Overnight Stay by Brown Showcases Rural Poverty in Arkansas

Cathola Lambert, who provided overnight lodging Sunday night to former California Governor Edmund (Jerry) Brown, lives in a clapboard house with fading pink paint on a dusty dirt road.

Lambert’s two-bedroom house has no indoor plumbing, a tin roof that leaks when it rains and baby chickens caged in her front room. According to local officials, Lambert’s poverty is more the rule than the exception here in Lee County, Arkansas, the eighth-poorest county in America.

Lambert’s home is “light years away” but only about 90 miles from Arkansas Gov. Bill Clinton’s home in Little Rock, the state capital, Brown said Monday.

Contrasting Lambert’s poverty with the affluence of White House and congressional leaders of both parties, Brown accused “status quo” political leaders of failing to pay attention to domestic affairs and contributing to Lambert’s plight.

The overnight at Lambert’s home was the centerpiece of Brown’s day on the eve of primaries here and in Kentucky. With Brown struggling to make national media and local voters notice his anti-Establishment message, Brown’s staff selected this place because it showcased rural poverty. And, Lambert’s home is in Clinton’s back yard.

“What I’m trying to show is that people are hurting all across America,” Brown said, emerging from a fitful sleep in Lambert’s rear bedroom. “I think we need to send a message that everything is not perfect, even here in Arkansas.”

Lambert, a 63-year-old retired health care worker, said she was pleased that the Brown campaign came to her doorstep. Lambert “makes do” with a small pension left by her dead husband and feeds herself by raising chickens, hogs and vegetables in the field behind her house.

“Don’t look like I’m accomplishing anything,” she said, adding that since she retired with a disability in 1987 from her job at a nearby nursing home, “life has gotten worse.”

Brown seized upon Lambert’s plight to criticize a 1990 report issued by the Lower Mississippi River Valley Delta Development Commission, which under Clinton’s leadership spent $2 million to study the economic and social problems of residents in the economically depressed area. The 186-page report called for the creation of an organization to improve the conditions in the region and for Congress to provide funds for the Delta.

Asked if the report has made a difference in her life, Lambert responded: “I don’t see where things are getting better for me.”

Brown said the commission’s report “was just a typical political maneuver to make politicians look good and to buy some time before the next election.”

After having Brown as a house guest, Lambert said she supported his presidential bid.

“I’m going to tell you the truth,” she said. “I hadn’t thought much about him before his people called. But they were the only ones to call me, and I was glad to have them come by.”