a Russellville bond dealer.

Does Hays really think Hill’s contribution resulted in business being steered to his bank?

“Let me just say what we did is tell what the facts were. The facts were a contribution was made. The facts were that a significant increase in business went to Delta Trust. The fact was Martha Shoffner was indicted and convicted. And the fact is that that significant amount of business has since fallen off. So all we felt the responsibility to do is simply tell the facts. And that’s what we did in the ad,” Hays said in the TB&P interview.

“When you present the facts, it is fair game. And that’s all we did. We just talked about what took place during a certain period of time. Business was being, we’ll say ‘acquired’ and I don’t think there’s anything wrong with presenting what the facts are in terms of the chronology of what took place,” he added.

Hays said that as the tables are turned on him in advertising, he maintains that as long as they are factual, he’ll have little room to complain.

“Stating the facts are obviously something that I think are done all the time,” said Hays. “If someone wants to take the salary that I got over 24 years that’s comparable to other mayors’ salaries of similar size in Arkansas and wants to do it in a way that they think appears to be combative to their opponent, then facts are facts. That’s what we did in our ad, and apparently that’s what French is doing in his ad.”

Hays also said that he still thinks that candidates can run positive campaigns and avoid going negative on opponents, but in federal races he says the ability to do so is complicated.

“It’s difficult, I’ll have to acknowledge that,” noting that Karl Rove’s Crossroads PAC has scheduled air time that will likely result in more than a million-and-a-half dollars of negative ads aimed at him. He said the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee has also booked air time for what he presumes will be hard-hitting ads on Hill.

“I think it’s difficult, particularly when there are federal outside dollars involved. I’d frankly love to go to Washington and try to do something that minimizes that kind of impact. It’s really distorting the ability of campaigns to stay positive and talk about the things that we ought to talk about like what we did in North Little Rock and like I tried to do for 11 months, and I’m going to try to get back to as fast as I can.”

You can view Hays full interview in the video below. Hill appeared on Talk Business & Politics in mid-September.