Though now in Republican hands, the 4th traditionally has been staunchly Democratic; in the three decades before the elections of 1992 and 1994, the GOP offered a House candidate here only six times.

A recent convert to the GOP, Dickey first won in 1992 by capturing the votes of the many Democrats disaffected with their nominee and by squeezing out every possible vote in the parts of the 4th where Republicans have some presence: around the urban centers of Pine Bluff and Hot Springs and along southern Arkansas' "El Dorado fringe."

The 4th stretches from the Texas border on the west to the Mississippi River on the east. It has the most blacks (27 percent of the population) of any Arkansas district, and most of its white voters retain a Civil War-era allegiance to the Democratic Party in elections for local office. In presidential voting, Jimmy Carter in 1976 and Bill Clinton in 1992 carried the district.

The 4th's economy depends on agriculture. Scores of paper and plywood mills, most owned by Georgia Pacific and International Paper, dot the district. Rice and soybeans are grown in the Delta counties, and hogs have become an important industry on the western fringe.

With 57,000 people, Pine Bluff (Jefferson County) is the district's largest city and Dickey's hometown. It has a 53 percent black population and casts the highest minority vote of any city in Arkansas. Like the rest of the 4th, Pine Bluff is heavily dependent on the timber industry. International Paper employs about 1,400 people here.

The Pine Bluff Arsenal, which once produced the nation's entire supply of biological weapons, no longer manufactures them. Instead, the arsenal, with 1,700 military and civilian personnel, tests and refurbishes gas masks, including many used in Operation Desert Storm in early 1991.

The district's second-largest city, with 32,000 people, is Hot Springs (Garland County), a popular resort for more than a century. Clinton grew up here after leaving his birthplace in the southwestern Arkansas town of Hope (Hempstead County). The bathhouses and spas of Hot Springs National Park are the center of a tourist economy and a haven for retirees. Garland County's population grew by 5 percent in the 1980s, helping make Hot Springs more Republican.

Farther south is the El Dorado fringe, Arkansas' narrow "oil band" running along the bottom of the state from Texarkana, on the Texas border, through El Dorado. Surrounding Union County is the site of several oil refineries and chemical plants; politically active, conservative oil operators make the area a pocket of Republican strength. In 1994, Dickey won Union County and three other southern-border counties, Ashley, Miller and Columbia.