(Part of UPI's Special Report on Election 2002)
LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (UPI) -- Personal campaigning may be the key to victory in the Arkansas Senate race where Republican Sen. Tim Hutchinson is trying to beat off a serious challenge from Democrat Attorney General Mark Pryor.
Both candidates have surnames that are staples of Arkansas politics and both men are trying to project a conservative, family values image. In the end, the victor may be the one who comes across best in person and in those never-ending television ads.
Right now, the voters seem to like what they see in Pryor, says Max Brantley, editor of the weekly Arkansas Times, who believes that "personal likeability" is often the only thing that will bring an incumbent like Hutchinson down.
"In terms of the images that are portrayed, people just like the image they see in Mark Pryor," he said. "They just see a nice guy."
Pryor, the 39-year-son of former Sen. David Pryor, led Hutchinson, the 52-year-old brother of Drug Enforcement Administration chief Asa Hutchinson, in two recent polls, which has national GOP leaders concerned about holding the critical seat.
Most political observers are saying Democrats have their best chance of winning Republican Senate seats in Arkansas and Colorado. The balance of power in the Senate may depend on the outcome in the two races.
Pryor led Hutchinson 50 to 40 percent with 10 percent undecided in a poll conducted last month by Opinion Research Associates of Little Rock for the Arkansas News Bureau and Stephens Media Group. A week earlier, Pryor had only a two percent lead in a Zogby International poll conducted for the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.
"On some red meat, social and domestic issues, Pryor is pretty well fixed because Arkansas is such a populist state and Hutchinson is trying to move the dialogue to who is right on the war," says Brantley.
Pryor, however, was an early supporter of President Bush in the war effort, which has left Hutchinson little room to attack his patriotism.
A Republican television ad last week charged Pryor voted as a state legislator to deny supplemental pay to members of the National Guard during call-ups, but 14 lawmakers quickly jumped to the Democrat's rescue and branded the charge unfounded.
Hutchinson says Pryor is really a liberal trying to win election on the coattails of his father, who was a popular fixture in Arkansas Democratic politics for 35 years as U.S. senator, governor, congressman and state legislator.
Hutchinson, who first made a name as a state legislator in the 1980s with a conservative, Christian agenda, accuses Pryor of dodging issues like abortion. Pryor says he would have to study any abortion proposal before taking a stand on the controversial issue.
Social Security, prescription drugs, and gun control have been some of the other issues, but family values has been an underlying but subtle theme throughout the campaign.
Hutchinson, a Baptist minister, divorced his wife of 28 years to marry a younger legislative aide three years ago. Although political observers don't believe it will be a determining factor, it could affect turnout for Hutchinson in conservative northwest Arkansas, the most Republican area of the state.
Pryor, who attends an evangelical church, never brings up the Hutchinson divorce in his campaign appearances but there's a subtle unspoken message in some of his advertising. One ad shows Pryor, his wife and two children saying grace over dinner.
"Tim Hutchinson is trying to counter that with an ad with his grand kids, but most people think that recalls to mind that he divorced his first wife and married a staff member," says Brantley, a longtime Arkansas political observer.
Another ad says that being in Washington for a long time has changed Hutchinson, and alleges he has voted against the family issues favored by Arkansans. Again, no mention of the divorce, but the implication is there.
(Reported by Phil Magers in Dallas)
