EDITOR'S NOTE: This is part of a continuing series of articles on opposed races in the May 20 preferential primary. This installment covers the race for the U.S. House, 4th Congressional District.
Republican candidates for the 4th Congressional District seat, Tommy Moll and state Rep. Bruce Westerman, R-District 22, have been busy trading barbs over "Obamacare" and touting recently received endorsements during the last days of the primary season.
At a recent speech to a Garland County Republican Women meeting, Moll said he was "running for Congress to defend our freedoms from a federal government that is absolutely out of control."
"We don't have a second to wait to get back on the right path, because the path we are on under this president is a path to bankruptcy," Moll said.
Using his fundraising advantage in the last couple weeks of the campaign, Moll has aired a television advertisement stating he is the only candidate in the race who has "always opposed 'Obamacare,'" referring to Westerman's initial sponsorship of the Arkansas "private option" version of Medicaid expansion and a separate bill he introduced in the 2013 legislative session.
Westerman has a 47 percent to 10 percent advantage over Moll in the race, according to an early May Talk Business-Hendrix College poll.
Responding to the advertisements at the GCRW meeting, Westerman said the ads were filled with "lies" and that he voted against the "private option" 10 times.
"I've never supported it," Westerman said. "Instead of creating false ads about my record, why don't we talk about what we're going to do, because attacking my record is not going to create one more job in the 4th District. It's not going to do anything about lowering the debt or repealing 'Obamacare.'"
In a news release this week, Peter Somerville, campaign manager for Moll, defended the advertisement's line of attack, saying "Bruce Westerman has been making lots of interesting claims about his record on Obamacare."
"However, the public record shows not just one, but two bills with Westerman's name on top as a sponsor to implement Obamacare in Arkansas," Somerville said. Only one candidate for Congress has always opposed Obamacare: Tommy Moll."
However, the Westerman campaign released in early May a Feb. 12 letter signed by Arkansas legislators that said "Anyone who claims that Bruce Westerman was anything but an ardent opponent of Obamacare is misleading the people of Arkansas."
Also this week, both campaigns circulated high-profile endorsements.
The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette endorsed Westerman in Thursday's edition, saying he "was one of Arkansas' leading opponents of this state's adaptation of Obamacare -- it's called the Private Option -- and fought against it vigorously once he took a close look at it, which didn't take him long."
Moll was endorsed by 2012 by U.S. Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis., Mitt Romney's running mate in 2012.
"Tommy Moll knows how to get our nation back on track, and if he's elected to Congress, he'll be a conservative we can count on," Ryan said. "He will vote to repeal Obamacare, balance the budget, and protect the founding principles that make America great."
Local on 05/16/2014