Category Archives: Elections

Boozman running for re-elect ‘if you had to ask me today.’ And Hutchinson?

By Steve Brawner, © 2019 by Steve Brawner Communications, Inc.

Sen. John Boozman is 68 years old, which is still relatively young, but he’s had some past health issues and is entirely too nice to be in Washington these days. When I asked him Saturday if he plans to run for re-election in 2022, I figured he’d give me a standard non-answer to avoid saying he probably isn’t.

Instead, he said this: “If you had to ask me today, I’ve got to talk to my family and all of those kind of things, I’d say yes. … But that’s a long time. It’s not really two years. It’s like three-and-a-half years.”

My assumption was wrong. Not the first time, and not the last, and that’s just for this column.

Good Roads Foundation

Gov. Asa Hutchinson will be term-limited out of office in 2022. Then what?

Meanwhile, by 2022, Gov. Asa Hutchinson will be term-limited out of office. He’s a week older than Boozman, as both were born in December 1950, but he’s had no health issues and plays basketball pretty vigorously for a man pushing 70. Asked in March by journalist Roby Brock if he will be finished with politics when his term ends, he replied, “Wouldn’t count me out.”

So if Hutchinson isn’t “out,” where would he try to get in? There’s no place in state government after being governor. He could return to the U.S. House of Representatives, where he served three terms. But being one of 435 representatives would not be a promotion after being one of 50 governors, particularly if Republicans are still in the minority there. Plus, he’d have to unseat an incumbent, presumably Rep. Steve Womack in the Third District, assuming Womack still wants to keep the seat in 2022. Continue reading →

Democrats looking for candidates, and have found some

Democrats, Alabama, blue wave, school boards, Hixson, Breanne, red tide, judicial electionsBy Steve Brawner, © 2019 by Steve Brawner Communications, Inc.

For elections to be competitive in Arkansas next year, the minority party must field candidates, and Democrats say they have some, or at least are trying hard to find them.

The party already has a U.S. Senate candidate, Josh Mahony, who was scheduled to kick off his campaign in El Dorado, Fayetteville and Little Rock this Thursday-Saturday. He’s trying to unseat U.S. Sen. Tom Cotton, who was kicking off his own campaign at Republican Party headquarters Saturday.

Mahony won only 32.6% running for the 3rd District congressional seat last year against U.S. Rep. Steve Womack. He faces an uphill battle against Cotton.

Actually, he’s scaling a cliff. Cotton is an incumbent Republican and a national figure who can raise whatever money he needs, plus a lot more. Continue reading →

Perot a force from the outside

By Steve Brawner, © 2019 by Steve Brawner Communications, Inc.

A man for whom I cast two votes for president died Tuesday.

Ross Perot ran for president as an independent in 1992 and as the nominee of his Reform Party in 1996. His temperament was not a good match for the presidency. But especially in that 1992 campaign, he did something no other major candidate in my lifetime has done: He made the national debt a major campaign issue, successfully educated Americans about it, and offered real solutions to solve it and other problems.

At the time, the debt was a little more than $4 trillion, or about $16,000 for every American. Today, it’s $22 trillion, or about $66,900 for every American. It will grow roughly $1 trillion this year, and that’s in a good economy.

Perot, the billionaire businessman born to modest circumstances in Texarkana, Texas, could not abide such irresponsibility. And while other candidates try to manipulate us with slick ads, divisive rhetoric and poll-tested sound bytes, he ran substantive 30-minute television commercials where he explained problems and offered solutions.

One of those attracted 16.5 million viewers. Imagine that. A man discussing politics with hand-held charts had almost as many viewers as this year’s “Game of Thrones” series finale (19.3 million), supposedly a national event. And Perot’s were broadcast when there were 74 million fewer Americans. Continue reading →

Will 2020 follow 2008’s script?

By Steve Brawner, © 2019 by Steve Brawner Communications, Inc.

July 4, 2019

Goodness knows it’s early, and things change quickly and often, but at the moment the 2020 Democratic presidential primary is looking a lot like the one in 2008.

In both elections, the White House has been occupied by a Republican president first elected despite losing the popular vote – first President George W. Bush and then President Trump. (One big difference: Trump is an incumbent up for re-election, while the office was open in 2008 at the end of Bush’s second term.)

Both elections have started with a presumed Democratic frontrunner with experience, high name identification and a close relationship with the last Democratic administration. That’s Hillary Clinton in 2008 and Joe Biden in 2020.

Both of those candidates have brought significant baggage to the campaigns. Clinton had all of the problems from her and her husband’s time in the White House and in Little Rock, as well as her supposed “likability” problem. “Likability” isn’t an issue for Biden. Instead, it’s a long record of gaffes, his sometimes uncomfortable handsy-ness, and his lack of success in previous presidential campaigns. Plus, he would be 77 years old when he takes office. Some people would say that’s too old. Continue reading →

Seeking signatures, not funnel cakes, at Toad Suck Daze

Michael Pakko

Dr. Michael Pakko, right, and Joe Swafford, left, seek signatures at Toad Suck Daze.

By Steve Brawner, © 2019 by Steve Brawner Communications, Inc.

Dr. Michael Pakko doesn’t have a problem getting people’s attention when he stands before Arkansas business leaders to give his annual state economic forecast. Last Saturday was a little harder.

On that day, he was asking voters to sign a petition qualifying his Libertarian Party for next year’s ballot while standing in front of a vendor that was selling funnel cakes and other items at Toad Suck Daze in Conway.

Pakko is chief economist and state economic forecaster at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock’s Arkansas Economic Development Institute.

He’s also the state Libertarian Party chairman, which became harder this year with the passage of Act 164. It increased the number of signatures third parties must collect for ballot access from 10,000 to almost 26,750 in a 90-day period. Continue reading →