Major parties actively recruiting to defeat Dobbins’ candidacy
Posted on Monday, March 24, 2008
URL: http://www.nwanews.com/adg/News/220732/
The state Republican and Democratic party chairmen have discussed ways to defeat former state Rep. Dwayne Dobbins’ surprise last-minute re-entry into politics, nearly three years after he relinquished his 39 th District seat after pleading guilty to fondling a 17-year-old girl.
Meanwhile, a state senator said the political fate of Dobbins should be determined by the voters in the district and cautioned outsiders against dictating a political solution.
And every one of a dozen randomly selected potential district voters interviewed by the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette said they strongly support Dobbins and plan to vote for him.
Republican Party Chairman Dennis Milligan said last week that defeating Dobbins, who is running as a Democrat, would be a “bipartisan effort.”
The parties need to find a suitable write-in candidate who could defeat Dobbins, Milligan said. So far Dobbins is unopposed in the primary and general elections.
Milligan said he had spoken to Democratic Party Chairman Bill Gwatney three times about “how to right the wrong” committed when the incumbent, Dobbins’ wife Sharon, did not file for re-election and her husband entered the race less than two hours before the filing period ended March 10.
“This is a bipartisan effort, I’m sure Chairman Gwatney would concur,” Milligan said. “We’re not joined at the hip on this, but we’re in complete agreement on this as far as effort to right a wrong.”
Not exactly, Gwatney said.
“There is no bipartisan agreement on how to deal with this issue. We had a conversation. That’s it,” he said, adding that he wouldn’t consider reaching out to Republicans or Green Party people until his own party had “reached an internal consensus.”
“We haven’t even scheduled an executive committee meeting. This isn’t the only issue we’re dealing with,” Gwatney said.
Both major parties, along with the Greens, have confirmed they are actively recruiting write-in candidates. They have until Aug. 6 to find someone willing to fight the uphill political battle that writein candidates must wage since they usually lack party backing.
Whoever runs could identify with any party, but Hendrix College political scientist Jay Barth, a member of the state Democratic Party Executive Committee, said the strong Democratic leanings in the 39 th give his party a clear edge.
“Any process would be driven by the Democratic Party,” Barth said. “It’s important to recognize how Democratic that district is.”
Each state House district contains roughly 25, 000 people. In the 39 th, most of those people are black. Historically, about 90 percent to 95 percent of black voters in Arkansas prefer Democratic Party candidates, sometimes even when the Republican nominee is black.
Black Legislative Caucus Chairman Sen. Irma Hunter Brown, a Democrat from Little Rock, told The Associated Press that she had “great concerns” that Gwatney was trying to get Dobbins to drop out. On Friday, Brown declined comment.
Another member of the Black Caucus, Sen. Tracy Steele, a North Little Rock Democrat whose Senate district includes House District 39, suggested Friday that the media focus more attention on the opinions of the 39 th’s voters.
“The people who live in the district, they are the ultimate deciders,” said Steele. “It’s always interesting to me, a lot of people chose to live in some places that may be even more affluent, but then want to come down to a community that has been neglected and needs help and make decisions for those individuals. I think that’s wrong.”
Gwatney had a similar message in an e-mail statement earlier in the week.
“The only true resolution to this issue must come from the voters of District 39. That’s who we’re concerned about,” the statement read.
Gwatney and other party leaders have criticized both Dobbinses, saying that the lastminute filing appeared orchestrated. Gwatney even offered to have the party refund Dwayne Dobbins’ $ 3, 000 filing fee.
Sharon Dobbins told the Democrat-Gazette on Wednesday that work conflicts prevented her from filing and that her husband decided to run at the last minute.
The 39 th District stretches across central and eastern North Little Rock. On Friday, a dozen potential voters told the Democrat-Gazette they strongly supported Dobbins.
“All of us do something wrong; some of us just get caught,” said Lillian Nichols, 71, as she walked with Lola Robinson, 63, along Vine Street.
“I’ll vote for him. He paid his price and straightened himself out,” Robinson said.
Similar sentiments were voiced by eight other people, all black. At Dobbins’ house, his wife Sharon answered the door to decline comment, but instructed a reporter to put a note in their mailbox requesting comment from her husband. Dwayne Dobbins did not respond to that request.
Keith Heard, 29, said Dobbins had a good reputation in the neighborhood.
“He’s inspired a lot of us. He’s a neighborhood guy. A lot of people don’t care about us down here in the slums. But he’ll campaign for us,” Heard said, leaning against a car on Ninth Street.
Gwatney said Thursday that his staff told them Sharon Dobbins had called just after 8 a. m. March 10 to ask how to file. He said her last-minute decision not to run shocked him.
“Blindsided would be an understatement,” he said.
“I feel like I let my party down,” Gwatney said. “But you can’t recruit against an incumbent. I wouldn’t last very long as party chairman if I did that.”
Gwatney said any discussion of sharing financial resources with another party to defeat Dobbins is very premature although Milligan said he would be open to the idea.
University of Arkansas at Little Rock political scientist Art English said the political situation in the district is highly unusual, but he respects the loyalty shown to Dobbins by some of his former constituents, comparing it to how presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., distinguished between inflammatory racial comments made by his former minister, Rev. Jeremiah Wright, while refusing to condemn the man himself.
But the nature of Dobbins ’ transgression is different, English said.
Originally faced with a felony sexual assault charge, Dobbins struck a plea agreement reducing it to a misdemeanor harassment conviction. He was sentenced to probation and agreed to leave his seat in 2005.
“If you look at the reckless behavior of Obama’s minister, you can forgive a person for that,” English said. “But in our society a sexual peccadillo is a much harder one for either party to swallow.”