LITTLE ROCK — That was a most interesting vote-a kind of senatorial one, you might say-that U.S. Rep. Steve Womack, second-term Republican from Rogers, cast Tuesday night.

Alone among the Republicans with whom Arkansas has infested the usually dysfunctional U.S. House of Representatives, Womack made a responsibly bipartisan vote.

He opted to accept the imperfect compromise coming from the U.S. Senate to stave off the fiscal cliff.

The compromise’s considerable imperfection made it an easy target of disdain for the Republicans’ apocalyptic Tea Party base. Fear of that disdain compelled U.S. Reps. Tim Griffin and Rick Crawford to engage in inconsequential posturing by voting against the compromise.

Womack voted precisely as had the Republican U.S. senator from Arkansas, John Boozman.

By design, the Senate is supposed to be the more deliberative body. Its six year term is designed to insulate members from a measure of direct political pressure, thus allowing senators to fashion compromises and ponder statesmanship.

Womack was free to vote the right way because he has his own insulation.

No Democrat is going to bother him or any Republican in the GOP hotbed that is the 3rd District. And Womack’s home base within the district-Benton County, which casts a reliable abundance of Republican votes-can help deflect any Tea Party insurgence on his right flank.

After all, no less than Dick Morris publicly assailed him in his first primary in 2010, yet he won comfortably.

All of that leads to today’s subject: U.S. Sen. Mark Pryor, like most any Arkansas Democrat, is at risk of defeat in his re-election bid in 2014. That invites the not-untimely question: Who is the Republican who will challenge him?

The cocky Griffin took himself out of that race a few weeks ago. He’s mildly vulnerable, actually, even in his own 2nd Congressional District.

No disrespect intended to Herb Rule, but a Republican congressman in a Republican district in a Republican climate who can’t beat the unfunded Herb any worse than Griffin beat him in November (55 percent to 39 percent), and who loses badly in Pulaski County to Rule, ought to stay put if he can.

Apparently, the Senate nomination is pretty much Womack’s if he wants it.

An emerging pal of House Speaker John Boehner, Womack appears to have come down with a light touch of Potomac Fever.

He has thought about running for governor. Indeed, he had a lot of fun in the executive branch as mayor of Rogers during boom times.

But his wife reportedly wants nothing of the first ladyship’s glare. For his part, Womack is starting to settle into the rhythms of the Beltway and the legislative culture.

So that means he stays in the House or goes for the Senate.

If he remains in the House, the Senate nod against Pryor likely would fall to Tom Cotton. He is the resume-rich war veteran and Harvard-educated lawyer just sworn in to represent the 4th District in Congress.

He already has been anointed by national conservatives as a rising star.

Womack, though, would appear to be an altogether sounder Senate prospect than Cotton-for the moment, anyway.

For one thing, Cotton is more popular with national conservatives than with South Arkansas voters, who really had no good Democratic choice. They were overrun by the large sums of money that admiring national conservative groups showered on Cotton. They elected Cotton without much opportunity to make his acquaintance.

Beyond that, Womack would have three terms of experience in Congress as opposed to Cotton’s one. He would appear less the opportunist.

Then there is this factor: Womack could abandon his more-than-safe congressional district seat without fear of Democratic takeover. Conversely, Cotton’s vacating the 4th District conceivably could give traction to an effective Democratic candidate, assuming there is such an animal somewhere across southern Arkansas.

Womack’s main problem as the Republican Senate nominee is the possibility that Arkansas voters would recoil at having both their U.S. senators living in the same ZIP code tucked in the northwestern corner of the state in Rogers.

Indeed, Womack and Boozman, beyond being neighbors, would be nearly identical U.S. senators-in terms of votes and political essences, anyway.

Womack is Boozman with less humility, a more forceful personality, a stronger radio voice and lesser optometrical skill.

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

Editorial, Pages 73 on 01/06/2013