Spare a dollar for Asa?

Asa HutchinsonBy Steve Brawner, © 2023 by Steve Brawner Communications, Inc.

Can Gov. Asa Hutchinson get elected president in 2024? He’s asking Arkansans to donate a dollar to give him a chance.

Hutchinson is trying to qualify for the first Republican Party presidential debate Aug. 23. To do so, he must reach at least 1% in the polls, which he is doing in some of them.

He also must have 40,000 unique donors of any amount, of which he is still short. In fact, he told the KARK-TV “Capitol View” news program Aug. 2 that he was nearing being halfway there. That was more than two weeks ago, so he’s made up more ground since then. It was an improvement over where he had been a month earlier, when he had 5,000. He said his numbers had increased by 10,000 in the previous 10 days.

Campaigns often are a game of “survive and advance,” and Hutchinson has determined that getting on that debate stage is the next step to survival. That’s a big reason why he did a 10-minute interview on a Little Rock TV station. Instead of using that time to dial for big dollars or shake hands in Iowa and New Hampshire, he asked the home folks to donate as little as $1 at his campaign website, www.asa2024.com. A dollar each is all he needs. 

As a journalist, I’m hesitant to donate to political campaigns and have only done it a few times in my 54 years. I probably wasn’t working as a journalist when I did. Plus I’m cheap.

But I did take up Hutchinson on his request for three reasons. One is that he asked. Two is that for eight years when he was governor, he treated reporters with respect. He was open to the press and allowed us to ask questions about a range of subjects. After a speech, he usually made a point to stop by and talk to us.

The other reason I donated to his campaign is I want him to have a chance to win. He is conservative but also pragmatic. He’s a Reagan Republican who believes in restrained government and a restrained style of politics. He’s respectful of others and of the democratic process. He’s serious and policy oriented. He’s sober minded and drama free. He doesn’t see politics as an us-versus-them, zero-sum game.

Looking at the whole package, he is the type of Republican I wish the Republican Party was more like, just as former Gov. Mike Beebe is the kind of Democrat I wish the Democratic Party was more like. But like I said earlier, I’m 54.

If there’s any irony in my donating a dollar to get Hutchinson on the debate stage, it’s that I think he made a mistake by prioritizing it. 

Again, I’m just a journalist and not a political professional – nor am I former governor, member of Congress, former undersecretary in the Department of Homeland Security, and former head of the Drug Enforcement Agency.

All that said, after observing him for many years, I can tell you that he is not very good at this kind of performative theater. I don’t expect him to land any zingers that will go viral on social media. It’s just not his style. Instead, the debate stage will be dominated by louder, more boisterous actors who are better at the reality TV show that politics has become.

Instead, he should have gone all-in on his campaign rationale of being the non-Donald Trump candidate. When the Republican National Committee said it would make all debate participants sign a pledge to support the eventual nominee, I think he should have declared he would not do so if it meant supporting Trump. 

He would have been the outsider candidate making a principled stand. It would have gotten him some media attention and turned the heads of a lot of rich anti-Trump Republicans. When criticized about it, he could have argued that he was only doing what Trump did in the 2016 campaign, when he refused to say he would support the Republican nominee if it weren’t him, and what he is doing this campaign as well.

It’s too late for him to try that strategy, and maybe it would have been the wrong one. At this point, he really needs to get on that debate stage. To do that, he needs 40,000 donors donating $1 each more than he needs one donor to donate $4 million. Again, the website is www.asa2024.com.

We’ll see if he can find them, in Arkansas and elsewhere.

Steve Brawner is a syndicated columnist published in 13 outlets in Arkansas. Email him at brawnersteve@mac.com. Follow him on Twitter at @stevebrawner.

Happy Independence Day to those fighting for theirs

By Steve Brawner

© 2023 by Steve Brawner Communications, Inc.

Americans don’t do a good job of celebrating their holidays, including the one happening today.

Christmas has become less about remembering Christ’s birth and more about buying and busyness. Memorial Day is less about honoring the fallen and more about backyard barbecues. Thanksgiving’s purpose is included in its name. We instead often call it “Turkey Day” because of what we might eat.

In all of these holidays, we often become so focused on activities and consumption that we neglect to reflect on what we’re actually celebrating.

Now comes Independence Day, which like Thanksgiving is popularly called another name, the Fourth of July, that obscures the holiday’s purpose. A first-time visitor probably would think Americans shoot fireworks this time of year for some vague patriotic reason. Continue reading →

College sports: Pay’s the American way

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

“Congressional “ and “action” are two words that aren’t used together much these days, but that’s what University of Arkansas Athletic Director Hunter Yurachek was hoping to help make happen June 7.

Yurachek was scheduled to travel to Washington, D.C., as part of a group of Southeastern Conference leaders seeking to create a uniform NIL national standard. 

For non-sports fans, NIL is the newfound reality where college athletes can be compensated for the use of their name, image and likeness, although that compensation can’t come from the university. It has opened the doors for college athletes to be paid big bucks to endorse products and engage in other activities.

How big? The website On3 calculates the valuation of Bronny James, son of LeBron James, at $6.8 million. That doesn’t mean the incoming University of Southern California freshman basketball player is being paid exactly that, but that’s what the site says he’s worth. The second highest valued athlete is LSU gymnast Olivia Dunne, who is valued at $3.4 million. Third is incoming University of Texas quarterback Arch Manning, nephew of Peyton and Eli. He’s valued at $2.8 million. 

The top ranking Razorback is running back Raheim “Rocket” Sanders, who is 48th with a value of $750,000.  Continue reading →

Looks like LEARNS, everything else can be an emergency

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

We can assume two things following the recent Arkansas Supreme Court ruling on the LEARNS Act lawsuit. 

First, Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders’ education reform legislation will be the law of the land sooner rather than later. 

Second, the Legislature will continue voting on emergency clauses simultaneously with bills – even though the state Constitution requires two votes “upon separate roll call.”

We may need a constitutional amendment so clear no one can argue it. One might be cooking. We’ll get to that shortly.

For background, the Supreme Court’s 5-2 ruling June 15 lifted a temporary restraining order issued by Circuit Court Judge Herbert Wright. Some Marvell-Elaine School District residents had sued the state after it entered into a “transformation contract” with a charter school organization to manage the district under the LEARNS Act. Continue reading →

Arkansas GOP on Trump: Supportive, opposing, and silent

By Steve Brawner

© 2023 by Steve Brawner Communications, Inc.

What have Arkansas’ leading Republicans been saying about former President Trump’s indictment? It varies from quite a bit to not much at all.

Sen. Tom Cotton, the combat veteran who served in Iraq and Afghanistan and also is an attorney, told conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt Tuesday that he was disappointed with the indictments. 

Trump is accused of taking classified documents, including highly sensitive ones related to national security, showing them off a little, refusing to turn them over and then taking steps to hide them. 

Cotton said that’s not as serious as what Hillary Clinton did while secretary of state, which was conduct a lot of official business using her private, unsecured email server that included sending classified information, though not documents marked as classified. He said what Clinton did was worse and that it compromised national security, and he criticized the Justice Department for its inconsistency in indicting Trump but not her.

“Indicting the opposition party’s leading candidate is a step that’s more reminiscent of Third World banana republics than the greatest republic known in the history of mankind, and it’s not something that should be done on edge cases or stretching legal theories,” he said. “Only on ironclad serious matters in which the law has been applied equally in a fair-handed manner.” Continue reading →