In Fayetteville last week, voters of Ward 4 showed that the 2014 election of political newcomer John La Tour was a momentary anomaly they corrected handily as soon as they had the opportunity. Which leads me, naturally, to think about Donald Trump.
OK, more on that later, but let's remember the history that resulted in La Tour's place in Fayetteville political history.
La Tour would probably agree as much as anyone that his political philosophy is not what typically gets someone elected in Fayetteville. Ward 3 has tended to be the more conservative district -- that's Fayetteville conservative, not Benton County conservative. Running for west Fayetteville's Ward 4, La Tour pressed for limited government focused on basic services. This in a town where some believe government is the solution to every challenge.
But something else was going on back in 2014 when La Tour's unlikely electoral success came. Chapter 119, advocated by Alderman Matthew Petty, was adopted that August by the City Council after a 10-hour, emotional meeting. It was a civil rights ordinance that added discrimination protections on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity. Fayetteville became the first city in the state to ban such discrimination against gay, transgender and other individuals whose circumstances were not protected in state or federal law.
Critics said the law was municipal overreach and unnecessary. A month after it passed, a group called Repeal 119 submitted 4,100 signatures to force a vote on Dec. 9, 2014. The city became an explosive battleground with national interests -- such as the Human Rights Campaign -- deeply involved. This was seven months or so before the U.S. Supreme Court legalized same-sex marriage. The local fight over how government treats sexual orientation was pitched.
On that December election day, 7,523 voters voted to reject the ordinance. It was enough to beat the 7,040 who favored keeping it.
La Tour and five other candidates for City Council campaigned a month earlier in that environment for the Ward 4 seat. He staunchly opposed Chapter 119 and actively worked with the Repeal 119 group. In that general election, La Tour's motivated voters gave him 43 percent of the votes in that six-person race. That normally would result in a runoff, but the plethora of other candidates split the remaining votes. Nobody was within 20 percentage points of La Tour. Under state law, that meant he won outright.
Last Tuesday, in a runoff with newcomer Teresa Turk, La Tour managed only 613 votes. Turk got a whopping 1,181 votes, or two thirds of those casting ballots. That, Scott Van Pelt would say, is a bad beat. The times were starkly different.
OK, so what's this got to do with Donald Trump?
From the day after his unlikely victory over Hillary Clinton, I've thought of Trump's victory as an anomaly. To his credit, it was an astonishing feat. But could this inexhaustibly flawed reality TV star (1) keep an administration functioning at a high enough level to succeed or (2) marshal in 2020 the same forces that delivered an electoral success in 2016. He won't have Hillary Clinton opposing him (probably). There won't be the same pent-up angst from the Obama years that made his "Make America Great Again" message of hope and fear resonate.
In short, was his election, like La Tour's, the product of unique conditions that cannot be replicated? Trump in 2020 will have a record of achievement or lack thereof for someone to run against. He'll also have his conduct as president. Will Americans want four more years of this? Can we expect little challenge within the GOP to the incumbent?
Could a more "presidential" candidate give Republicans an option to advance policies they want without the chaos and embarrassment created by Donald Trump?
Donald Trump, if he runs again, won't be a shoo-in.
Commentary on 12/09/2018