Many names in hat, who will pay to file?

Wednesday, March 3, 2010

— This hasn’t been the most active week for politics in our area, but we did see some shifting in the Republican pre-primary announcements. As it stands now that should be the most actively contested of all positions for those of us in northwest Arkansas. Even with one withdrawal from the race we still have seven announced candidates since someone new came onto the scene to fill the void. There must be something special about the number 7.

If you consider the importance of a senate vote as a percent of total votes, the senate race could be seen as more important than a seat in the House of Representatives. However, if you look at the number of announced candidates seeking the 3rd District House seat, there is more likely to be an individual you know personally running because the candidates cover most of the geographical area that will be voting. Benton County is home to three candidates, Boone County’s County Judge represents his county, Washington County has two representatives in the contest and Sebastian County one representative. When Congressman Boozman decided to run for the Senate he opened up the contest to some candidates who probably would not have challenged him as an incumbent.

Although some of the candidates have indicated they considered running before Boozman switched races, I believe only one (Bernie Skoch) actually announced he would contest the seat.

There are 12 counties in the 3rd District - Benton, Boone, Carroll, Crawford, Franklin, Johnson, Madison, Marion, Newton, Pope, Sebastian and Washington.

Based on the last decade census figures, Washington and Benton counties were the two largest and Newton County the smallest in population. Only three of the 12 counties had populations exceeding 100,000 people - Benton, Washington and Sebastian. We know those population figures are no longer correct, but the basic position in population size will be very similar after the new census is completedthis year.

Name recognition is always a big factor in any political contest and having the mayor of Rogers (Steve Womack) and the Arkansas State Senator (Cecile Bledsoe) from this Senate district (No. 8) facing each other is definitely going to draw a lot of interest in our immediate area. The third candidate (Kurt Maddox) is a city alderman from Gravette but is not a familiar political name county-wide.

The two most distant (from our area) candidates are Boone County Judge Mike Moore who is obviously politically well known in his area, and an attorney from Fort Smith (Gunner DeLay) who has been active in Republican politics for several years. Two retired men from Washington County are competing for the nomination - Steve Lowry, listed as a retired DEA Agent, and the aforementioned Bernie Skoch, a retired Air Force Brigadier General. Neither of them list any previous political experience.

At this writing I have only been able to find internet Web sites for three of the candidates. Two of the Web sites are for persons with previous campaign experience - Cecile Bledsoe ( www.cecilebledsoe.com) has successfully run for state legislative positions and Rogers Mayor Steve Womack (www.womackforcongress.com ) who, of course, campaigned for his position as mayor. The thirdWeb site www.skoch2010.

com is the site for General Skoch of Elkins. I’m sure the other candidates will also have Web sites on the Internet shortly after filing - if indeed they all do file.

We discovered during my campaigns as newcomers to the political scene, things like Web sites generally take longer to prepare simply because you need to learn your way around the process. And, when you are as computer illiterate as I am, learning all the options takes time. We will also see a lot of Facebook, Twitter, etc. used in this campaign.

The filing period began at noon Monday, March 1, and continues until noon March 8, at which time we will know who the serious candidates really are. At $7,500 per candidate it would not be too surprising for one or two of the announced candidates to drop out before the March 8 deadline. A Fayetteville attorney, David Whitaker, has announced he will seek the 3rd District Congressional seat as a Democrat.

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Leo Lynch, a native of Benton County has deep roots in northwest Arkansas. He is a retired industrial engineer and former Justice of the Peace. He can be contacted at [email protected].

Opinion, Pages 4 on 03/03/2010