Is Arkansas Out of Step?

Across the country it seems like more and more Americans are worried that the country is headed in the wrong direction. This primary season has been marked by justifiably outraged citizens across the country ending the political careers of politicians they considered close to the “establishment”.

This was seen out west in Utah where incumbent Senator Bob Bennett finished 3rd of three in his state Republican caucus. He will not be on the ballot in November. It was seen in the east, were Virginia Democrats sent home a ten term incumbent Congressman who backed too much spending. It’s happening in the north where Massachusetts elected a Republican to replace Ted Kennedy. It’s happening in the middle of the country where Rand Paul, son of the libertarian-leaning Texas Congressman Ron Paul, beat the establishment’s pick for the Republican nomination to the U.S. Senate in Kentucky.

It’s happening all of those places, but for some reason its not happening here. I love this state and its people, but I am often frustrated by the disconnect between what the average person says they want and the way that the vote comes out on election day. Are Arkansans out of step with the mood of the nation? If so, why?

Blanche Lincoln is in a run-off, but she is being challenged from the left. Her opponent Bill Halter does not fault her for a failure to hold down government spending, but rather for not growing it fast enough. Republican voters claimed to be upset about the bailouts, but then they elected John Boozman, the only guy in the eight man field who voted for the bailouts. Were that his only big-government vote it would be bad enough, but his recent record is one of consistently voting for bigger spending and passing it on to the next generation in the form of more debt. If people really did not want more government spending and debt, they had a perfect chance to express it. Instead, regardless of what they may claim that they want, they voted for more of the same.

That was not the only race where the pattern held. In the 2nd congressional district, Tim Griffin was an insider and he handily beat his outsider opponent. In the 3rd district, there really was not a candidate connected to the Washington establishment to the extent that Boozman and Griffin are, but still the two candidates who could most fairly be described as being insiders, Womack and Bledsoe, are in the run-off.

Voters here think of themselves as “conservative”. John Boozman ran as a “conservative”. My idea of what that means must be different from theirs. I think of a conservative as someone who believes in fiscal responsibility, limited government, and that essential power should be exercised at the lowest possible level rather than be consolidated in a distant national capitol. It’s based on skepticism about what government can do, and an awareness that human beings are very corruptible by power.

I suspect that another definition of “conservative” prevails in Arkansas. That is the idea that the people who have been running things should continue to run them, regardless of performance. It’s less about ideas than social connections. I understand that people, especially those whose lives are going well, are reluctant to vote for outsiders. They want to keep what they have. Trouble is, we are in a situation where we have to change our political habits just to keep what we have. The only rational way to judge a politician is by what they have done, not what they say or how nice they seem.