Let the arrows fly

Political traditions are dying rapidly in Arkansas. That includes the one about campaign politics beginning in earnest on Labor Day.

Last year's Labor Day, maybe.

But in an homage to the political rhythms of yesteryear, we will assess the landscape on this day after Labor Day as if today starts the real non-exhibition season.

We will do so by firing those devices that never go out of style. Of course I refer to the ever-fickle arrows of conventional wisdom. And, actually, the first few will have nothing to do with the epic imminent election.


U.S. Sen. John Boozman--In casual remarks during a speech last Saturday night, First Lady Ginger Beebe said her husband, Governor Mike, had run in his last election. And that little aside nailed down Boozman's re-election in 2016.

Hillary Clinton--Ginger's declaration cost Mrs. Clinton a running mate. I'm kind of serious. If a governor of Arkansas can become president, then surely a better governor of Arkansas could become vice president.

And who better to balance Hillary than the last Southern moderate with approval ratings in the 60s?

Mike Huckabee--If he really wanted the Republican presidential nomination, he could win it. Fortunately for the GOP and the country, he likely will remain more interested in money and media.

Myopia--I'm seeing a Hillary-Beebe race against a Mike Huckabee-Somebody race in 2016. I fear I may have become too provincial in my thinking. There may be political talent elsewhere, though it is hardly evident.

Gov. Mike Beebe--See items above. Civilian life is not going to suit him, I predict. He'll need to do something in the public-policy arena, where he's toiled since, well, the early 1970s when then-Gov. Dale Bumpers put him on the board of his beloved alma mater, Arkansas State University.

Lobbying is quite out of the question. He's due for some restlessness. Golf will be less fun when it's the only thing he has to do.

U.S. Sen. Mark Pryor--He is a Democrat in Arkansas who voted for Obamacare. Yet he stands essentially tied in his race for re-election. That may be the most extraordinary political feat in the state since Dale Bumpers' rise from obscurity or Bill Clinton's rise to the presidency or Asa Hutchinson's rise to personal warmth.

U.S. Rep. Tom Cotton--The Atlantic was in the state last week to explore the question: Can Cotton, a so-called "fusion conservative" who supposedly merges Tea Party and mainline Republicans, manage to get too conservative even for newly reddened Arkansas? That's a little like being too biased for Fox News.

Still, I'm saying yes--about Cotton being too conservative for Arkansas.

Arkansas Democrats--While here, the reporter from The Atlantic discovered that Democrats have a much better get-out-the-vote apparatus than Republicans. They'll need every vote they can turn out. And maybe more.

Arkansas Republicans--They can win--the Legislature and all the congressional seats except possibly the one from the Second District--without having to drag voters through the streets to the polls.

Asa Hutchinson--I refer you to his aforementioned rise to warmth. He gives Cotton hope that, after three statewide election defeats, he, too, might become likable, or at least tolerable.

Mike Ross--He hasn't run much television lately. Maybe he will sprint the last couple of laps. He reminds me that I've always under-estimated him.

A new Rasmussen poll puts him in the lead, but, then, Democrats have always trashed GOP-leaning Rasmussen polls. Rasmussen makes robo-calls to landlines only, meaning it misses the cell-phone culture.

State Sen. David Sanders--He is the member of the trio of Republican architects of the private option who has ridden herd most closely on implementation. He is to be credited with imposing his will and wonkiness in a way that has nudged the progress toward nationally noted line-holding health-insurance premiums for next year in policies on the exchange.

He's come a long way since the doctrinaire conservatism of his blissfully abandoned newspaper columns years ago. For fear of overstatement, I will not say what I am tempted to say, which is that he may emerge as a national health-care policy figure.

The office of lieutenant governor--We're going to keep it in all its irrelevant glory, only because we won't be able to agree on what other officeholder might ascend to the governorship in event of a vacancy.

I say give any vacated governorship to Ginger Beebe, along with an arrow-up. She'll need to get out of the house before her husband drives her crazy.

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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, or his @johnbrummett Twitter feed.

Editorial on 09/02/2014

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