Lincoln Using Her New Gavel to Highlight Arkansas Issues
Congress Daily
By Jerry Hagstrom
www.nationaljournal.com
When Sen. Blanche Lincoln, D-Ark., became chairwoman of the Senate Agriculture Committee on Sept. 9, she was asked if she expected the chairmanship to help her re-election campaign. "I certainly hope so," she replied. A few days later, one political handicapper said the value of the chairmanship to Lincoln's 2010 re-election chances would depend on whether she can convince Arkansas voters her new power benefits the state.
On Monday, Lincoln will hold the committee's first field hearing since she assumed the chairmanship. It will be in Little Rock, the Arkansas state capital, and it will be held in the most prestigious location in town, the Great Hall of the William J. Clinton Presidential Library. It will also be hosted by the University of Arkansas Clinton School of Public Service, giving it an imprimatur of policy seriousness. Three panels will provide an opportunity for 13 Arkansas agriculture and rural leaders to testify on the hearing's title, Revitalizing Rural America.
The next day, Lincoln will hold an Arkansas agriculture and business leadership breakfast in the Association of Arkansas Counties Board Room in Little Rock. At the breakfast, attendees will discuss the impact of U.S. agriculture, rural development and forestry policies on the Arkansas rural and small business economy. Lincoln has also taken other actions to make the Agriculture Committee more Arkansas-oriented. Lincoln has named Robert Holifield, a native Arkansan who was chief of staff at the Commodity Futures Trading Commission and a former Lincoln aide, as committee staff director.
She has also hired other committee staffers and diminished the roles of staffers hired by her predecessor, Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa. Lincoln got the Agriculture chairmanship after Harkin took the helm of the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions panel. The HELP chair was opened with the death in August of former HELP Chairman Edward Kennedy, D-Mass.
On Tuesday, when the Agriculture Committee held a hearing on the reauthorization of child nutrition programs, all the witnesses except Agriculture Secretary Vilsack came from Arkansas. The witness list demonstrated the breadth of Arkansas nutrition interests by including anti-hunger advocates and the director of compliance for Wal-Mart, the Arkansas-based company that is the world's largest retailer.
On Wednesday, Lincoln's campaign announced a "Lincoln Ag Team, a group of Arkansas voters who support the Senator's commitment to rural development, southern agriculture and farm families."
The team includes David Hillman, a former Arkansas Farm Bureau president; Larry McClendon, a former National Cotton Council chairman; Archie Schaffer, executive vice president for corporate affairs at Tyson Foods Inc., as well as people from the state's rice, fish and produce sectors.
"Sen. Lincoln has been an advocate for Arkansas agriculture her entire career. I am proud to support an Arkansan who has worked tirelessly to protect our state's poultry industry and to promote Arkansas agriculture to the world," said Schaffer.
The campaign's Web site also stresses Lincoln's connection to rural America and the state's farm interests. "As a farmer's daughter from Phillips County, I have always cherished my rural upbringing. Almost half of Arkansans live in the country or in communities with less than 2,500 people so it's no surprise that our rural way of life is who we are."
Exactly what Lincoln may do with her new authority is unclear. She has said she wants to help assure a future for the cotton industry, which has declined in the face of low world prices and constant international attacks on its subsidy programs.
In a release announcing the field hearings, Lincoln said, "When our nation faces difficult economic times, rural Americans are often the first to feel the impact and the last to recover ... Both events will be listening sessions to help keep me in tune with the economic needs and strengths of various sectors of the Arkansas economy as I move forward in constructing the Senate Agriculture Committee's agenda."
A host of Republicans have lined up to challenge Lincoln next year, perhaps encouraged by strong GOP performances in presidential elections. Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., beat President Obama, 59-39 last year. And former President Bush won the state with 54 percent and 51 percent, in 2004 and 2000, respectively.
According to the Arkansas Poll, conducted by the University of Arkansas Survey Research Center from Oct. 14-28, Lincoln's approval rating was 43 percent, her disapproval rating was 34 percent and those who did not know or refused to answer stood at 23 percent. Only 6 percent of those surveyed said they were following the 2010 Senate race in the state "very closely."
The poll of 754 adult Arkansans had a 3.5-point error margin. Lincoln, a former House member, won her 2004 race, 56-44 percent against Republican Jim Holt.
And Democrats hold most of the state's federal offices. Her Senate counterpart, Sen. Mark Pryor, is a Democrat who won a second term last year with 80 percent. The House delegation is divided between three Democrats and one Republican.
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