A Political Storm Passes Over

A very, very good thing for our state's Republicans is clearly coming to an end.

Anti-President Obama rage was a godsend to the GOP in the 2010 and 2012 elections. The state's political landscape changed for good. The new majority party really should put a bronze statue of the president in front of state headquarters.

The president is not one bit more popular here this year than he was then. What's clearly cooled is the willingness of our voters to punish other Democrats out of frustration over him.

Here's where that cooling shows: Rep. Tom Cotton -- the pure, distilled essence of an anti-Obama candidate -- is 3 percentage points behind Sen. Mark Pryor in a couple of recent polls. He's farther than that in another recent one, but I'll get to that in a minute.

A 3-point gap would be no big thing in a normal year. In fact, three points behind is pretty good for a challenger to a Senate incumbent at this stage -- in a normal year. However, there's no better proof that a "good thing" has ended than when things get back to normal.

Let me put this another way. Cotton is only three points behind Pryor, but he's at least 10 points behind where John Boozman was. Back in February 2010, Boozman was a House member like Cotton. He, like Cotton, challenged an entrenched Democrat, Sen. Blanche Lincoln. Like Cotton, he never would have considered this in a normal year.

In Boozman's race, Lincoln's vote for Obamacare was all that mattered. Boozman never trailed in a poll in that race -- not once, all year long. Even polls commissioned by the liberal Daily Kos never showed his lead being less than 7 percentage points. Kos paid for polls as early as March 24 in that race. That month and again in April, that seven-point gap showed up in Kos polls.

We've gone from the Republican Senate challenger having a seven-point advantage in 2010 to a three-point disadvantage now. Blame other factors besides a cooling of anti-Obama ardor if you want. I don't. It's only April. Nobody with a life cares about this election yet. We're looking at a baseline here. And the baseline every Republican on a ballot in Arkansas has counted on for the past four years is gone. It disappeared.

Then, on Thursday, a poll popped up from Little Rock-based Opinion Research Associates showing Cotton 10 points behind. I really have to give credit to Cotton's campaign staff for rapid response. I got their e-mail lambasting at this poll before I got word of the poll itself. Kudos to them. But even if their claims that this poll is absurdly off base are true, note that no poll -- none -- ever showed Boozman behind in the 2010 race.

Hey, it was a great run -- but it's over. A Republican running for state or even local office in Arkansas should talk more about why people should vote for him besides his dislike of the president.

Majority party status in the state House, for instance, really is at stake in this election. There's the governor's race, attorney general's race, and other constitutional offices. There is the very real prospect that the Arkansas U.S. House delegation could be bipartisan again.

You can certainly argue that it's a long time to November, that it's too early for such tea-leaf reading. You'd be right. I'd remind you, though, that time isn't on the side of those who depend on a waning issue.

The one place where utter loathing of the president will probably still work, though, is the Republican primary. That could compound the GOP problem in this election. If they insist on nominating narrowly anti-Obama candidates, they run the serious risk of having those candidates look and sound like tired old Johnny One-notes in the general election.

The other lingering effect of anti-Obama rage also favors the Democrats. After the battering they've had, they're more unified than I've ever seen. I live in Fayetteville, old hippie central. I scarcely ever hear a word from anyone about needing a "real Democrat" to run. Nobody is calling Pryor "GOP-lite," at least not very loudly. The party purists may hold their noses and grind their teeth, too, when they vote for Pryor and any other Democrat who might win, but they're going to do it.

Chanting "Obama-(insert Democrat's name here)" over and over worked like a charm two elections in a row. Well, "despair thy charm," Republicans. Birnam Wood's coming to Dunsinane and Macduff's looking for you.