The old story goes that a president named Abraham Lincoln was meeting with some congressmen as The War was going sideways. Various representatives of the people grumbled about a particular general who just wasn't winning in the field. The president asked those assembled: Who would you have me replace him with? Somebody in the back shouted, "Anybody!"
"Well, anybody is good enough for you to say," the president replied. "But I have to have somebody."
It's the difference between governing and grumbling. An effective executive has to have a plan, a path, an idea of where he or she would like to lead. Just demanding "something different" is good enough for the bomb-throwers in the opposition, or the back-benchers in the legislative branch. But an executive has to have specifics.
Anybody can say taxes are too high. But what's a workable strategy to lower them? Anybody can say education is good. But how improve test scores of Arkansas' students with no concrete plan to do so?
Anybody can say, "The time is right for an outsider," as the governor's Republican primary opponent has. But can just any outsider put together a conservative state budget year after year, hire the right people around him, make government more efficient, manage the feds so that Arkansas doesn't lose millions of dollars and dozens of rural hospitals, and consistently cut taxes at the same time?
Asa Hutchinson has done all this. And he has plans--with details--to do more. He deserves to win May 22's GOP primary.
Arkansas has had a remarkable string of outstanding governors. Gosh, we've had three in a row! There are many another state, folks, that wish they could put together a Huckabee-Beebe-Hutchinson lineup.
Asa Hutchinson, for his part, has spent his first term cutting taxes and increasing the number of jobs in the state. His plans include decreasing top income tax rates in the next four years as he and the Ledge lowered them for others in 2015 and 2017. His plans for education are also specific. See asa2018.com for details.
The governor wants a long-term highway program. And better high-speed broadband to every community in the state. Although presidents sometimes claim credit when unemployment drops nationally, governors in the several states have more to do with job creation. And thousands of jobs have been created under this governor. Income is going up. The state's schools are making national news with this computer coding program. Work requirements to get certain Medicaid benefits have been approved by the feds. We could go on.
The governor's primary opponent--who shouldn't be taken lightly given the political climate and her television experience--has called Asa Hutchinson a tax-and-spend progressive. Which reminds us of another Lincoln story: The president once asked how many legs a dog would have if you called its tail a leg. Why, he'd still have four legs, Mr. Lincoln explained, because calling a tail a leg doesn't make it one. Any more than calling Asa Hutchinson anything but a conservative and effective executive in the state's highest office makes him so.
Asa Hutchinson deserves an overwhelming win come May 22. Republican primary voters should give it to him.
[Click here for all NWADG Endorsements]
Editorial on 05/09/2018