Pryor faces headwinds despite lead

Is Sen. Mark Pryor really ahead in the U.S. Senate race?

That’s the finding of a new Talk Business-Hendrix College Poll, which says that Pryor leads his opponent, U.S. Rep. Tom Cotton, 45.5 percent to 42.5 percent.

The race hasn’t moved much in that poll since October 2013, when Pryor led, 42-41 percent. To win, the campaigns and their allies will be focusing their efforts in two areas. One is motivating the base to turn out to vote, and the other is going after the other 12 percent – the 8 percent who are undecided, the 2 percent who say they will vote for Libertarian Nathan LaFrance, and the 2 percent who say they will vote for Green Party candidate Mark Swaney.

In other words, expect a lot of political commercials in the next seven months. Control of the U.S. Senate may depend largely on the outcome of this race.

I need to disclose this somewhere: I’m a freelance journalist, and one of my clients is Talk Business. Back to the column.

This is just one poll. Despite its findings, Pryor still faces considerable headwinds, which is why if I had to bet money on who’s going to win, I’d pick Cotton. Momentum, history, and the year the election is occurring are not on Pryor’s side.

Let’s start with momentum – specifically, the Republican Party’s in Arkansas. Prior to 2008, much of the South – but not Arkansas – had switched from the Democrats to the Republicans. Since the election of President Obama, Arkansas has undergone a historic shift toward the GOP. When Obama was elected, the state’s congressional delegation was 5-1 Democrat. Now, it’s 5-1 Republican. Now-Sen. John Boozman defeated then-Sen. Blanche Lincoln by 21 points in 2010. The state Legislature has undergone a similar shift from Democratic domination to Republican leadership. In the 24 state Senate elections where the two parties have squared off since Obama was elected, the Republicans have won 19.

History also favors Cotton. Off-year elections often are unkind to members of the president’s party. Voters who oppose a sitting president are more motivated to vote than those who support him. In the 2006 elections during the second term of President George W. Bush’s administration, the Democratic caucus in the U.S. Senate gained six seats from 45 to 51 – the same number that Republicans need this year to take the Senate. In 1994 (after the Clintons also had tried to pass a health care plan), Republicans gained nine Senate seats.

Finally, there’s the year of the election. Under President Obama, two electorates have developed – a younger, more diverse one that votes only in presidential election years and leans Democratic, and an older, more conservative one that also votes in the other elections and gives Republicans an advantage. If Pryor would have faced re-election in 2016, he would be dealing with more favorable demographics. At the very least, President Obama would be less of an issue on his way out of the White House.

Of course, that would have meant Pryor would have had to run in 2010, when Lincoln lost by 21 points after Obamacare had passed. In 2008, Pryor didn’t even have a Republican opponent.

The issue that hangs over all of this, of course, is Obamacare. Pryor, as you must know if you are reading this kind of column, voted for it. To his credit, he hasn’t pretended that he didn’t, though I don’t see how he could. Obamacare will remain deeply unpopular in Arkansas through November, even if they do eventually get that website fixed.

Meanwhile, Pryor’s other disadvantages remain – momentum, which can be altered, and history and the year of the election, which can’t.

NCAA ignoring problem led to this ‘solution’

The thing about ignoring a problem is that someone else might solve it for you, and you might not like that solution. Such is the case with a recent National Labor Relations Board ruling that NCAA football players at Northwestern University are college employees and can form a union.

That solution addresses two kinds of problems, both of which the NCAA should have long ago solved. One kind of problem is that being a college football player is a full-time job, but players don’t receive adequate compensation, while coaches, athletic directors and the NCAA are raking in the dough. Yes, a player may receive a scholarship that might lead to a job someday. Meanwhile, Razorbacks head coach Bret Bielema made $3.2 million last year. A big issue for Northwestern players is receiving medical care after graduation for injuries suffered on the field. As it stands now, they’re cut off.

Another way of looking at the problem is this: The people making all the money and making all the decisions are the ones who only think they have all the power. The ones who actually have a lot of power – the players that fans are paying to see – aren’t receiving adequate and immediate compensation. In a free market economy, that imbalance probably can’t last forever.

Seth Armbrust, who played for the Razorbacks his sophomore, junior and senior seasons, didn’t even receive a scholarship except during his junior year.

Armbrust was not a star, but he did contribute as a special teams captain and as a reserve at cornerback and safety. During his college career, he spent eight-10 hours a day on football-related activities. The scholarships he received his junior year barely covered living expenses, so he supplemented his income with a job as a lifeguard. That’s in addition to going to class. As for his fellow scholarship recipients, some did not always budget their money correctly. On the other hand, some sent part of their checks home, where the money was needed more.

“Our scholarship is literally the minimum. … Once you pay your rent and you pay your bills, there’s not a whole lot left over,” he said.

Armbrust said he and the rest of the players played for the love of the game and did not resent the way they were treated, but he couldn’t help but notice that the money did not trickle his way. He was asked to sit at luncheons with athletics boosters whose gifts were funding his backups’ scholarships. He didn’t get a cut of the sales of programs with his likeness on them. Stars like quarterbacks Ryan Mallett and Tyler Wilson received nothing for sales of jerseys with their names on them.

This is not a new issue. In fact, it’s been gaining traction. Former NCAA players have sued over video games featuring their likenesses. The NCAA responded by ending its relationship with the manufacturer. There was a big to-do over Heisman Trophy winner Johnny Manziel making money signing autographs. He didn’t even own the rights to his name.

The ruling only applies to private schools like Northwestern, not to public universities like the University of Arkansas, and it’s being appealed. But the door has been opened for other enforcement actions as well as many other complications. For example, can players strike? If playing football is their job and their scholarships are their salary, do they have to pay taxes?

The whole issue could have been solved from the outset had the big-business NCAA been more flexible. Armbrust said an extra $500 to $1,000 a month would have meant a lot to the players. Continuing health care would have helped, too. “At the end of the day, we’re getting to do what we love to do, and that was go out and play football,” he said.

Young men like that can be assuaged pretty easily – a little extra money to pay for laundry and dates, and a guarantee that if they still need ankle surgery after they graduate, the university will help them out.

College football execs haven’t been willing to do that. Instead, they insisted that players remain amateurs while everyone else got paid. So someone else came up with a solution, with its own set of problems.

“Evil” in American politics

These days, it’s not enough to say your political opponent is wrong. You have to say he or she has bad intentions. This “the opposition is evil” narrative is effective for winning elections but not helpful for running a democracy. Here are three reasons why.

First, dismissing opponents as evil or ill-intentioned means we don’t have to seriously consider where they might be right and where we might be wrong – and we all have to be wrong about something, right? Democracy’s strength is based on the so-called “wisdom of the crowds” – that a diverse group of people will, collectively, come up with a better answer for societal problems than a monolithic group, even of experts. If the “government is always bad” crowd always got its way, we would never have had Social Security or the legal protections provided to minorities after the civil rights movement. If the “government can solve our problems” crowd got its way too often, the government would never stop growing.

Second, dismissing opponents as evil or ill-intentioned means we don’t have to consider the root causes of problems. Just vanquish the villains, and everything will be OK – just like on TV. Well, not exactly. The past 13 years have been one of the most fiscally irresponsible eras in American history. We’ve had government by Republicans, government by Democrats, and divided government. The results have been largely the same – big spending and more debt.

Getting rid of President Obama won’t change that any more than getting rid of President Bush did. They are merely symptoms of a larger disease that has infected the entire society: We demand more government than we are willing to pay for. Until Americans confront their own responsibilities and stop blaming one side or the other, that disease will fester.

Third, dismissing opponents as evil or ill-intentioned means we don’t give anyone else a chance. The two major parties have manipulated Americans into believing that the other side is so bad that we have no choice but to vote against them. It’s called the “spoiler effect.” We must vote for the Republican or Democrat we hate the least lest we inadvertently contribute to the election of the other party – even though there’s a third candidate we actually prefer.

The result is that the two parties have assured their own continued elections even as more Americans express their disgust with them and consider themselves independent. No one outside the two major parties can be competitive – much less have their ideas heard.

It’s really a neat deal for the two major parties. They trade seats every few years, but ultimately they stay in power.

And that simply contributes to the cycle – the two parties have less reason to consider where they might be wrong, and they don’t have to consider the root causes of problems. Why would they? They keep winning.

Potential reforms would improve the system. Instant runoff voting, for example, allows voters to rank the candidates from most agreeable to least – ideally, minimizing the spoiler effect. Australia does that in its House of Representatives.

Ultimately, though, no reforms can overcome a citizenry that allows itself to be manipulated. We get the government we deserve, and if we allow either of the two parties to convince us to vote for them merely because the other side is evil, then we’ll reap the results of our laziness. For the past 13 years, those results have been debt, war, a stagnant economy and bailouts without responsibility – regardless of who’s been in power.

Some people are evil, but not many. Some people are wrong a lot of the time, but few people are wrong all of the time. Nobody is right all the time.

But not seriously confronting our problems is always wrong. Not necessarily evil, but definitely wrong.

Hillary Clinton.

The thing that’s so difficult about writing a column – about communication in general – is that no matter what words one uses, others will interpret them through their own experiences and emotions. What I write or say is of far less consequence than what you say to yourself in response. As evidence, I present the following sentence.

Hillary Clinton.

If you are over 30 years old, your opinion about those words probably is set in cement. It wouldn’t have mattered if I had asked “Hillary Clinton?” or exclaimed “Hillary Clinton!”

Not that it will make much of a difference, but here’s my opinion about her. Politically, I think she’s more liberal than she presents herself but not as liberal as she’s painted to be. Personally, she has her good points and bad points like all of us, and that’s enough said about that. I do not think she is evil or scary, but I do not intend to vote for her if she runs for president.

That said, a guy who actually changed his mind about her spoke at the Clinton School of Public Service in Little Rock Tuesday. David Brock said that, as a young man, he was part of the “vast right wing conspiracy.” Employed by a conservative-leaning magazine, he was the first journalist to print the name “Paula Jones.” He now says he wrote inaccurately about the Clintons. Over the course of his reporting career, he had a change of heart, apologized, and became their passionate defender.

He also became an opponent of the conservative media. On Tuesday he called Fox News “Orwellian,” which is a ridiculous adjective. How about just “biased”?

Your opinion about Fox News in particular and the media in general is probably set in cement, too, but I’ll share mine. Of course, most members of the mainstream media have been liberal, and their reporting has reflected that bias – purposely at times, unconsciously at others. There have been good and bad reporters, but there won’t be any unbiased ones unless human nature somehow changes. It would have been good had more moderates and conservatives become regular reporters to create more balance.

That didn’t happen. Instead, more and more Americans are getting their news from well-organized message machines that reinforce what we already believe rather than present us with challenging information. As with David Brock, Hillary Clinton is either wrong all the time, or she’s right all the time.

Brock also said that, if Clinton runs, she will be the most thoroughly examined candidate in history.

That’s true, and it will continue. People complain about “Clinton fatigue,” but that family is a story, and the media will continue to report on it.

Meanwhile, Republican political operatives already are doing what political operatives on both sides always do: Attack and destroy. That’s what they are paid to do. They don’t know how to do anything else.

They might personally discourage Clinton, who’s 66, from entering the race. That’s part of their goal.

But if she does run, the Republicans will lose yet another presidential election – they’ve lost the popular vote in five of the last six – unless their candidate also presents a positive vision for America. The party can’t just rely on a billion dollars in negative ads and dozens of congressional hearings about Benghazi. Those efforts will reinforce the GOP’s image, particularly among women, as the “party of no,” but they won’t move the needle much on a Clinton candidacy.

After all, if you don’t already have an opinion about her, you’re probably not a registered voter. She’s Hillary Clinton.

Rise of the whippersnappers

Maybe it’s a coincidence, and perhaps it doesn’t matter, but it’s hard not to notice how many leaders in the Arkansas Legislature are in their 30s.

The House last week elected Rep. Jeremy Gilliam, R-Judsonia, 37, as its presumed incoming speaker. He will replace Rep. Davy Carter, R-Cabot, who is about to turn 39.

On the Senate side, the incoming president pro tem, Sen. Jonathan Dismang, R-Beebe, is 34. He will replace Sen. Michael Lamoureux, R-Russellville, 37.

Dismang rose to prominence as an architect of the Medicaid private option, one of Arkansas’ most significant and controversial pieces of legislation in a long time. Other legislative architects were Sen. David Sanders, R-Little Rock, 37, and Rep. John Burris, R-Harrison, 28. Meanwhile, House Democrats are led by Rep. Greg Leding, D-Fayetteville, who is 35.

Why is this happening? In interviews, Gov. Mike Beebe, first elected to the Legislature at the age of 36, and legislators credited term limits for opening up leadership positions to younger people. In Beebe’s day, the Legislature was controlled by a few old-guard legislators who had been there forever. Younger members had to wait their turn.

Could there be other factors in the rise of these whippersnappers? Maybe 30-somethings can thrive in a job that Leding told me “is absolutely exhausting, physically mentally.” Perhaps a young and idealistic legislator is more likely to create and pass an out-of-the-box idea like the private option, and not be discouraged because things haven’t been done that way before. Maybe young people better understand social media and other aspects of contemporary politics. Maybe these legislators entered office at about the same time and formed alliances with people their own age. Dismang said younger legislators may have an extra motivation to excel. After all, when he’s carrying out his duties, he’s leaving behind his wife and young children. “If I’m going to be in Little Rock working, I’m going to make the most of that,” he said.

All of that would imply this is a trend, but Beebe rejects that. He said the high number of young legislators is an “anomaly,” that there just happens to be many exceptional young legislators at the moment, and term limits have allowed them to shine.

“Whether you’re an older guy or a younger guy, you’re on equal footing, and the talent is going to be what ends up creating the leadership, not the experience, because nobody’s got any experience,” he said.

He believes term limits eventually will lower the number of 30-something legislators because few in that age bracket will want to start political careers that will end so quickly. He thinks it will be more of an activity for retirees.

Lamoureux said that simple geography played a part in his selection as Senate president pro tem. As a resident of Russellville, he can drive back and forth from the Capitol more easily than legislators who might live three hours from Little Rock. He minimized the power of his office, explaining, “They may let us have those positions, but by no stretch of the imagination are we barking out orders.”

Nobody with whom I spoke believes an age of 30-something domination is upon us, nor should it be. A diversity of life experiences is the goal.

“I guess I haven’t thought about it all that much,” Lamoureux said. “I go back to, when we were making decisions, who was in my office? It was really just a wide range of people.”

Maybe so, but they were in his office.