Category Archives: Elections

Kansas independent could shake up Senate

By Steve Brawner
© 2014 by Steve Brawner Communications, Inc.

Note to subscribers: This is an updated version of this column that had been released earlier today.

The race between Sen. Mark Pryor and Rep. Tom Cotton is one of the two or three most important in the country because both political parties believe it will help determine control of the Senate. But another race could be even more important – the one in Kansas, where businessman Greg Orman, a member of no party, has a real chance to win.

Orman, an independent, had polled third in a four-man race in a recent Public Policy Polling survey, but with 23 percent support, he was not far behind Sen. Pat Roberts, the unpopular incumbent Republican. Roberts was leading with only 32 percent and had an approval rating lower than President Obama’s. That same poll revealed that, were this only a two-man race between Orman and Sen. Roberts, Orman would be leading, 43-33.

The four-man race is now a three-man race. The Democrat, Chad Taylor, who was second with 25 percent, dropped out Wednesday. The other candidate is Libertarian Randy Batson.

Taylor had little chance of winning in a state that hasn’t elected a Democrat to the Senate since the Great Depression. In fact, the best he could have done was split the anti-incumbent vote and elect the Republican, which would have been a huge irony. Typically the argument against voting for independents is that it’s a “wasted vote” – you know, you must vote for the major party candidate you dislike the least, or you’ll otherwise help the other major party’s candidate win. In this case, the Democrat would have been the spoiler. His party’s leadership obviously encouraged him to drop out.

Orman says he simply does not fit into either party. He was a College Republican in 1988, became a fan of independent Ross Perot in 1992, leaned Republican for a while, and then flirted with running against Roberts as a Democrat in the 2008 race. He says he voted for President Obama in 2008 and then Mitt Romney in 2012. In 2010, he founded the Common Sense Coalition, whose purpose has been to elect centrist candidates. “Historically, I’ve tried the Republican Party, I’ve tried the Democratic Party, and I’ve just finally decided that if we’re going to change things in Washington, we’ve got to attack the two-party system and stop supporting it,” he told MSNBC.

He describes himself as “fiscally conservative and socially tolerant,” which might not play well in Arkansas right now but apparently has some appeal in Kansas. The nationwide tension between the GOP’s various factions is boiling over in that state. On Wednesday, more than 70 moderate former Republican legislators announced they were supporting Orman, not their own party’s candidate.

Why am I writing about a Kansas race? Because of what might happen if Orman wins. There are already two independents in the Senate who align themselves with the Democrats. Orman says he will caucus with whichever party will adopt more of a solutions-oriented approach. If control of the Senate in this close election comes down to which party he chooses to align with, he then becomes a powerful swing vote. He could make demands. And that could get interesting.

Then what? There would be three independents out of 100 in the Senate. Maybe Orman’s model could create a template that other independent candidates could follow. Maybe a rich businessman in a state like Arkansas might decide to run as an independent, too. Maybe if there were six or seven independents in the Senate, they could form a “coalition of the uncorrupted” who side with either party or neither depending on the issue, forcing both to behave.

Of course I’m heading toward wishful thinking territory here. Eventually, that coalition would be corrupted, too. Also, two-party domination is almost inevitable the way our system is designed. The most likely good scenario is a shakeup that makes the system work a little better for a while. That’s what happened after 1992, when Perot won 19 percent of the vote basing his campaign on balancing the budget, and then congressional Republicans and President Clinton sort of balanced the budget.

Maybe it starts this time in Kansas.

Here is one of Orman’s ads.

A tale of two Pryor ads

By Steve Brawner
© 2014 by Steve Brawner Communications, Inc.

One ad explains why Sen. Mark Pryor made the toughest vote of his career. In another ad, the Pryor campaign misrepresents his opponent’s position. The first ad features the candidate speaking directly into the camera and is effective. The second uses faceless narrators and is terrible. That’s not a coincidence.

Let’s start with the first ad. Pryor and his father, former Sen. David Pryor, describe Mark Pryor’s struggles with his insurance company when he was battling cancer. “No one should be fighting an insurance company while you’re fighting for your life,” Mark Pryor says in the ad. “That’s why I helped pass a law that prevents insurance companies from canceling your policy if you get sick or deny coverage for pre-existing conditions.”

That law was the Affordable Care Act, otherwise known as Obamacare. The ad has gotten some national attention because a Democratic senator in a tough re-election bid in a Republican-leaning state embraced his vote for Obamacare, even if he doesn’t actually use the name. Good for him for explaining his reasoning. That’s what campaigns are for – to give voters information so they can make decisions.

Then there’s the “Ebola” ad, which also has received national attention, but for a different reason.

You don’t hear much from Pryor in that ad, except for the legally required “I’m Mark Pryor, and I approved this message.” In that ad, not only one but two faceless narrators say Pryor’s opponent, Rep. Tom Cotton, “voted against preparing America for pandemics like Ebola. … Instead Cotton voted for tax cuts for billionaires funding his campaign rather than protecting our families.”

The vote to which the Pryor campaign is referring was to pass the Pandemic and All-Hazards Preparedness Reauthorization Act of 2013, which funded preparations for responding to a public health emergency such as a rapidly spreading disease. The bill passed 395-29 in the House on Jan. 22, 2013. As the ad correctly states, Cotton was the only Arkansas congressman to vote no.

How could Cotton vote against “protecting our families”? His spokesman, David Ray, said Cotton objected to a part of the bill enabling the federal Department of Health and Human Services to enact a mandatory deployment of public health workers, including those employed by states, during a major health crisis. Cotton believed the mandatory call-up was contrary to existing law and Supreme Court precedent. The bill did not pass as written. In March, Cotton voted for a similar bill that made the call-up of health workers a voluntary one. Pryor voted for the same bill, and that’s what funded the program.

So Cotton didn’t really vote “against preparing America for pandemics like Ebola.” He voted against an early version of a particular bill. Campaigns use votes like this to mislead voters about their opponents all the time, but this one is so over-the-top that Cotton’s campaign is now featuring it on its own website, while it’s not on Pryor’s.

On Wednesday, Pryor held a press conference defending the ad. He brought up Cotton’s votes against the farm bill and disaster aid and said this is part of a pattern where Cotton votes against appropriate government spending.

He made a better case talking in person than those two faceless narrators did reading a script on television.

In fact, the most effective campaign ads right now feature the candidates talking directly to voters. Those would be the Pryor cancer ad already mentioned, and Asa Hutchinson’s ad where he talks about his granddaughter inspiring him to support a law requiring high schools to offer a computer coding class.

Those ads work because they allow voters to see the candidates offering a positive vision, but what if candidates also spoke for themselves when they wanted to criticize their opponents? I’m betting their messages would be much more responsible and measured. In one earlier ad, Pryor himself had this to say, calmly, about Cotton regarding Medicare: “My opponent voted to withhold benefits until age 70, and I’m trying to stop that.” When candidates want to distinguish themselves from their opponents in a 30-second ad, that’s how they should do it.

Campaigns have decided it’s bad for their candidates to be seen criticizing their opponents in an ad. Actually, I would respect them more if they did it that way. My outlook is very Southern. If you can’t say something nice about someone, don’t say anything at all. But if you think something not nice needs to be said, say it yourself.

Here are the two ads.

Why did Rep. Crawford, a veteran, vote against VA funding? Here is his reasoning.

By Steve Brawner
© 2014 by Steve Brawner Communications, Inc.

In 1988, U.S. Rep. Rick Crawford was an Army bomb technician serving in Pakistan. It was his job to keep things from exploding. On July 30, he played with a little fire.

Crawford, a Republican who represents eastern Arkansas’ 1st District, was one of only five U.S. House members voting against a bill providing $10 billion for private providers to serve veterans when the VA system is overloaded. The bill also will provide money to the VA to hire additional medical staff and lease 27 new medical centers, and it made it possible for senior executives to be fired at will by the secretary of veterans affairs. Because some of the spending is offset by cuts elsewhere in the department, it will add $10 billion to the national debt over 10 years. Only three in the Senate voted no.

The bill was passed remarkably quickly for a Congress that doesn’t accomplish much even slowly. No one wanted to be seen as voting against veterans, especially not amidst the current scandal over long wait times, poor care, and records manipulation. The department reported in July that about 636,000 veterans have been waiting at least a month for medical appointments. Crawford’s Democratic opponent, Heber Springs Mayor Jackie McPherson, quickly held a press conference with veterans denouncing the vote.

Why did Crawford, a veteran and the son and grandson of veterans, vote no? In a phone interview, he said he opposed adding $10 billion to the national debt by giving it to a bureaucracy that has misused what it had. He said management, not money, is the big issue at the VA, where funding has increased 57 percent since 2008 at the same time the patient load has increased 14 percent. He said the VA already had the statutory authority to send patients to private providers when it’s backlogged.

Crawford said Congress should have given incoming Secretary of Veterans Affairs Robert McDonald time to assess the situation at the agency and then make recommendations. Instead, he said, Congress reacted to the problem by writing a blank check.

“These veterans have sacrificed a heck of a lot more than to have to go on borrowed money to get their health care,” he said.

The rest of Arkansas’ congressional delegation voted for the bill, including its three House members who also are veterans.

Was Crawford’s vote the right one? Your answer to that probably depends on whether you think it addressed the problem or merely threw money at it. If there’s any area where the government should deficit spend – even be willing to waste a little – it’s this one.

Whether or not it was the right vote, it certainly was a courageous one, especially during an election year. Of course, Crawford did once defuse bombs for a living.

***

It wasn’t Congress’ best week from a fiscal responsibility standpoint. Congress voted to replenish the Highway Trust Fund so that it will remain solvent through May. Had it not acted, the fund, which pays for 70 percent of Arkansas highway construction, would have been empty, and states would have been reimbursed only as money became available. It’s hard to plan mutli-year highway projects that way.

The main additional funding mechanism is pension smoothing, which lets companies delay contributing to their employees’ retirement plans. Doing so increases the companies’ taxable incomes in the short term, though they will have to make up the difference later, which will lower their taxable incomes then. The measure will increase highway revenues for six years and then start reducing them as companies replenish their pension funds. So once again, Congress has borrowed from the future to pay for present needs.

There were options. The Senate voted for a bill that would have funded highways into December without the pension smoothing provision. The House didn’t budge.

Arkansas’ four House members voted for the pension smoothing bill. Its senators voted for the gimmick-free Senate version and then voted for the final version. Sen. John Boozman also voted for an amendment that would make states responsible for most highway funding. It did not pass.

Some say Congress should stop the games and just raise the gas tax, which hasn’t changed since 1993. Of course, there’s a reason for that. According to an Associated Press-GfK poll released Tuesday, only 14 percent of Americans support a gas tax increase, while 58 percent oppose it. Other proposals that would increase revenues drew little support. So Congress is reflecting the will of the people.

Something has to give. The country’s infrastructure is decaying and congested. Congress isn’t willing to buck popular opinion or create a different set of funding priorities. Maybe it’s time to rethink our transportation system, but into what?

I don’t know, but this governing by crisis while relying on accounting gimmicks is no way to run a railroad. Or fund highways.

Could third parties affect Senate race?

By Steve Brawner
© 2014 by Steve Brawner Communications, Inc.

Let’s start with an apology: I’m sorry for using the word “poll” in this first paragraph. There have been many polls in this year’s U.S. Senate race, and there will be many more. In one poll released this week, however, two numbers stood out.

It’s not the 44 percent of likely voters picking Tom Cotton or the 42 percent supporting Mark Pryor in the latest Talk Business & Politics-Hendrix College poll. Those two candidates consistently poll at about those levels. Their focus henceforth will be on ensuring those base levels show up on Election Day – mostly by scaring them – and on fighting over the other 14 percent.

The question is, how much of that 14 percent is available, and to whom? And that’s why the other poll numbers might matter: 4 and 3.

Unlike many polls, this one also included the minor party candidates. Mark Swaney of the Green Party polled at 4 percent, while Libertarian Nathan LaFrance attracted 3 percent.

I’m a word guy, not a math whiz, but 4+3=7, and in an election this close, that’s a factor.

Granted, many of those respondents are just sick of all the negative ads and picked one of the other two names, despite there also being an “undecided” option. But let’s spend a few paragraphs focusing on those respondents who purposely chose Swaney and LaFrance. They might have an effect on the election, maybe an important one, because they are probably taking a bigger bite out of Pryor’s support than Cotton’s.

The Green Party’s main issues are climate change and nationalized health care. They are unapologetically liberal. It’s safe to assume that most of the informed respondents who said they were voting for Swaney would be Pryor voters if there were only two choices. Few are playing “eenie meenie miney moe” between the Green Party and Cotton.

Libertarians, on the other hand, are for smaller government in every way. They would cut taxes and government spending significantly, so on economic issues, they are to the right of Republicans. However, on social issues, they generally support gay marriage, legalizing marijuana, and keeping abortion legal. They’d slash defense spending, too. In many ways, they’re to the left of Democrats.

So the 4 percent (the informed ones, anyway) who said they would vote for Swaney would have picked Pryor if there were only two choices. But the informed portion of LaFrance’s 3 percent would have gone either way – probably more for Cotton, but not exclusively.

I’m not saying this necessarily will change the outcome, but Pryor is being hurt more than Cotton.

The numbers won’t stay this way. Swaney and LaFrance are poorly funded candidates who don’t have money to advertise and probably have reached their ceilings of support. A percentage of those who do vote will gravitate toward Pryor or Cotton because of the so-called “spoiler effect.” In our winner-take-all system, voters have an incentive to choose the least objectionable of only two parties, lest the more objectionable candidate win.

Here’s where you might say this is why we need just two parties, and that people shouldn’t “waste their votes” on candidates who can’t win. You might say those liberal Green Party supporters should just choose Pryor, the less conservative of the two major party candidates.

Green Party voters don’t see it that way. They would say both Pryor and Cotton are the conservative candidates, and that Swaney is the only one who represents their values. If you really believe both Republicans and Democrats are ruining the planet, must you vote for the one you think is less ruinous? Libertarians say Democrats and Republicans both are the parties of big government – the same party, in fact, just two sides of the same coin.

This is the land of many choices, except in elections. But there are ways our democracy could be more open but still efficient. One is instant runoff voting, where voters rank their candidates top to bottom, and a numerical process determines the winner. Green Party voters could make their statement by picking Swaney first and then Pryor (or LaFrance) as their number two.

But we don’t have instant runoff voting. We have winner-take-all voting, in a very close race, where a few percentage points matter.

Note: Here’s a link to the Talk Business & Politics-Henderix College poll.

Above is an excellent video by C.G.P. Grey explaining why the spoiler effect makes it so hard for third parties and independents to break through. Below, C.G.P. Grey explains instant runoff voting, or what he calls the alternative vote.

Must the governor be a Farm Bureau member?

By Steve Brawner
© 2014 by Steve Brawner Communications, Inc.

Do you know how to join Farm Bureau, and if you didn’t, would that mean you couldn’t be governor?

I’m asking because, during a joint appearance Tuesday at a Farm Bureau meeting, Asa Hutchinson and Mike Ross were asked if they were members. It was not Hutchinson’s best campaign moment.

“I didn’t pay any money,” he said. He then added somewhat awkwardly, “I don’t know whether I’m a member of the Farm Bureau. I haven’t – I’ve been in Congress. I worked with the Farm Bureau. I’ve been to your meetings and gatherings. I’m not sure what it takes to be an official member.”

Ross pounced when it was his turn to speak. “I am a member of Arkansas Farm Bureau. I pay my – what is it – $35 annual fee? And I always get that free dinner at the Prescott-Nevada County Fairgrounds.”

The audience applauded. Ross clearly won the exchange. His campaign issued a news release saying this was an example of Hutchinson being disconnected and out of touch with Arkansans, which is the narrative the campaign is trying to push. The Hutchinson campaign, meanwhile, is trying to paint Ross as an Obamacare-enabling Democrat.

Beware of trusting campaigns’ narratives about their opponents.

In real life, of course, the fact that Hutchinson doesn’t have a membership in Farm Bureau means only that he never had a reason to purchase one. Really, do these guys have to pay a fee to every organization in Arkansas?

What matters – to farmers, to those who work in agriculture and food processing, to Farm Bureau – is the candidates’ records, their priorities, and their competence.

I asked both campaigns to name their top priority in agriculture. Hutchinson’s campaign sent a statement saying his priorities are expanding the marketplace for Arkansas farm products, including increasing access to world markets, and supporting research funding for Arkansas agriculture. He said his secretary of agriculture must understand row crop farming. Ross’ campaign said he would strengthen the state Agriculture Department’s Arkansas Grown initiative, which connects Arkansas producers with buyers. He said increasing export opportunities “no matter how large or small the producer” would be a top priority.

Sounds like they both would do all right.

Hutchinson’s Farm Bureau flap was forgettable enough that I’m conflicted about writing about it. But there is a larger picture, and it’s the tendency for too much to be made of inconsequential moments in campaigns – you know, gaffes. Remember Texas Gov. Rick Perry saying “Oops” when he couldn’t remember one of the federal agencies he would abolish during a debate in 2012? He got killed for that, even though most everyone’s mind goes blank occasionally, and when it does, they might say “Oops.” In a 1988 debate, Democratic presidential candidate Michael Dukakis was asked by CNN’s Bernard Shaw whether he would support the death penalty if his wife were raped and murdered. He answered the question calmly and rationally, and afterwards he was raked over the coals because of it. His poll numbers dropped the day after the debate, which the pundits blamed on his lack of emotion in answering a hypothetical question.

Gaffes do the most damage when they play into a developing impression. Questions were already arising about Perry’s unpreparedness and Dukakis’ cool detachment. Hutchinson stubbed his toe, but had the Ross campaign already succeeded in painting him as out of touch, the Farm Bureau exchange might have been a bigger deal. You can bet Ross will not make the mistake of saying anything positive about Obamacare.

For the record, I am a member of Farm Bureau because it’s how I insure my cars and home. I do not own a farm. And yes, the annual membership fee is $35.

Now what’s this Ross was saying about a free dinner?