How much does direct mail affect votes?

It's time for a postmortem on last Tuesday's election and some of the more important, or amusing observations. Let's start with how much does it cost to come in second in a two-candidate election? The answer is anywhere from very little to a whole lot, or how much do you have to spend. In that case it is probably all you have. Like every household that is on Republican mailing lists, we were absolutely inundated with flyers from numerous candidates. It seems some candidates had a lot to spend.

The winner for most brochures sent to our house goes to Duncan Baird's campaign for State Treasurer. He wins with more than four pieces of direct mail. His opponent in the contest and actual winner, Dennis Milligan, sent three pieces to our house. Milligan was apparently a Tea Party choice from Alexander, Ark. Being from out of the county, I can understand Dennis Milligan trying to obtain our support but wonder what the Duncan Baird campaign was thinking when he should have spent his money in other counties (in our opinion). Could it be the private option and extension of legislative term limits which Baird apparently supported while sitting as a member of the Arkansas Assembly? If Milligan's literature did nothing else, it exposed Baird's Achilles Heel politically. The Milligan literature, complete with pictures of him with a former United States President (Bush) and notation about honorary campaign chairman Huckabee, didn't mean much at our house. But, Duncan Baird's voting record on three major issues concerning our views has more impact than all the other mailings combined. State-wide, unofficially, Milligan won with over 85,500 votes, or 53.5 percent of the total cast. In Benton County, still unofficial, Baird received 9,612 votes or 60 percent of the total. One can draw one's own conclusions, but a higher percentage at home would be normal for one's home area. However, Milligan, the Saline County Clerk, carried his home county by only a 61 percent to 39 percent margin; yet Asa Hutchinson carried Benton County 78 percent to 22 percent in the Governor's Primary.

In another contest where Obamacare's Private Option and supporting the extending of term limits could have been a factor, Representative Sue Scott was opposed by Dane Zimmerman of Bella Vista. This position actually produced more total mailings to our house then Baird-Milligan. Sue Scott's campaign sent three mailings promoting her re-election and a fourth mailing came from an organization called Citizen First Congress of Little Rock. We received three pieces of literature (brochures) in behalf of Zimmerman. One came from his campaign, and two came from Americans for Prosperity condemning Sue Scott's record of voting for the Private Option. In the election for the District 95 position in the Arkansas House of Representatives, 2,577 votes were cast with Mrs. Scott receiving 1,407 or 55 percent in the preliminary, as yet unofficial, count.

It is probably unrealistic to believe a single issue, or two or three, resulted in an unknown candidate pushing an incumbent this hard, but the rather sneaky language of the term limits issue makes it sound like they are intentionally trying to deceive voters to overcome the previous popular vote setting our current limits. I must confess to being very disappointed that this was approved by sitting legislators who would or could benefit from its passage hidden in a bill to be voted on in November.

One area we will never resolve is how many voters actually knew which legislators voted "for" the Public Option. When I tried to find a website that would give me a list of both Senate and House supporters, I could not find one. When I asked one of our elected state officials, they acknowledged it is not easy to go back into the historical person-by-person vote on a bill.

Northwest Arkansas is definitely playing a more important role in state politics as proven in the number of Republican House Districts. My fear lies in the control issue. If Asa Hutchinson is elected governor with a primarily Republican assembly will the Republican party get too big to remember their roots in formerly conservative Democrats? Personally, I think the Tea Party has been good for America's political scene because it has forced a degree of self soul searching that might otherwise have not been recognized. To me, again, that is where the Private Option issue of Obamacare forces us to look long-term as well as short-term at our nation's financial future.

In other meaningless trivia about brochures, Andrea Lea sent us three mailings in her bid for State Auditor (she won) and David Sterling was represented by American Future Funding in three mailings promoting his views on a "Stand Your Ground Law" for Arkansas.

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Editor's note: Leo Lynch is an award-winning columnist. He is 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].

Editorial on 05/28/2014