Scattershooting with primaries in the crosshairs

The May 24 Preferential Primary is five weeks out – with signs going up everywhere.

The newest trend in political signage apparently is to place one’s photo on the sign.

And then your name is as big as possible.

Looks like Don E. McNaughton, a Republican candidate for House District 22, has the biggest, boldest and the blackest signs. The doomsday black background on his signs certainly stands out, against his profile and grey hair.

He is running in the GOP primary against a once-defeated candidate for the same post, Brian Hester.

Brian Hester is the little brother of Benton County state Senator Bart Hester. The two Hester boys sure want to serve in the General Assembly together, in different chambers, or so it seems.

Brian Hester hasn’t changed his signs if at all – just recycled some of these from two years ago when four-time incumbent and Democrat, state Rep. David Whitaker, defeated Hester in a November head-tohead matchup.

Brian Hester allowed the GOP “fringe elements” to deliver several “nasty” and inaccurate flyers through the mail distorting Whitaker’s record. It seems the same fringe element is sponsoring Hester again.

We will see what the mail brings for voters in his district, should Hester get by the challenge from McNaughton, who is winning the sign war for sure.

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The three-way race for House District 23 (Western Washington County) between Kendra Moore of Lincoln, Byron Suggs of Prairie Grove and Jim Wilson of Fayetteville, seems way too quiet.

All three have signs up across the district.

Wilson, a Justice of the Peace, is the only one with some political experience, while Moore is a school board member at Lincoln, a large rural district falling into about one-half of this House District. This House District takes in the cities of Prairie Grove and Lincoln, but not the Morrow area south of Cane Hill. This was formerly House District 80, now sliced in two a north and south portion with Crawford County in House District 24.

— — — Speaking of House District 24 – state Rep. Charlene Fite is seeking re-election in this new district, which added more of Crawford County to her territory as she gave up the northwestern corner of Washington County, including Prairie Grove and Lincoln areas.

She still has Morrow and areas in southwest Washington County.

Her opponent is Christie Robertson, a first-time state House candidate, whose husband Warren Robertson, oddly, seems to be running for a state Senate seat in the same primary.

The Robertsons, both novices in the political arena, are apparently going for a two-house hold political duo, something seldom, if ever allowed, by Arkansas voters.

Washington County voters won’t see Warren Robertson’s signs as his Senate District 29 race is in Crawford County and other areas.

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The three-way state Senate seat race for western Benton and western Washington County between Tyler Dees, State Rep. Gayla Hendren McKenzie and Jeff Tennant sure has the signs going up.

This trio is in new territory in Farmington and reaching even into some wards of Fayetteville for a seat that goes all the way to the state lines of Missouri and Oklahoma in the far northwest corner of the state.

Rep. McKenzie, daughter of former state House and State Senator Kim Hendren,

is also the sister of former state Senator and President Pro Tempore of the Senate

Jim Hendren.

Outspoken in the House, McKenzie makes no bones about her independent voice, oftentimes like her brother, rankling the farright GOP forces in the lower chamber.

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Another quiet state Senate seat is in District 31, the seat that Springdale Administrative Aide Colby Fulfer won in a special election when former state Senator Lance Eads resigned to join a lobbyist group. Senator Fulfer made no bones about his only wanting to fill out the immediate term of Eads. He has his eye on a run for Springdale’s mayor in a future election, friends say.

The trio of GOP candidates in the scrum for Senate District 31 include former state House member Clint Penzo of Tontitown, Paul Colvin Jr., and Andrew Thompson.

Whoever wins his bout will face Lisa Parks, an attorney, who narrowly, by 34 votes, lost to Fulfer in the race for Eads’s seat back in the late fall last year. Signs, signs, everywhere there are signs.