Tactical practicalities

On days when I’m generous, I analyze it as tactical politics.

But on other days, I grow weary of watching Arkansas Democrats stand only for being tactical. Then I see it as fear and weakness.

I refer foremost to the vague political persona of U.S. Sen. Mark Pryor, running for a third term with transparent fear of the National Rifle Association.

He essentially tells Democrats to stay on board with him no matter how gun-crazed he behaves. Otherwise, or so it is fully implied, Democrats will wind up with an extreme conservative like Tom Cotton as their senator.

The Pryor political message for 2014 is as follows, in so many words: Abandon me at your peril. You will only clear the way for a Tea Party/ Club for Growth extremist. His votes will far transcend in raw conservatism any occasional political concession I might make.

Put another way: Let Pryor cave to the NRA on a deranged criminal’s convenience in getting his hands on a semi-assault weapon.

In turn, Pryor offers implicitly, he will vote with the Democratic majority when no one is looking, which is most of the time.

I refer secondarily but significantly to the elusive political persona of former U.S. Rep. Mike Ross, running for the Democratic nomination for governor.

He invites Democrats to buy what he sells for their center-left primary purposes. It is that he is a Mike Beebe-cloned moderate on a woman’s right to choose.

He invites Democrats to pay no mind to his anti-choice votes made over a dozen years in Congress. Those were to stay elected in right wing southern Arkansas.

He invites Democrats to take their chances on what he’ll say about abortion, or anything else, in the general campaign after they favor him with their nomination.

Otherwise, or so it is fully implied, Democrats should settle in for a Republican Legislature working without a solid Democratic backstop, but with, say, Republican Asa Hutchinson.

If you thought this legislative session was bad, try imagining it without Beebe. That’s the Ross message, in so many words.

The truth is in the sum of my moods.

What Pryor and Ross are doing is simple tactical politics essential to any winning Democratic calculus in Republicanized Arkansas.

But tactical politics is essential for the very reason that Democrats are pitiably weak. Any chance they hold of winning must be served by finesse and concession.

Theirs is not a rallying cry, but a rallying ploy.

It’s also a shell game.

Here’s your Democrat. Now let’s shuffle. Can you find your Democrat still? Which hand? You thought Pryor was under the left hand, but he was under the right. You thought Ross was under the right hand, but he was under the left.

This phenomenon is not new. It’s merely advanced.

Bill Clinton fashioned world-renowned electoral skills in Arkansas by necessarily finessing his natural liberalism.

Mark Pryor’s dad, David, was famously a genial and neutral man by style. In real substance, he was a staunch partisan.

What’s different now in Arkansas is that Barack Obama and Fox News have turned a center-left political essence into more than a challenge that requires deflection. It is now a burden requiring disavowal.

It’s actually more complicated than that.

A full two-party system makes the Arkansas Democratic primary less an all-comer event for independents and more a smaller liberal exercise. Thus Ross, opposed in his primary, goes left for now in the shell game as Pryor, unopposed in the primary, goes right.

About three years ago, Blanche Lincoln was in trouble generally for seeming liberal on health care. She needed to disavow it by November.

But she found it necessary one day in the primary to argue that she was as liberal as her Democratic challenger, Bill Halter.

I was sitting in, or to the side, when she said that in an interview with a reporter from Politico, the national website. I should not have laughed aloud.

But I couldn’t help it.

Either way, an Arkansas Democrat can never simply be. He or she must always seem to be.

And an Arkansas Democrat can never simply stay put. He or she must always change colors with seasons.

Ican best describe Republicans by sharing an email I received the other day.

A man pointed out that Pryor and U.S. Sen. John Boozman voted “no” on background checks, but that everyone was focusing on Pryor and assailing his weakness. Why not Boozman?

It’s because, the man said he came to understand, nobody ever held out any hope that a Republican might do the right thing.

That’s an advantage.

People believe Republicans are voting a principle, even if wrong. They believe Arkansas Democrats are voting a tactical calculation, even while knowing better.

So it’s a devils’ choice-between the one wearing natural horns, or the one of many masks whose horns can be put on and taken off.

John Brummett’s column appears regularly in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. Email him at [email protected]. Read his blog at brummett.arkansasonline.com, or his @johnbrummett Twitter feed.