Obama's Lacks Support in Arkansas & Oklahoma

Bill Smith, ARRA Editor: John Brummett is an Arkansas political columnist who continually displays a nostalgic belief that Democrats Party still reflects conservative ideals. There may be some conservative democrats in the region, but they are floundering in a party controlled by liberals. Brummett, being pro-democrat and an associate of democrats, appears to understand his local brand of democrats. He appears to find Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton to be more conservative than Sen. Barack Hussein Obama. While Obama is a black male and Clinton is a white female, remove their sex and race and they are both equally suited liberals. Hillary Clinton does have more "life experiences" than Barack Obama and is clearly "native born." But being tired of us Arkansans, Hillary kept her beloved ex-president, migrated to liberal-land New York, and walked right into the Senate a full fledged liberal.

Brummett's association with the people and attitudes within the Democrat Party in Arkansas and Oklahoma affords us insight into the region's Democrat backlash against Barack Obama as their presidential nominee. The backlash even seems more strident with the likelihood that Clinton will not be their vice presidential nominee. In a recent article that appeared in The Morning News, Brummett comments:

"I wrote about a palpable lack of fire for Obama among Arkansas Democratic officeholders -- such as Gov. Mike Beebe, who cited a "deep-seated fear" of Obama in Arkansas, and U.S. Rep. Marion Berry, who said his tank of enthusiasm had pretty nearly run dry -- there was a related development in the section of Oklahoma that abuts the western Arkansas border.

"U.S. Rep. Dan Boren is a third-term conservative Democrat representing the 2nd Congressional District of Oklahoma, which starts at the Arkansas line and runs to Kansas on the north and Texas on the south. It's just across the state line from Siloam Springs and Fort Smith and Mena and De Queen, not so far from Texarkana. It bounds our 3rd District, which is Republican already, but it also bounds our 4th District, which has a Democratic congressman in Mike Ross. . . .

"Boren's is a conservative district and one of the largest geographically in the country, owing to the sparse population. It went 66 percent for Hillary Clinton over Obama in the Democratic primary on Super Tuesday and it went heavily for George W. Bush in the general elections in 2000 and 2004. Boren, son of former U.S. Sen. David Boren, can read those returns. He told the Tulsa World that he could not endorse Obama. He said he admired Obama's rhetoric about a new politics, but pointed out that Obama had been rated the most liberal member of the Senate by the National Journal. He said that didn't seem so new to him. He said he had to respect the will of his constituents.

"In a way this means nothing. Obama can't compete in Arkansas without Hillary as his running mate. Obama is going to get pummeled in Oklahoma either way because Oklahoma is Arkansas without those enlightened (or static, if you prefer) Democratic influences. The point is that, for all the talk of a new day and of a race that is the Democrats' to lose, the Democrats find themselves in old and familiar territory. That is to say they have a nominee whose competitiveness seems foreclosed in large sections of the country, primarily ours. . . ."

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