Looking on the bright side in 2016

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

This presidential election is producing two major party nominees with extremely high unfavorable ratings. You’re probably either a big fan of either Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton, or you dislike them both a lot. If you’re part of that large latter group, you might think this presidential election is a disaster.

What if it’s not? Is it possible to lament this year’s results and still see the good in this year’s process? Yes.

The American political system in recent decades has grown stale, with both parties offering cliched, uncreative arguments designed more to appeal to special interest groups than to solve problems. Important issues – such as how the global economy is affecting America’s lower middle class – haven’t really fit into the script. No wonder so many voters have dropped out or never dropped in.

Say what you will about Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders, but they don’t read off a script. And thanks to them, the campaign is largely about often-ignored issues such as income inequality, crony capitalism, campaign finance reform, and the fact that the global economy produces both winners and losers. Trump has shown that a candidate can speak like an actual person by refusing to bow to political correctness. Sanders has offered big government prescriptions without pretending that he’s not – which means that at least he’s honest about it – and he’s showing that strong convictions, sincerely expressed, can inspire a lot of voters and small donors.

Importantly, Trump and Sanders have shown that elections can be decided by actual voters, not big money or the party establishment, each of which dislikes them both. They’ve done this in part by attracting millions of new voters to the process: Trump, disaffected blue collar workers; and Sanders, young people. While Jeb Bush, the anointed one, and his allies spent $130 million to no effect, Trump won his party’s nomination through his use of the media and social media, both of which cost candidates very little. Sanders is competing well with Clinton through small donations given by average people.

Moreover, the next few months could inspire Americans to seriously consider their political alternatives. It’s possible – though unlikely – that conservatives will rally behind a third party or independent candidate. The small-government Libertarian Party likely again will nominate former New Mexico Governor Gary Johnson, a legitimate candidate. Americans who want 40 choices in the cereal aisle may finally be open to more than two at the ballot box.

Finally, this election – and the past two – have reflected American diversity like none before. After eight years of having our first African-American president, Americans may next give that job to a female – 96 years after women finally attained the right to vote. Two of the four leading Republican vote-getters, Sen. Ted Cruz and Sen. Marco Rubio, are the sons of Latino immigrants. Sanders is Jewish. Dr. Ben Carson advanced farther than any African-American has ever advanced in a Republican primary.

Let’s not discount that this election has produced much divisiveness and two major party nominees many of us don’t support. At times, it’s been extremely discouraging for voters like me. I voted for Ohio Gov. John Kasich.

But let’s also not ignore the rest of the truth. This campaign has upset a status quo that needs to be upset, inspired millions of people who previously didn’t vote, shown that voters aren’t complete hostages to big money and the party establishments, and celebrated America’s diversity by producing diverse candidates.

Same-old, same-old will not solve America’s problems. Maybe in 2020, a plain-speaking, budget-balancing problem-solver can apply lessons learned from Trump and Sanders.

Of course, in my opinion, we had that in Kasich. But he lost. So God bless America. This is the system we have, and the people are speaking – loudly. It’s imperfect but seldom disastrous. In world history, most people would trade theirs for ours.

Feel better?

Related: Trump played checkers and they played chess in a checkers year.

Return of the Democrats?

Conner Eldridge is running as a Democrat for the U.S. Senate seat held by Republican Sen. John Boozman.

Conner Eldridge is running as a Democrat for the U.S. Senate seat held by Republican Sen. John Boozman.

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

The last eight years have been really bad for Arkansas Democrats. The last few months have been a little better.

Democrats controlled Arkansas politics for 140 years. As late as 2008, the party controlled five of the state’s six congressional offices, all seven statewide constitutional offices, 27 of the 35 state Senate seats, and 75 of the 100 state House seats.

But they have fallen far, fast. After President Obama’s election, Arkansas did what much of the rest of the South had already done and became a Republican state.

Now, Republicans occupy all the state’s congressional offices, all seven statewide constitutional offices, 64 state House seats and 24 state Senate seats. In the last two U.S. Senate races, Democratic incumbents won only 37 percent of the vote in 2010 and 39 percent in 2014. Almost twice as many Arkansans voted in the March 1 Republican presidential primary (410,920) as voted in the Democratic primary (221,010). Democrats could not field a candidate in three of the four congressional races and do not have enough candidates in state legislative races to win back a majority, even if they win every race they are contesting.

In 1960, New York transplant Winthrop Rockefeller hosted a “Party for Two Parties” at Winrock Farms in hopes of building the almost nonexistent Republican Party into a viable contender. At times these past eight years, I’ve wondered if we’re going to need another one of those parties.

But Arkansas Democrats have had at least three bright spots lately.

One, they’ve got a young, energetic U.S. Senate candidate, former U.S. Attorney Conner Eldridge. He’ll have a tough time unseating the Republican, Sen. John Boozman. But he’s running an aggressive campaign.

Second, the presidential race is shaping up about as well as Democrats could hope: former Arkansas first lady Hillary Clinton versus Donald Trump. He’s brought new people to the Republicans but also split the party, which will not completely unite behind him. President Obama won 37 percent of the vote in Arkansas in 2012. That’s consistent with the percentages those incumbent senators won in 2010 and 2014, so it’s not certain Clinton will do better. But at least Trump gives Democrats a target.

Finally, Democrats at the state level, who sometimes have been behaving as if they hope things will just get back to “normal,” have been acting a little more like a vigorous minority lately.

I’ll try to make this brief. In the fiscal session that just ended at the State Capitol, the big issue was Arkansas Works, the program that uses federal Medicaid dollars to purchase private health insurance for a quarter of a million Arkansans. It had passed by large majorities in a recent special session, but it fell just short of the three-fourths needed in both the House and Senate for funding during the fiscal session. Under the Arkansas Constitution, nine senators can kill funding for any program, and this time, 10 Republicans were determined to stop Arkansas Works.

However, the Arkansas Constitution also contains a provision requiring that the first item that must be passed in a session is the general appropriations, which funds expenditures such as legislators’ reimbursements. Democrats in the House decided to hold that up until Arkansas Works was passed.

After much maneuvering by Gov. Asa Hutchinson, Arkansas Works was funded. Because he practically staked his governorship on it, it’s debatable how much of an effect the Democrats’ effort had. But at the very least, it was a reminder that 35 House Democrats can throw as much of a monkey wrench in the proceedings as 10 Republican senators can.

As a party, Democrats tend to support more government activity to help lower income people, so Arkansas Works would seem to be an appropriate issue for them to fight for, or at least stand with the big guy doing the fighting. Now they are coalescing behind another issue they think is a good fit, more funding for pre-K education.

That’s a better strategy than waiting for their majority to return, which isn’t going to happen any time soon. Two parties are better than one, and if you’re going to be a minority, you might as well be a vigorous one, Rockefeller would say.

Related: How Conner Eldridge thinks he can win.

Schools: Local control without local voters?

Education Commissioner Johnny Key, left, and Little Rock School District Superintendent Baker Kurrus speak to reporters after Key did not renew Kurrus' contract. Because of the state takeover of the LRSD, Key, who entered office after the takeover, effectively serves as the district's school board.

Education Commissioner Johnny Key, left, and Little Rock School District Superintendent Baker Kurrus speak to reporters after Key did not renew Kurrus’ contract. Because of the state takeover of the LRSD, Key, who entered office after the takeover, effectively serves as the district’s school board.

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

There’s a lot of talk in Little Rock about ending the state takeover of the school district and returning it to local control. If that’s to happen, these numbers must be improved: 2.78; .71; 4.51; and .51.

Those are the percentages of registered voters who voted in school elections in Pulaski County from 2014 back to 2011.

To be fair, those numbers encompass the entire county, not just Little Rock, and reflect elections where at most two of the seven positions were contested.

Still, the last time Little Rock held competitive school elections, a city with a population of 200,000 elected one school board member with 485 votes, and another with 379.

With that kind of turnout, a school election can be decided by one active civic club, business organization, union – or just a small group with an axe to grind.

One wonders how significant these public demonstrations about the school district really are. Did these people vote in those elections as the district was nearing a state takeover, or have they been newly energized? And are there enough of them to matter once the district is returned to local control?

It’s probably harder to engage voters in a school election in a big city than it is in a town of 8,000, where candidates know a lot of the voters personally. Many of Little Rock’s voters are completely disconnected from their school district. Most everything west of I-430 is Privateschoolville.

But extremely low voter turnout is a problem in many school districts. A decent minority of voters go to the polls if they are asked to decide a school millage increase, but school board elections attract little attention. A few years ago, I interviewed a Fayetteville School Board member who lamented that he had recently been re-elected by a count of 115-113 in a zone with 8,000 voters.

Why such low turnouts? School elections occur in September, when no one else is on the ballot. Unlike in some states, school board members aren’t paid for their service, so they have no financial incentive to invest seed money in their campaigns or advertise much. They don’t run with party labels and don’t attract big donations, yet.

Each legislative session, a lawmaker runs a bill to try to move school elections to November. Last year a bill passed that made November elections a voluntary option for districts. No doubt lawmakers will try to make it mandatory in 2017, or at least move the elections to the party primaries in the spring.

School board members don’t want to run on those crowded ballots. They’re afraid they’ll get lost in the shuffle, leaving school policies dependent on the decisions of voters guessing among a list of unfamiliar names. They’re afraid their positions will become politicized. They don’t want to run as Republicans or Democrats, or make the kind of campaign promises other elected officials make.

I must disclose that I publish a magazine, Report Card, in partnership with the Arkansas School Boards Association. It’s entirely supported by ads that I sell. ASBA doesn’t pay me for it, although I am paid a fee for one small project I do every year.

That relationship has probably helped bias me against moving school elections to November – that and the fact that the ballot is already too crowded then. Why am I voting on the county coroner? At the same time, the turnout issue should become a higher priority for everyone.

If Donald Trump has shown us anything, it’s that you don’t have to have a big organization or even spend that much money to win an election. He’s won the Republican Party’s nomination through his skillful use of the media and Twitter, all of which is free. That doesn’t mean school board members should campaign like Trump, but surely local media outlets could more aggressively cover the candidates, while candidates could make better use of Facebook.

Citizens must play their part, too. September comes every year, and it should not be a surprise that school elections occur then. School districts are many communities’ largest employer and, more importantly, the entity that educates and takes care of children all day. It matters who makes policy there.

A democracy doesn’t require massive voter turnout, but surely it must do better than 1 percent. After all, can you have local control without local voters?

Related: Why did Key replace Kurrus?

Trading an empty nest for a full house

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

Maria and her three younger sisters needed a home, while John and Tricia Goyer had too many empty bedrooms. Thankfully, they solved each other’s problems.

The story starts 27 years ago, when Tricia, 44, had her first child as an unwed 17-year-old. She’d been born to a single mom, would not know her biological father for another 11 years, and didn’t have much of a relationship with her stepdad.

Then she married John. He adopted her first child, and they had two of their own, the youngest when Tricia was 22. She’s a successful author and novelist, while he’s a computer security analyst for a large international company. Set to be empty-nesters by the time she was 40, they were thinking about traveling, scooting around in a convertible, and then coming home to their six-bedroom house.

That’s when their story had a plot twist. They had a heart for girls in tough situations. She’d started a group for teen moms at the family’s Mosaic Church in Little Rock. Through the ministry, she’d watched five girls age out of foster care and then quickly become pregnant. She knew from experience they were looking for love in the wrong places because they hadn’t found it in the right ones. So the Goyers started adopting – first a baby privately, and then two more through the Department of Human Services.

Then came Maria, 16, and her three sisters, who come from an abusive and neglected background. Their mother was a meth user. They spent six years in the foster care system, sometimes apart. At times Maria thought she would never have a family.

She’s not alone. Arkansas’ foster care system oversees more than 4,900 children, 1,200 of whom are waiting for a foster family to give them a temporary roof over their head, much less a permanent one. They’re staying in group homes and wherever the Department of Human Services can find a place for them. Six hundred children have had their parents’ rights terminated and are waiting to be adopted. The older they are, the less likely that will happen.

On April 30, the need for caring families was spotlighted at the Walk for the Waiting at Little Rock’s War Memorial Stadium. The annual faith-based event is sponsored by The CALL and Project Zero, two groups that work with DHS to recruit families, and Immerse Arkansas, which supports some of the 250 teenagers who age out of the system every year without being adopted.

The Goyers were there, though they were late. It can be hard getting seven children to a football stadium by 9 a.m. on a Saturday, and these children have some extra challenges. Foster kids have been taken from troubled parents and shuttled from home to home and from school to school. The Goyers’ children have gone through failed adoptions where they thought they had a home, and then didn’t.

Even being in a loving family requires an adjustment. As Maria explained, “It took a while to get used to the fact that I actually finally had a family and that I was finally out of foster care.”

John offers the family’s comic relief, and Tricia and he work together to manage the home. They have rules, but the kids have been through a lot, so the focus is on love, not discipline.

“By the time they come to us, they’re hurt and they’re broken, and it just takes that daily reinforcement,” Tricia said. “Even when things don’t go well, we still love you. You’re not going anywhere. We’re not going to abandon you. And they need to hear that over and over and over again.”

It can be tough. John’s professional world is ordered and based on predictable computer algorithms. Then he comes home to seven kids. Tricia’s writing career has become a part-time endeavor. They could have been traveling the world and driving around in a convertible. Instead, they’ve traded an empty nest for a full house.

“There are days when we definitely question, like, why did we do this?” Tricia said. “But that lasts 30 minutes, and we get over ourselves, we get over our self-pity, and we’re like, OK, we’ll just keep loving these kids. And so now we’re so thankful. We wouldn’t change it for the world.”

Related: Adoptions turn blue balloons red

Trump played checkers and they played chess – in a checkers year

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

If this presidential election were a chess match, somebody like Sen. Ted Cruz would be calling checkmate on the Republican Party nomination about now. Instead, it’s checkers this year, and Donald Trump is winning because he knew that was the game being played.

What’s the difference? Chess is a game of strategy and subtlety and patience, and it takes a lifetime to master. Many people don’t understand it. Checkers is a simple, straightforward game that moves quickly and can be played decently by everyone. Republican voters this year didn’t want a practiced political master; they wanted someone who spoke their language and played their game. While Cruz and the other Republican candidates were staring at the chessboard and plotting their next moves, Trump was bouncing state to state around the checkerboard, reaching the back row, and shouting, “King me!”

The result is that he just kept winning states until, one by one, the others were forced to leave the board. He saw that Republican-leaning voters, particularly those who don’t usually vote, aren’t necessarily interested in typical Republican policies, so he didn’t offer them. Instead, he focused on issues those people talk about: immigration, political correctness, trade, and the failure of the political class to solve problems. His opponents followed a script while he was ad libbing, sometimes irresponsibly and sometimes by appealing to less than Americans’ best. Time and again, he said and did things that would have forced other candidates to offer a trembling apology. He didn’t bother. He had the good fortune of being the most outsider candidate in an outsider’s year, until his only remaining competition was the one candidate much of the party establishment dislikes more than he.

Cruz and most of the other 17 candidates who started this race looked at the wrong board from the beginning, starting with their early strategy of leaving Trump alone and attacking each other while they waited for him to fizzle. Cruz in particular played nice with Trump in hopes he would win over his voters later. He didn’t.

Still, despite Trump’s winning state after state, it looked for a while that he would not collect the required 1,237 delegates to sew up the nomination, resulting in a brokered Republican National Convention in Cleveland. The thinking was that at that point, party insiders would band against him, certain he would lose badly to Hillary Clinton and bring down the party with him.

So at the end, Cruz tried to play the delegate game, taking advantage of the party’s complicated rules to ensure delegates loyal to him attended the convention. If the race had gone to a second ballot, then those delegates could have switched to Cruz. Yes, he knocked over a few of Trump’s pieces. But again, wrong game.

The brokered convention scenario is now a memory. Trump dominated his home state of New York April 19. Then Cruz and Ohio Gov. John Kasich announced they were forming an awkward alliance where Kasich wouldn’t compete in Indiana, where Cruz was stronger, while Cruz would stay out of Oregon and New Mexico, where Kasich seemed to have a chance. The move looked desperate, which is what Trump called it, and it played right into his hands at a time he already was telling voters the game is rigged. He went on to dominate five states April 26, bringing his total to 27, including Arkansas, compared to nine for Cruz and one for Kasich. Meanwhile, an NBC News poll showed Trump had reached the support of 50 percent of Republican and Republican-leaning voters, a major milestone. Now that Trump has won Indiana, it’s over.

Trump is not my candidate – at all. But Republicans would have made a huge mistake if they had tried to keep him off the ticket at a contested convention. For all of their fears of a Trump candidacy, they could not afford an ugly convention that permanently alienates the voters he has energized.

In other words, he’s reached the back row, and they’re going to have to king him.

Related: Kasich – What should have been