Lt. Governor Winthrop Rockefeller May Run For Governor

Lieutenant Governor Winthrop Rockefeller says he`ll run for governor in 2006 -- probably. Rockefeller says he still needs to convince his family that running would be the right move. Also, he says he wants to help President Bush`s re-election campaign in Arkansas next year. If Rockefeller succeeds Governor Huckabee in 2006, it would mark the first time in known Arkansas history that a one Republican governor succeeded another. But Rockefeller is not alone on the list of possible candidates. Former Congressman Asa Hutchinson, now undersecretary at the Department of Homeland Security, could make the race -- though he`s given no such indication himself. Among Democrats, Attorney General Mike Beebe, a long-time state senator who was elected to statewide office uncontested last year, has long aspired to be governor. Congressman Mike Ross, a two-term Fourth District Representative, could also run. ------ Win Rockefeller won a special election for lieutenant governor in November 1996, after Huckabee ascended from that office to replace Democrat Jim Guy Tucker, who resigned as governor in July 1996 following his Whitewater convictions. Win Rockefeller won a full four-year term in 1998 and was re-elected in 2002.