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• Wednesday, May 5, 2010 - Hillary thought otherwiseWhen I called her the...
| Hillary thought otherwiseWhen I called her the night before, she said she thought she might show up at the conferenceMcRae had a cardboard likeness of me by his sideHe attacked me for being absent from the state, implied that I had refused to debate him, and began to criticize my record by posing questions for me and supplying the answers himself
In the middle of McRaes routine, Hillary stepped out of the crowd and interrupted himShe said Tom knew I was in Washington promoting the Delta commissions recommendations, which would help ArkansasShe then produced a prepared summary of several years of Rockefeller Foundation reports praising my work as governorShe said that he had been right in the reports, and that Arkansas should be proud: Weve made more progress than any other state except South Carolina, and were right up there with them
It was unheard of for a candidates wife, much less the first lady, to confront an opponent like thatSome people criticized Hillary for it, but most people knew she had earned the right to defend the work we had done together for years, and it broke McRaes momentumWhen I got home, I lit into him for his attacks and went after his tiffany co jewellery economic development strategy, saying he wanted to build a wall around ArkansasI won the election with 55 percent of the vote over McRae and several other challengers, but Tom had run a smart campaign on a shoestring budget, and had done well enough to encourage the Republicans about their prospects in the fall
Sheffield Nelson beat Tommy Robinson in the Republican primary and promised to run against me on my tax and spend recordThe strategy was flawedNelson should have run as a moderate Republican, praised my work in education and economic development, and said ten years was long enoughI should be given a gold watch and a respectable retirementBy switching from his original position in support of the school standards and the sales-tax increase to pay for them, Nelson allowed me to escape the straitjacket of tired incumbency and run as the only candidate of positive change
The fact that Nelson was running against the education program and taxes had the added benefit that, if I won, I could argue to the legislators that the people had voted for more progressAs we moved toward election day, the AFL-CIO finally endorsed meThe Arkansas Education Association recommended watch ballon de cartier me because of my commitment to raising teacher salaries, Nelsons promise not to raise taxes for four years, and AEA president Sid Johnsons desire to bury the hatchet and get on with business
Nelson, meanwhile, moved farther to the right, advocating a reduction in welfare benefits for illegitimate children and hitting me for vetoing a bill the National Rifle Association had pushed through the legislatureThe bill would have prohibited local governments from enacting any restrictions on firearms or ammunitionIt was a smart move by the NRA, because state legislators were invariably more rural and pro-gun than city councils, but I thought the bill was bad policyIf the Little Rock City Council wanted to ban cop-killer bullets in the face of increasing gang activity, I thought they should have the right to do so
The work of the governors office didnt stop for the campaignIn June, I approved the first executions in Arkansas since 1964John Swindler was convicted of murdering an Arkansas policeman and two South Carolina teenagersRonald Gene Simmons killed his wife, three sons, four daughters, a son-in-law, a daughter-in-law, four grandchildren, and two people he had grudges black and white chanel againstSimmons wanted to dieThey were both executed in JuneI didnt have qualms about either of them, but I knew there were tougher cases awaiting us
I had also begun to commute the sentences of a few murderers with life sentences, so that they could be eligible for paroleAs I explained to the voters, I had not commuted a sentence for years, after the bad experience during my first term, but both the Prison Board and the Paroles and Pardons Board pleaded with me to resume commuting some lifersMost states made lifers eligible for parole after serving several yearsIn Arkansas the governor had to commute their sentencesThe decisions werent easy or popular, but were necessary to keep peace and order in a prison system where 10 percent of the inmates were serving life termsIts fortunate that many lifers are unlikely to repeat their crimes and can return to society without risk to othersThis time, we made extensive efforts to contact the victims families for commentsSurprisingly, many did not objectAlso, most of those whose sentences were commuted were old or had committed their crimes when they were very young
In mid-September, a disgruntled former employee of the gucci tote bag Development Finance Authority first raised the *** question against meLarry Nichols had made more than 120 phone calls from his office to conservative supporters of the Nicaraguan Contras, a cause the national Republicans strongly supportedNicholss defense was that he was calling the Contra supporters to get them to lobby congressional Republicans to support legislation beneficial to his agencyHis excuse didnt fly, and he was fired when the calls were discoveredNichols called a press conference on the steps of the Capitol and accused me of using the finance agencys funds to carry on affairs with five womenI drove into my parking place in front of the Capitol not long after Nichols had made his charges and was hit cold with the story by Bill Simmons of the Associated Press, the senior member of the political press and a good reporterWhen Simmons asked me about the charges, I just suggested he call the womenHe did, they all denied it, and the story basically diedNone of the television stations or newspapers ran itOnly one conservative radio announcer who supported Nelson talked about it, actually naming one of the women, Gennifer FlowersShe threatened to sue him if he didnt rolex replica watch s |
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