Harvey Parnell was a farmer and politician from Southeast Arkansas. Parnell served in the Arkansas General Assembly for eight years, first in the Arkansas House of Representatives, and later serving a term in the Arkansas Senate. Following the re-establishment of the lieutenant governor position, Parnell won the statewide election and served under Governor John Martineau. When Martineau resigned to take a federal judgeship in March 1928, Parnell was elevated to become the state's 29th governor, a position he would hold until 1933. Early in his time as governor, Parnell was responsible for Progressive reforms popular with rural voters, including expansion and modernization of the highway system and public school reform. But as the Dust Bowl and Great Depression ravaged the Arkansas economy, Parnell's programs were blamed for bankrupting the state, and his popularity plummeted. He left politics after his second full gubernatorial term ended in January 1933.
Entering the 1928 gubernatorial election, Parnell sought a term as governor in his own right. Parnell defeated future U.S. Representative Brooks Hays of Little Rock in the Democraticprimary. Parnell easily defeated Republican challenger Drew Bowers, 77.3 to 22.7 percent. Bowers, an attorney from Pocahontas, had also been the GOP gubernatorial nominee in 1926, when he was defeated by Martineau by a similar margin.
Second term
Parnell sought a second term in 1930, an election usually assured to faithful Arkansas politicians in this era. Parnell again defeated Hays in the 1930 Democratic Primary. He also fended off a challenge from Lee Cazort, who had resigned as lieutenant governor to challenge Parnell in the primary, though he withdrew and supported Cazort before the primary was held. In the 1930 gubernatorial election, Parnell defeated the Republican J. O. Livesay, a district judge from Foreman in Little River County in Southwest Arkansas. Livesay had lost a Republican race for the United States House of Representatives in 1912 from Arkansas's 4th congressional district. The Republicans ran a newspaper advertisement prior to the 1930 general election in which it claimed the Democrats had given Arkansas "Inefficiency, wanton waste, coercive machine rule, and government for private gain at public expense." The GOP pledged instead a "clean business administration, substantial tax reductions, honest audits, law enforcement, industrial leadership, and real statesmanship." The notice pleaded with voters to "go to the polls and vote for Arkansas instead of self-seeking politicians." Livesay also had a running-mate for lieutenant governor, C. H. Harding, a Pennsylvania native who was the president of the Fort SmithBuilding and Loan Association in Fort Smith. Osro Cobb of Montgomery County, the only Republican member of the Arkansas House at the time, did not seek a third two-year term but managed Livesay's race against Parnell. Livesay finished with only 18.8 percent of the vote. Cobb noted that Republicans at the time had no representation on Arkansas election boards and were not guaranteed precinct watcher positions. Therefore, he considered Livesay's small vote "suspect," meaning it could have been larger had there been a way to check for fraud. Six years later, in 1936, Cobb was himself his party's unsuccessful gubernatorial nominee against the Democrat Carl Bailey.
