Four of the seven races for state constitutional offices have candidates from Benton or Washington county in them. Most of the four have a good shot at going the distance and winning the November election, too.

O, brave new world. I remember when this spot we live in was the tiny corner stronghold of the minority party. That wasn't so long ago. Now it's an advantage for a state candidate to come from here. I'm still just a little taken aback by the suddenness of the change.

Look at the field. Secretary of State Mark Martin, after all, is an incumbent seeking re-election. So he's a favorite. Asa Hutchinson stands a excellent chance of being the next governor. This is true despite primary opposition from Curtis Coleman and a tough Democrat to face in November.

Rep. Duncan Baird, R-Lowell, is running for state treasurer. He has a spotless ethical record, relevant experience managing money and a primary opponent who's made some really poor, early campaign decisions. Rep. Debra Hobbs, R-Rogers, faces the most opposition in her race. She's challenging U.S. Rep. Tim Griffin and fellow House member Andy Mayberry for the party's nomination for lieutenant governor. Both Baird and Hobbs would face Democratic opposition if they win in the primaries.

Contrast this situation with the election-before-last for state offices. The same Asa Hutchinson ran for governor against Democrat Mike Beebe. On Aug. 25, 2006, I wrote a column about that race titled "Asa's Cornered." It described in detail what a huge disadvantage it was to be the candidate from Northwest Arkansas.

It all showed up on a poll by Opinion Research Associates of Little Rock that year. Hutchinson had 25 percent support in northeast Arkansas' 1st District; 22 percent in central Arkansas' 2nd; a lead with 51 percent in northwest's 3rd; and 28 percent in south Arkansas' 4th.

"Tilt this poll until everything rolls to Hutchinson's advantage," I wrote. "Give him all the undecided voters in each district. Pile on another 5 percentage points in each district. Then he'd carry the 3rd, where he used to be congressman, by an unbelievable 66 percent. That would be 3 percent better than President Bush did against John Kerry.

"In this wonderland, Hutchinson would still lose in the south with 43 percent. He'd lose in the northeast with 42. He'd die with 40 percent in the center. He'd get less than 48 percent of the total ....

The problem, I wrote, was "not Hutchinson so much as the Republican Party's failure to gain majorities outside the northwest." That view was supported by 2006 election results.

Well, folks, things changed. We all know what happened. Rural, conservative former Democrats across Arkansas don't like President Barack Obama. They vote accordingly. Virtually overnight, the Democratic Party lost the countryside and the state's majority along with it. The shift showed up in the 2010 elections.

I've written many times that the biggest liberal in the Heights in Little Rock often agrees with the biggest conservative in a gated community on Rogers on the core questions facing state government: roads, schools and higher education. However, a pattern has emerged in recent years. You can see it most clearly in the Legislature. Rural conservatives and NWA Republicans are simply more comfortable with each other politically than either would be with Democrats from Little Rock. They agree on the "close to the bone" issues: abortion, guns, property rights, low and regressive taxes and an utter loathing of the president.

Yet I don't believe Northwest Arkansas' political rise to the top of this new heap is a simple one-way thing. Not yet, anyway. Before now, a northwestern Democrat faced big disadvantages, too. The base of the state's Democratic Party is in and around Little Rock and in the eastern Delta region. The party core guarded their fiefdoms jealously. Now the Democratic Party simply has to do better in the Northwest to survive. And that, ladies and gentlemen, means they're going to have to find northwestern Democrats willing to run.

Scoff at the prospect of Democratic inroads up here all you want. If the sudden shift in favor of this region and the GOP teaches us anything, it should be this: Everything political is built upon the air, no matter how rock-solid it looks. "We are such stuff as dreams are made on." That's just as true of this new order as it was of the old one.