Category Archives: Politics

For president, governors no longer need apply

Elections aheadBy Steve Brawner
© 2016 by Steve Brawner Communications, Inc.

One thing about Asa Hutchinson – he’ll never be president. His name starts with the wrong three letters. Not “A-s-a,” but “G-o-v.”

It wasn’t long ago that being governor was the best route to becoming president. From 1976 to 2008, governors – Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton, and George W. Bush – won seven of eight elections and held the nation’s highest office 28 of 32 years. Being senator was a ticket only to being vice president – Walter Mondale, Dan Quayle, Al Gore.

That appears to have begun changing in 2008, when President Obama was elected president after a Senate career that was too brief to include any noteworthy accomplishments or leave many battle scars. His vice president, Joe Biden, also is a former senator, though a veteran one.

This election cycle has come down to two senators among the Democrats, former Sen. Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders. Two of the three leading Republicans, Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio, are also senators, while Donald Trump has never held elective office.

The governors are getting killed. Of the nine who started on the Republican side, only one, Ohio Gov. John Kasich, remains, and he’s a long shot. The two Democratic governors, Martin O’Malley and Lincoln Chaffee (also a senator), ran short, forgettable campaigns. An early February poll by Talk Business & Politics and Hendrix College found the three governors then remaining in the race were polling only 6 percent in Arkansas. Two, totaling 2 percent, have since dropped out.

For now, being governor is a dead-end job, while being senator is a potential ticket to the White House. What changed? The country’s political climate.

During the recent past, Americans have looked for a competent elected official from outside Washington to be president, and governors fit the description well. They have executive experience in jobs that look almost presidential – particular Reagan, who as California’s governor led a state that, if it were a country, today would have the world’s eighth largest economy.

This election cycle, being competent isn’t in vogue, and being governor is not outsider enough. In their day-to-day jobs, governors must make government function, and that’s a messy process. They must make tough, compromising decisions – such as whether to accept federal money for expanded Medicaid services, as Hutchinson and Kasich have done. They are totally accountable for what happens in their states while dealing with a federal system over which they have no control. They must work with members of the other party. They must be realistic, practical and pragmatic. They must balance budgets.

In other words, they develop records that are easy to attack in a presidential race.

Senators don’t have to deal with any of that stuff any more. They know nothing is going to get done in Washington anyway, so they don’t have to try. They don’t have to balance budgets because deficits can always be passed to tomorrow’s voters. They can take polarizing positions and throw red meat to their party’s bases. While Hutchinson and Kasich accepted Medicaid money to deal with problems in health care they didn’t cause, Cruz and Rubio can vote repeatedly to repeal Obamacare without offering a real replacement. And while Hutchinson and Kasich are serving as their state’s one governor, senators are one of 100. They can make speeches, avoid compromises, and stay away from tough votes. There’s always somebody convenient to blame.

This is how two of the three leading contenders for president on the Republican side are first-term senators with few constructive accomplishments in Washington, while the third, Trump, hasn’t done anything in politics. He can campaign as the rich businessman who can fix everything because he hasn’t had to run a government, where easy fixes are rare. The Democrats are choosing between Clinton, who’s trying to run on competence, and a socialist senator, Sanders, who’s running not on what can be done, but on what he thinks should be done.

Governors have to focus on both – what should be done, and what can be done. Those who succeed in both respects might make good presidents. They just can’t get elected right now.

The people have spoken (in four states)

Hand with ballot and boxBy Steve Brawner
© 2016 by Steve Brawner Communications, Inc.

The Arkansas ballot in the Republican presidential primary this year lists 13 candidates, but only five are still in the race as of this writing, and we’re told we must choose between the top three because those are the only ones who can win.

Is this really the best way?

For much of the past year, Arkansas voters have watched the campaign unfold. We’ve watched debates on TV and discussed the candidates with family and friends. Former Gov. Mike Huckabee announced his candidacy in Hope. A Ben Carson event on the Capitol steps drew thousands. Carly Fiorina visited Springdale. Donald Trump and Sen. Ted Cruz made campaign stops.

Between then and now, voters in four states – as always, Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina and Nevada – have narrowed our choices before Arkansans have had a chance to vote.

This happens every year. For months, voters in Iowa and New Hampshire meet candidates face to face and in intimate town halls – except for maybe Trump, who mostly speaks to big crowds. Real people share their concerns and offer their perspectives. It’s really a remarkable thing, if you think about it: The person capable of launching nuclear missiles asking for the support of the common man.

Unfortunately, these few states get to choose who the rest of us vote for. They don’t necessarily pick the winners as decide who has lost. They winnow the field. And the question is, why do they get to do it every election?

To make Arkansas more relevant, legislators last year moved the primaries earlier, to March 1, to coincide with other states in the South. Informally, it’s know as the “SEC primary.” After Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina and Nevada, we’re next.

The move has had its desired effect in that Arkansas has at least been visited by some of the candidates. Sen. Marco Rubio dropped by February 21, and Cruz is coming for his second visit and Trump his third this week. On the other hand, for candidates in other races, it makes for a long campaign.

Solutions? Here are four.

First, a national primary. Let everybody vote on the same day. That would be fair, and it would remove the horse race aspects of the campaign. It would no longer be a huge story that Rubio slipped up in a debate and finished fifth in New Hampshire and was in trouble, and then finished second in South Carolina and became the establishment pick. The downsides? The horse race still would occur – it just would occur in terms of an enormous money chase as candidates try to run a national campaign. Meanwhile candidates would lose the face to face contact with average citizens that occurs in those early states.

Second, regional primaries. Let the South vote on the same day, which is sort of happening this year, the West Coast on another day, etc. That solution probably would have the same effect as the national primary.

Third, take turns. Let three or four new states vote first next time, and then rotate. Over time, many different states’ interests would come to the forefront. The downside? It could take 12 or 13 electoral cycles before Arkansas gets its turn. That’s potentially half a century.

Fourth, leave it like it is. Iowa and New Hampshire know how to run a presidential campaign. So let them. They’re good folks.

Even though the people have spoken (in four states) and candidates have suspended their campaigns, Arkansans still can vote for the one they support. Every vote will be counted. So if you want to vote for Huckabee, or Sen. Rand Paul, or someone else, do it.

By the way, I’ve focused only on Republicans for a reason: Despite all the early campaign fireworks, in this election cycle Hillary Clinton has been the Democratic nominee a long time – long before even Iowans and New Hampshirites and Nevadans and South Carolinians had their say, actually.

She was sort of anointed, which wasn’t best for anyone, including, probably, her.

GOP shows Obama its cards, helps Hillary Clinton

By Steve Brawner
© 2016 by Steve Brawner Communications, Inc.

Generals don’t tell the enemy where they are going to attack. Boxers don’t tell their opponents where they are going to punch. But Republicans told President Obama and the Democrats exactly what they were going to do about the U.S. Supreme Court vacancy, and because of that, they may have increased the chances Hillary Clinton will be the next president.

After Justice Antonin Scalia passed away, Republicans quickly declared that Obama might as well not nominate a successor because the Senate won’t confirm him or her anyway. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ken., said the seat “should not be filled” until the next president takes office. Most of the party’s presidential candidates made similar statements.

That was a political mistake. Now, Obama has the high ground. He can make this a contest between himself and McConnell, who’s not exactly an electrifying figure. The “executive order president” can paint himself as the defender of the Constitution. He’ll do his constitutional duty in nominating a successor; now will Republican senators do theirs and give a fair hearing to the nominee?

Moreover, now he knows the Republicans’ strategy, but they don’t know his, so he can plan his next move accordingly.

For example, he can nominate a female with a long list of accomplishments, maybe even a military record. If Republican senators refuse to give her a fair shot, or even treat her poorly, then Clinton can spend the rest of this election talking about those obstructionist Republicans keeping glass ceilings above women’s heads. That message will resonate in an electorate where Obama won women by 12 points in 2012, according to Gallup. In that same election, Republicans won men by only eight points, and more women vote than men.

In addition to the vacancy, three justices – Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Anthony Kennedy and Stephen Breyer – are at least 80 years old or getting close. So the irony is that to keep Obama from nominating one justice, Republicans likely have given Clinton an issue she can use to win and have the chance to nominate four.

What Republicans should do is praise Scalia as a strict constructionist who believed the Constitution means what it says it means, and that they will honor him by insisting that Obama’s nominee follows his example. If Obama nominates someone too liberal, they can expose that person’s record and make voters more uncomfortable with Clinton’s potential nominees. By then it will be late spring, and then Republicans can plausibly make the case that, at that point, we might as well wait for the next president.

On the other hand, Obama wants to appoint a Supreme Court justice at least as much as he wants Clinton to win, so maybe he will nominate someone Republicans can live with. Some senators might decide they’d rather confirm his nominee in his last year, rather than take their chances on Clinton winning and nominating someone in her first. Republicans, after all, control the Senate now. Next year, they might not.

I can think of three reasons Republicans tipped their hand so clumsily. One, many of them viscerally, emotionally dislike Obama, and people in that state of mind make mistakes. Two, it’s a presidential year, so the party’s focus naturally turns to candidates trying to get elected by appealing to the party base, and away from those trying to run a government. And three, they did it because they had no choice. A beast has been created these past eight years that must be fed anti-Obama red meat at all times. Had Republican leaders played their cards a little closer to their vests, that beast would have been angry.

Let’s not overstate this. Republicans made a bad move, but not a fatal one. It’s a long way until November, when the election will be decided mostly by the actual nominees. Since Obama was elected, Republicans have gained or solidified control of both houses of Congress, a majority of state Legislatures, and a large majority of governor’s mansions. They must be doing something right, politically.

But now, for the first time in a long time, they do not have control of the Supreme Court. It’s now 4-4, which means we’re looking at a lot of deadlocked votes. Let’s hope Republicans walk back their previous statements. The president should fulfill his constitutional duty, and they should fulfill theirs.

Presidential and private option politics

Hand with ballot and boxBy Steve Brawner
© 2016 by Steve Brawner Communications, Inc.

Primary elections were moved this year from May to March 1 to give Arkansans a voice in the presidential election and to help former Gov. Mike Huckabee win an early state. The more important result will be that state lawmakers will make a lot of decisions about Arkansas’ future with an election in their rearview mirrors instead of in their windshields.

Legislators wanted Arkansas’ primary to occur earlier in the election calendar, on the same day as votes in other states in the South, to create an “SEC primary.” With contests in 11 states across the country, Republicans will award 595 delegates – a fourth of the total. The big prize is Texas, with 155 delegates, while Arkansas will award 40. Democrats will award 957 delegates – again, Texas leads with 252 votes, while Arkansas has one of the smallest totals with 37.

The move appears to have achieved its goals. Arkansas is relevant, or is at least among a relevant group of states, so it’s warranted a few visits from candidates, if that means anything. It won’t help Huckabee, who has suspended his campaign, but, among the Democrats, it does help the state’s former first lady, Hillary Clinton. At least Arkansas is in the game, though mostly watching from the bench.

More important is what’s happening in state politics. During even-numbered election years, the Arkansas Legislature typically holds a fiscal session early in the year to vote on budget-related issues. Because of the early primary, that session was moved to April, after the primary. Meanwhile, Gov. Asa Hutchinson has announced plans to call two special sessions, one to vote on health care reform that will occur shortly before the fiscal session, and one to vote on his highway funding proposals.

The highway session will be big but not huge. Hutchinson has proposed a plan to increase highway money using a variety of means, including shifting some dollars from the state’s general revenue budget, but without raising taxes. There will be shouts of anguish from those who might be affected, but the average Republican primary voter won’t be mad.

The health care special session, however, will be a doozy. Legislators will vote on a package that will include Arkansas Works, which is Hutchinson’s version of the private option with important but not earth-shattering changes.

The program, whatever it’s called, uses federal dollars to purchase private health insurance for Arkansans with incomes up to 138 percent of the poverty level. It’s been hugely controversial since it was created in 2013 because it’s an extension of Obamacare passed by legislators who decided Arkansas might as well get its share. Unlike some states that turned down the money, Arkansas’ uninsured adult population has been more than cut in half, 200,000 people have health insurance, and its hospitals are providing a lot less unpaid care.

Republicans either don’t like it or, often, don’t like saying they’re for it. Its roots are in Obamacare, which is enough for many voters to oppose it. Opponents say it’s unsustainable. Sometimes, candidates sincerely oppose it on the campaign trail, but then they come to the Capitol and, seeing the numbers, decide they have to support at least something.

The health care special session is occurring in early April-ish because of the federal government’s timelines. Then we’ll have the fiscal session starting April 13, where legislators will vote to spend the money. Had the primaries not been moved, candidates would have had to vote for the private option in the special session, and then fund it in the fiscal session, and then campaign in a Republican primary. Naturally, their opponents would have accused them of selling out to President Obama.

Now, they can finesse the issue on the campaign trail and then come to Little Rock to vote on Arkansas Works – either as newly re-elected incumbents or as defeated lame ducks with nine months left to serve and nothing left to lose.

Presidential politics is what drove this decision to move the primaries, but at least some legislators were also thinking about private option politics.

Of course, if several legislators who support Arkansas Works lose March 1 to private option opponents, it will affect others currently on the fence. They won’t want to be losers next time.

So politics would have been involved no matter when the primary would have occurred. Oh, well. It’s a democracy, after all.

Steve Brawner is an independent journalist in Arkansas. Email him at brawnersteve@mac.com. Follow him on Twitter at @stevebrawner.

For hire: one president, inexperience necessary

Elections aheadBy Steve Brawner
© 2016 by Steve Brawner Communications, Inc.
The most noteworthy finding from Arkansas’ first presidential poll wasn’t who was at the top of the standings, but who was at the bottom.

In a poll conducted Feb. 4 by Talk Business & Politics and Hendrix College, Sen. Ted Cruz was leading the Republican field with 27 percent, while Donald Trump and Sen. Marco Rubio each had 23 percent.

No surprises there. Cruz was a big winner not long ago in a straw poll among Republican Party insiders. Rubio, as of Feb. 4, was the rising establishment choice. The day before, he’d been endorsed by two of Arkansas’ congressmen, Reps. Rick Crawford and Steve Womack, and by Lt. Governor Tim Griffin. And Trump is, well, Trump, the darling of a sizable percentage of the electorate who want somebody, anybody, other than a politician. (And the only one who could fill up much of Barton Coliseum, as he did Feb. 3.) Ben Carson, also not a politician, was fourth at 11 percent, while Carly Fiorina – again, not a politician – had 4 percent.

At the bottom of the standings were Ohio Gov. John Kasich, who also had 4 percent support, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush at 1 percent and New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie at 1 percent.

That’s 6 percent total for the three governors who have actually led state governments in large diverse states, tried to balance budgets, worked with legislators from both parties, responded to disasters, made court appointments, spoken on behalf of all their citizens – in other words, sort of what presidents do.

Meanwhile, 88 percent are supporting the candidates whose political resumes are, well, a little thinner. Like President Obama before them, Cruz (age 45) and Rubio (age 44) are young, first-term senators. Trump, Carson and Fiorina have almost no political experience between them, though they have achieved much elsewhere.

Elections are about hiring a person to do a job. But if that were their only purpose, the three governors would have been doing better than 6 percent between them.

Elections also are about giving voters the chance to express their values, and this year, “proven political leadership” is not one of them. They’re angry, and, as is usually the case in a democracy, angry about different things. A lot of voters aren’t looking for someone who can make the trains run on time. They want someone who says they’ll tear up the tracks and replace them with something else.

That’s how you get a Trump or a Cruz or, on the Democratic side, Sen. Bernie Sanders. As with Trump, know-it-alls like me have said all along that he can’t win, and he probably still can’t. The race now moves South, where the advantage goes to Clinton. The Talk Business poll has the state’s former first lady leading 57-25 here – again, before the New Hampshire primary. Meanwhile, the Democratic Party has stacked the deck against Sanders. Despite his big win in New Hampshire, Clinton leads in the delegate count, 394-44, thanks to all the party’s superdelegates who have pledged their loyalty to her.

But Sanders, who raised $5.2 million in the 18 hours after his New Hampshire victory speech, isn’t going away – especially not this year, with this electorate.

Arkansans don’t vote until March 1, and a lot can change between now and then. Since the poll was conducted Feb. 4, Rubio’s balloon was deflated by a poor debate performance and then a disappointing fifth place finish in New Hampshire. Kasich finished second in that state but will have a tough time following that up. Christie and Fiorina have since dropped out of the race. Clinton – she’s damaged.

One other thing that might affect the vote count: Mike Huckabee may have suspended his campaign, but he’s still on the ballot, as are Christie and Fiorina and Rand Paul and all the other candidates who once formed that l-o-o-ng line on the debate stage. So Arkansans still will choose from 13 candidates, one of them a favorite son.

Still, it’s hard to see how the race’s overall dynamic will change in Arkansas. Among the Republicans, it’s Cruz and Trump and Rubio, probably in that order, with the governors trailing well behind.

The Democrats – superdelegates and others – will support the state’s former first lady, of course.

Related: Kasich, the anti-Trump