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His unexpected showing against Hammerschmidt gave Clinton the statewide attention he turned into electoral victories for attorney general (1976) and then for Governor (1978), offices that took him to the very center of the state, where the Arkansas River divides uplands from lowlands, Ozarks from Mississippi rice. He had, in effect, been circling this place for years, aiming at the power center of the state.
LITTLE ROCK
Precisely because it is the center of power in Arkansas, the city has long been resented. Jeff Davis, an enormously successful demagogue of the early century, always ran against Little Rock and kept declaring his independence of the place even when he had to live there as Governor. He tethered a goat on the Governor's lawn to show that his heart was still with the hill folks. He won his first term in office crusading against the construction of a capitol building in the city -- a new home for the despised politicians. The antipolitics of our own time is just rediscovering the ploys of Davis, who treated Little Rock as the Beltway of his time: "The judges have lived too long at Little Rock, which is why they ruled against the people."
Those scratching a living in the hills wanted to be left alone, and certain growers in the black belt did not want others to see how they ruled their plantations. This prickly isolation took on a rabid note after the Civil War, when federal interference created the "Carpetbagger Constitution" with strong powers. As soon as the "Redeemers" drove out the carpetbaggers, a deliberately weak government was created by the constitution of 1874, which is still in force.
To this day, the legislature meets only biennially, for two months, to keep the representatives of the people out of evil Little Rock. The power to tax is severely restricted -- the legislature must raise all state taxes by a three- quarters vote. The Governor, with only a two-year term, has a weak veto. Attempts to write a new constitution have been crushed twice in recent years by a populace afraid of giving any more power to the government. Even the New Deal, which brought blessings to all the South, met the most grudging reception in Arkansas, which refused to raise local funds to qualify for federal largesse, treating rural electrification as a plot against old local autonomy. When Winthrop Rockefeller gave $1.5 million to set up a model integrated school, on condition that local taxes take up the burden after five years, the school was allowed to close when its free run ended. Jeff Davis, after all, had tried to outlaw the education of Negroes, on the grounds that it ruined good field hands without creating intelligent citizens.