LITTLE ROCK — Rep. Jon Hubbard accused Gov. Mike Beebe and Attorney General Dustin McDaniel on Thursday of putting out Adolf Hitler-style political propaganda about Hubbard’s writing that slavery was a blessing for black Americans and the backlash Hubbard has received.
Beebe said Hubbard is trying to evade blame.
Hubbard, a Jonesboro Republican seeking a second term, has been criticized for a 2009 book in which he referred to slavery as “a blessing in disguise” and integration as lowering the standards in public schools.
Hubbard did not return phone calls or e-mails from the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette on Thursday. He seeks the House District 58 seat in a race against Harold Copenhaver of Jonesboro.
The state Republican Party and several Republican officials have backed away from Hubbard since his book, Letters to the Editor: Confessions of a Frustrated Conservative, became more widely known over the weekend.
A spokesman for the party declined to comment on Hubbard’s most recent letter.
Statements by two other Republican candidates, Rep. Loy Mauch of Bismarck and former legislator Charlie Fuqua of Batesville, have also received media coverage in the past few days.
Hubbard responded in a letter to the editor of the Jonesboro Sun published Thursday.
“Does all of this political propaganda being put out by Gov. Mike Beebe, Attorney General Dustin McDaniel and others remind you, even a little bit, of how Hitler took control of the minds of the German people in the 1930s?” Hubbard wrote in the editorial.
Jonesboro Sun editor Chris Wessel confirmed that the letter came from Hubbard.
Hubbard wrote that Democrats had threatened to protest at a Fuqua fundraiser and that the restaurant where the fundraiser was to be held canceled it because of the protest threat.
Fuqua did not return phone calls Thursday from the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette attempting to confirm if a fundraiser for him was canceled for that reason. His website shows a fundraiser scheduled for Bryan’s Grill in Batesville on Tuesday night.
“This is a first-hand example of how a political machine operates, and I think the people of this state need to be made aware of what is happening right before their very eyes!” Hubbard wrote. “Right now, it is happening to me and these other Republican candidates, but next time, it could be you or your family or anyone else who gets in their way! Think about it!”
Beebe said Hubbard’s statement comparing the governor and attorney general to Hitler have no place in Arkansas politics.
“He’s the one who wrote all the stuff. He wrote about all that that’s causing him problems now and revealing his feelings, and then he’s blaming me and others and comparing us to Nazis. That’s enough, that’s all you’ve got to say, just look at what he said,” Beebe said.
Beebe said he doesn’t plan to ask for an apology.
“I’m worried about Arkansas and our people. I don’t have time to worry about him,” Beebe said.
When McDaniel was a legislator, he represented the area Hubbard does.
“These types of rants are precisely why I believe he is not suited to serve in the General Assembly,” McDaniel said Thursday.
Benton Smith, chairman of the Craighead County Democratic Central Committee, called on Hubbard to resign Thursday. Smith also called for the resignation of Craighead County Republican Chairman Billie Sue Hoggard.
Hoggard did not return phone calls from the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette Thursday.
Also Thursday, former Lt. Gov. Bill Halter released radio ads he has produced in favor of Fuqua’s opponent, Rep. James McLean, D-Batesville, and Mauch’s opponent, attorney David Kizzia, D-Malvern.
In both ads, Halter said that he is saddened and angered by the statements of Fuqua and Mauch, which he says don’t represent the views of Arkansans, have no place in the Arkansas Legislature and have hurt Arkansas’ image.
Fuqua’s book, God’s Law — The Only Political Solution, published in 2011, calls Islam “incompatible with the U.S. Constitution” and says, “We will either expel [Muslims] or be killed by them.”
Fuqua’s book also includes a passage about applying the death penalty to rebellious children. It states that any prisoner who cannot be rehabilitated in two years should be executed and that Social Security is the “worst program ever devised” because it causes people to not work hard in their youth.
Mauch’s statements were made in more than 50 letters to the editor of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette between 2000 and 2011, including an instance where he refers to Abraham Lincoln as a “terrorist” and an “indiscriminate war criminal,” and questions why Jesus never criticized slavery.
Mauch said Monday that he did not mean to appear to condone slavery in any of his letters. He did not return phone calls Thursday from the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.
Thursday’s letter wasn’t the first reference to Hitler and the Democratic Party Hubbard has made publicly.
In a section of his book discussing what each political party represents, Hubbard wrote, “Generations of Americans have a history of calling themselves Democrats and voting for candidates who run as Democrats simply because they were following what their parents and grandparents had done before them,” Hubbard wrote. “It is a long held belief of many people that Adolf Hitler could win an election in America if he ran as a Democrat.”
In an Oct. 10 column, Sun editor Wessel addressed Hubbard’s statements.
“I don’t think Jon Hubbard sees himself as a racist. I don’t think he intended to paint that picture whatsoever. I think Jon Hubbard is a God-fearing man who believes in the Bible and wanted to be able to justify in his own mind how God could let something as horrible as slavery exist,” Wessel wrote. “It didn’t work.”
Wessel wrote that the problem was that Hubbard as an older white man was having a conversation with himself and not considering the perspective of the community that went through slavery.
“The problem is he has never lived as a black man, so he has no knowledge of the black experience in America. I doubt if he’s sat down and had these conversations with anyone in the black community,” Wessel wrote. “It comes off looking racist.”
This isn’t the first time Hubbard and the two constitutional officers have clashed publicly.
In February 2011, Hubbard e-mailed a letter to Beebe that accused Beebe of “strong-arm” tactics, engineering a “poison pill” “hostile” amendment that likely killed a bill aimed at preventing state funds from being used for abortions in the state health exchange that is to be created under the federal health-care law, and said he’d used “less than honorable tactics.”
Beebe responded at the time that Hubbard had no idea what he was talking about. He said he didn’t bully lawmakers as Hubbard insinuated.
In July 2011, Hubbard accused the attorney general of pandering to Hispanic voters and providing special treatment to the group by offering a Spanish-language version of the office’s website.
McDaniel responded that Hubbard could be seen as “an angry, misguided person.”
Front Section, Pages 1 on 10/12/2012