An economic recovery isn't complete until people believe they're better off, whatever the numbers say.
As long as people are more worried than normal about the future, they act on that worry. And as long as they act that way, a recovery will be slow at best. So the thing about this year's Arkansas Poll that jumped right out at me was the huge drop in serious worry about the economy.
Last year, no less than 43 percent of Arkansans polled saw the economy as the "most important problem or issue facing people in Arkansas today." That figure dropped a massive 16 percentage points to 27 percent this year.
This is a statewide poll done by the University of Arkansas. I certainly wouldn't be surprised that people in the thriving region of Northwest Arkansas have confidence. The fact this confidence is a statewide thing, according to this poll, is much more reassuring.
Just as important, no other issue consumed Arkansans as a major concern. Therefore, there wasn't some big new worry or crisis that simply pushed the economic number aside. There's a real alleviation of economic dread here.
Answers on what the biggest issue or problem was were spread out pretty evenly among the usual suspects: health care, politics, education and crime. The biggest new concern is health care, which jumped from 8 percent to 19.
The economy's still the state's top concern, but that should surprise no one. It always is, generally speaking.
In other poll news, Gov. Asa Hutchinson's approval rating is up 3 percent to a total of 60 percent. That only looks like a slight change. The then-new governor was on his honeymoon in 2015. The fact his approval number improved at all is significant. Some of the people who were worried about him in 2015 didn't have their worries pan out, it seems.
The number of people who don't read a newspaper each day jumped from 27 percent in 2014 to 41 percent in 2016. Obviously, I'm in the newspaper business, but even I don't think the implication for my business is the most alarming thing here. The thing to really worry about is the consequences of fewer people reading a reliable news source.
If the 2016 presidential election proves nothing else, it's that social media is a terrible place to get informed and that choose-your-flavor national cable television is worse. While "mainstream media bias" is a popular gripe, the cold fact remains that somebody reading a newspaper gets a picture far closer to reality than somebody reading the average Facebook or Twitter feed.
Call the media biased, but biased truth is still better than fantasy in an echo chamber. I now consider the term "mainstream media" to be a compliment, because being in the mainstream is a whole lot like being on Main Street. At least you can see Main Street from there.
Back among the poll results, it's no surprise only 49 percent of people recognized who the U.S. House speaker is, since they don't vote on who is speaker. That's an internal House decision. However, those of us who don't have real lives might have warning bells to ring soon, depending on how the next speaker's election goes.
The House speaker election and the House rules fight that come up after an election are normally dry, boring inside-the-beltway stuff. This year -- without hyperbole -- these House votes could decide whether the Republican Party will be functional.
The Republicans could throw out their second House speaker in a year. In the process, they could also lose their minds, especially if Hillary Clinton gets elected, and decide to follow a scorched earth political policy in the House. Or, alternatively, the House could decide that getting a grip on the one-fifth of one-half of the chamber that's calling the shots is long overdue and bring back some acknowledgement of political reality.
It's going to be interesting, and a topic I'll write about at much greater length soon enough. For now, I asked Rep. Steve Womack whether Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis., would be re-elected speaker. Womack attended Thursday's lunch meeting of the Springdale Kiwanis Club. All he'd say is that I asked a good question.
A parting thought; There was no big change on opposition to abortion or support for guns, the twin pillars of Arkansas social policy. As I've said out loud a few times, Joseph Stalin could get elected to the Arkansas House if he was against abortion and for guns.
Commentary on 11/05/2016