Apparently, a successful anti-establishment Republican rebellion requires a Republican establishment to rebel against. An establishment, by definition, is something that has been around a while.
Gov. Asa Hutchinson had a good night in Tuesday's primaries. His own win was only part of it. His two most outspoken critics in the Senate from his own party lost their re-election bids. This was largely due to the governor's open endorsements of their opponents and backing up those endorsements with meaningful support. Of course, give the candidates who ran the most credit, but the governor's support mattered.
Before making more of this result, though, note that there was very nearly a partial offset in the House. Republican Reps. Jana Della Rosa of Rogers and Dan Douglas of Bentonville were renominated over more sternly conservative newcomers in the GOP primary by the barest of margins. Della Rosa won by a grand total of 4 votes out of 2,134 cast in her race. Douglas won by the scarcely more comfortable margin of 12 votes. And that is just among the House races in my neck of the woods.
Still, the governor's sway in the primaries of the state's dominant political party is remarkable. He is the same man who lost soundly to Democrat Mike Beebe in 2006. Certainly, the governor clearly benefited from a GOP tide rolling in since. Being able to ride such a swell, however, was not guaranteed. Not getting swept aside is not as easy as it looks.
There is a very conservative wing of the GOP. They worked for a Republican majority for decades. They were the most devoted. They expected a harder turn to the right once the GOP gained a majority than they are getting.
The segment that former Gov. Mike Huckabee called "Shiite Republicans" are the same size fish as they ever were. The pond is just a whole lot bigger now. They no longer have the sway within the GOP as they did when the party was much smaller. This dilution of GOP orthodoxy is the price of becoming the majority party.
Now, some would argue this means most GOP primary voters are not "real" Republicans. I respectfully disagree. You know what a real Arkansas Republican is? Whatever a majority of Arkansas Republican primary voters say he is.
The Hutchinson-Hendren clan is certainly well established. No denying that. But the power structure that finally put a member of that clan in the governor's mansion is not. The structure is solid but still new.
The Republican "establishment" has not been established long enough to build up the resentments a successful revolt requires. This is a problem for very conservative Republicans. It is a much bigger problem for Democrats of any sort.
Still, I cannot bring up this topic without giving credit to Sen. Bryan King of Green Forest. King is an outspoken critic of the governor, particularly on health care spending. King was also one of the two critics defeated Tuesday. But events have shown King is right in that there is not enough oversight in the state's health care spending, particularly on business relationships between sitting lawmakers and health care providers. The "establishment" would do well to correct that -- not an easy task.
The most effective line I heard against the "establishment" -- in this campaign or any other -- is that the state has the same establishment as before. It just has a GOP address now. That will take a few more years to ring true, though. It is a hard theory to credit when the guy sitting in the governor's chair was an impeachment manager of President Bill Clinton, the darling of the establishment of days gone by.
The Clintons still have many friends in this state, but it is a telling sign of just how far things have changed that the Democratic nominee for governor, Jared Henderson, would be hurt more by a Clinton campaign appearance on his behalf than helped by it.
As indicated by that last statement, the party where the Arkansas establishment has really been overturned is the Democratic Party. That change was not a rebellion as much as a consequence of the party's sudden fall from power. Part of the reason the current leadership is hard to change in the GOP is because of its success. Changes in Democratic leadership since 2014 clearly stem from the lack of it.
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Doug Thompson is a political reporter and columnist for the Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. Email him at [email protected] or on Twitter @NWADoug
Commentary on 05/26/2018