By Steve Brawner , © 2024 by Steve Brawner Communications, Inc.

Arkansans will have other presidential choices besides Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump this election. Chase Oliver will be one of them.

Oliver, 37, is the Libertarian Party nominee. Mike ter Maat is his vice presidential candidate.

Oliver will be one of up to five non-major party candidates on Arkansans’ ballots. Others who have qualified are independent Robert F. Kennedy along with the American Solidarity, Green and Prohibition parties. The latter three have submitted enough signatures but still must submit their presidential and vice presidential candidates by Aug. 22. The Green and Prohibition parties have submitted only their presidential candidates so far. 

I plan to devote a column to each of these candidates who will talk to me. We’ll start today with Oliver. 

Continue reading →

By Steve Brawner, © 2023 by Steve Brawner Communications, Inc.

If you don’t want to vote for either of the two most likely choices for president in 2024 – President Biden and former President Trump – there may be an alternative, and the group pushing it says the alternative could win.

No Labels is working to obtain ballot access in all 50 states. Chief Strategist Ryan Clancy told me April 18 that it’s already on the ballot in four and has already gathered more than 600,000 signatures total.

No Labels has been known for trying to bring solutions-minded congressional Republicans and Democrats together since it was founded in 2009. While there have been some successes, the political system has only become more divided.  Continue reading →

By Steve Brawner
© 2021 by Steve Brawner Communications, Inc.

The Arkansas Legislature’s former Republican Senate leader is no longer a Republican.

On Feb. 18, state Sen. Jim Hendren of Gravette announced he was becoming an independent.

Hendren served until recently as Senate president pro tempore. He is also Gov. Asa Hutchinson’s nephew and close ally, which increased his influence.

But Hendren’s standing in the Republican Party has been diminished by his increasing bipartisanship, some of the stances he’s taken, and his obvious discomfort with the party’s direction.

Once a hard-right conservative, Hendren has evolved into a pragmatic problem-solver – like his Uncle Asa. He had a hard time making his peace with former President Trump’s style and rhetoric going back to 2016. He voted for him in November, but Trump’s and the party’s actions since then and the attack on the Capitol Jan. 6 were the last straw. Continue reading →

By Steve Brawner
© 2020 by Steve Brawner Communications, Inc.

On March 20, 1854, a group of anti-slavery activists met in a one-room schoolhouse in Ripon, Wisconsin. They formed a new political party at that meeting and called themselves Republicans.

That schoolhouse is generally considered the Republican Party’s birthplace, though that’s disputed. Momentum was building across the country. Six years later, Abraham Lincoln was elected the country’s first Republican president. Five years after that, the Civil War ended, and so did slavery.

This year I cast yet another “protest” vote in the presidential race – not really for a candidate, but against the two major parties and their policies. There were 11 other names on the ballot in Arkansas, and I chose the Libertarian even though that party does not really reflect my views. Continue reading →