Hutchinson sticks his neck out for highways

Democrats, Alabama, blue wave, school boards, Hixson, Breanne, red tide, judicial electionsBy Steve Brawner, © 2019 by Steve Brawner Communications, Inc.

Let’s say you’re headed into your second midterm election before being term-limited out of office, and you really don’t have much to campaign for. Your party controls Arkansas’ entire congressional delegation and three-fourths of the state Legislature now, which won’t change much regardless of what you do.

How do you spend your time? If you’re Gov. Asa Hutchinson, you try to persuade Arkansans to extend a half-cent sales tax to pay for highways.

Speaking last week to the Arkansas Good Roads Foundation, Hutchinson said, “This is my number one priority in terms of a state campaign here in Arkansas. Not anything gonna distract me from it. This is a focus because it is so critical to the future of our state.”

He later told a couple of reporters he might support the effort with money from his political action committee, ASA PAC. Continue reading →

Clinton on target with newspapers, media

By Steve Brawner, © 2019 by Steve Brawner Communications, Inc.

It’s always dangerous to quote one of our four most recent presidents including the current one, because so many readers despise one or two of them – often exactly two, depending on the reader’s political persuasion. Most people seem OK with former President Jimmy Carter, age 95.

But sometimes one of those presidents says something so insightful that it’s worth the risk.

Former President Bill Clinton spoke at the 200th anniversary celebration of the Arkansas Gazette’s founding Nov. 21, and this is what he had to say about Russia’s interference in American elections, as quoted by the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.

“Their real goal is to break the conviction that we can know and we can act on what we know, and we can predict the consequences of acting on what we know,” the 42nd president said.

Clinton painted a dark picture of where this is leading, saying, “Technology and the movement toward authoritarianism all over the world are driving us to the point where ordinary people may find it hard to tell fact from fiction or truth from a bald-faced lie. If that happens, it will be impossible to sustain meaningful democratic government.”

The remedy? “We need to know things, and we need to be able to have discussions, even arguments, with our neighbors based on the same set of facts,” he said. Continue reading →

Filing, and unfiling, for the Senate race

By Steve Brawner, © 2019 by Steve Brawner Communications, Inc.

The Democratic Party of Arkansas Monday announced it won’t field a candidate in next year’s U.S. Senate race, because it probably can’t.

That’s because the party’s only announced candidate, Josh Mahony, announced two hours after filing had closed Nov. 12 that he was quitting the race because of unspecified “family health concerns.” He had no communication with the party before the announcement and little afterwards until he hired an attorney who basically said only that Mahony is not the one who is sick.

That means that, under Arkansas law, the Democrats probably can’t replace him. If they tried, the Republicans have said they would sue, and they’re probably right and, besides, they can better afford to pay for the lawyers. Plus, no Democrat is going to beat Sen. Tom Cotton next year, anyway.

The timing of Mahony’s exit from the race raised a lot of eyebrows. It could be that someone in the family got some bad news at 12:49 p.m. Nov. 12 after the filing period closed. But that’s also the time I received a press release from the Republicans saying they were filing a Federal Election Commission complaint against Mahony for falsifying his campaign finance reports. Mahoney had listed himself as a “small business owner” despite actually being unemployed and relying on his wife’s income.

The only real news there was that the Republican Party had filed the complaint. The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette had already reported about Mahony’s lack of employment and FEC reporting inconsistencies. In fact, he had told the newspaper he couldn’t remember the last time he had a full-time job. Continue reading →

Watch Little Rock school elections because of this

By Steve Brawner, © 2019 by Steve Brawner Communications, Inc.

School board elections rarely attract much attention because board members are unpaid (in Arkansas) and nonpartisan, and because they serve a policymaking, oversight role that usually involves deferring to paid staff. Many races don’t even produce a yard sign, much less an attack ad. Voter interest is often low.

The 2020 Little Rock School Board races could be different. And they’re worth watching even if you don’t live in Little Rock.

As you probably know, the Little Rock School District has been under state control since 2015. With a five-year deadline looming, the State Board of Education recently voted to put the district on a path to local control, with school board elections set for next November.

This occurred after the State Board first considered giving the district control over many schools while the state maintained control over the worst ones, which happen to be in areas with high minority populations. Opponents responded with overheated but effective national attention-getting comparisons to Little Rock’s segregationist past. Continue reading →

America in One Room

By Steve Brawner, © 2019 by Steve Brawner Communications, Inc.

What happens when more than 500 diverse Americans are brought together to discuss politics in an informed, civil manner? People can actually change their minds about the issues, each other, and the American political system.

That’s what Stanford professor James Fishkin found through his project, “America in One Room.” He scientifically chose 500-plus Americans – five from Arkansas – to reflect America’s vast array of political viewpoints. They were flown to Dallas and spent Sept. 19-22 learning about and discussing five important issues: immigration, health care, the economy and taxes, the environment, and foreign policy.

He discussed his findings in a conference call Nov. 14 organized by Fix US. That’s a project by the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget meant to bridge the distrust that makes solving problems like the national debt impossible.

Fishkin believes traditional polling techniques don’t offer valuable information. Most citizens don’t have an incentive to be very informed about particular issues. They’re busy with their responsibilities and only have one vote anyway out of millions, so they form only a “vague impression from sound bytes and headlines,” he said. When a pollster interrupts their dinner and starts asking questions, they offer “phantom opinions” rather than admit they don’t know the answer. Continue reading →