Surely a political poll has never spoken more clearly.
New numbers from Hendrix College and Talk Business and Politics in the 2nd District congressional race--updated from a survey six weeks ago--show that:
• Republican French Hill's lead of 49.5 to 40.5 in early September over Democrat Clarke Tucker has grown to 51.5 to 39.5.
• President Trump's approval-disapproval rating in the 2nd District sample has soared over that time from 47-44 to 54-42.
The first thing clear--indeed compelling--is that Trump has rehabilitated himself in six weeks from a precarious position in the 2nd District to a triumphant one, better by nine points. The second thing clear from the numbers is that Trump's triumphant ascent offered coattails that lifted the lead of his local acolyte, Hill, by three points.
There is one more matter of clarity, though one not expressed directly in the numbers. It has to do with a logical deduction. It has to do with what happened during those six weeks that would have turned this tide.
We all know what happened. It was the Brett Kavanaugh nomination hearing in the Senate Judiciary Committee.
We may readily conclude that local Republicans and right-leaning independents rallied or at least moved back to Trump because of some element of that affair.
It probably was resentment of what were seen as Democratic smears in the handling of Dr. Christine Blasey Ford's unverified--and purposely uninvestigated--allegations. It might even have to do with perverse approval of Trump's going to Mississippi and mocking the poor woman.
The civilized among us can hope it's not so much the latter.
We also can hope it's not because our neighbors excuse killing and sawing the bones of a journalist on the basis that the brutal murderers have a lot of money to give us for airplanes, and billions matter more to us than morality.
At any rate, Tucker's campaign theme of being a nice young man with great women in his life was an abysmal ratings loser against a president who gets more popular locally as he gets meaner.
It seems fair to conclude that swing voters in the 2nd District prefer mocking a woman alleging abuse to showcasing one extolling her grandson. It's as plain as 47-44 going to 54-42 around those competing images.
At long last, as of the weekend, Tucker has a new television commercial putting the women of his life aside for the moment and taking on his opponent directly man to man.
It's late. This cake appears to have been baked, and to have been laced with strongly formative flavorings of Trumpian resentments.
I'm reminded of something local Republican consultant Robert Coon once wrote. It's that, for Democrats, the 2nd District is like the girlfriend you can't believe dumped you, and whose dumping you can't accept, but who is, in fact, long gone.
I'd add: She just announced her engagement to a rich guy named French. Man, it hurts.
That's not to say the race hasn't drawn national attention.
Late Thursday, radio spots began showing up on a local African American station featuring two conversing women presenting themselves as African American mothers or grandmothers. The women talked as if aghast that Democrats would embrace a white woman crying abuse against a white man, meaning Kavanaugh. Imagine what they'll do--these women declared--when white women cry rape against our black husbands and sons, if, that is, we don't elect a good Republican like French Hill to protect us. They accused Democrats of returning to lynching.
It was the most ridiculous and racist political foray in a modern era that has been replete with political ridiculousness and more subtle playing of race cards.
The radio spot was the work of a right-winger in North Carolina named Vernon Robinson and his small political action fund.
Hill decried it. Republican insiders told me they suspect the PAC operator was a lone wolf placing such an incendiary spot in a cheap market only to gin up media attention and, in turn, reap additional donations for his own pocket--because, you know, it takes all kinds to make up the world, including the kinds who like such advertising.
Democrats tried to make the case that, even if this was the outlying isolated work of a scheming weirdo, the message needed to be viewed in the context of broader Republican attempts to suppress the black vote and raise the specter of Democratic "mobs."
It's tough in politics to win votes by scolding people who have racist components in their political thinking but don't think, or want to admit, that they do.
It's conceivable that this sordid episode, via backlash, could fuel heavier black turnout for Tucker, which, as this poll suggests, would close the final gap in the way the Razorbacks closed the final gap on Alabama.
We have our own crimson tide flowing undefeated in Arkansas.
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John Brummett, whose column appears regularly in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, is a member of the Arkansas Writers' Hall of Fame. Email him at [email protected]. Read his @johnbrummett Twitter feed.
Editorial on 10/23/2018