Election Lessons

Surprises were rare in the recent primary elections. In the end, all we had to do was follow the money, name recognition and incumbencies to determine the outcomes.

The U.S. Senate race in particular showed that debates today are nothing more than an exercise to let candidates show they aren’t scared to debate. Dancing around answers and policy is perfectly acceptable with today’s electorate, which appears to have grown as cynical as journalists toward politics.

Here are some other observations:

n Gov. Mike Huckabee got a lot of media mileage out of his 90 percent romp over Gene McVay of Fort Smith, who was never even a remote threat. It’s interesting to note that McVay picked up far more votes in Benton and Washington counties than in his home Sebastian County.

n The state’s diehard Republicans had two state races in which to cast votes. There were 57,623 voters in the governor’s race, but just 54,789 — 5 percent fewer — in the U.S. Senate race.

n Democratic senatorial candidate Scott Ferguson of West Memphis couldn’t even carry his home Crittenden County against Blanche Lincoln, who trounced him in the First District.

n Winston Bryant’s strength in the Fourth District, carrying every county along the Arkansas-Louisiana border, showed once again that his odds were far better for a congressional race than for a Senate race.

n Wouldn’t you know that Huckabee might call for a positive campaign this fall and plead that candidates in the governor’s race not use one another’s names in advertising? It’s the classic tactic for popular front-runners, but it’s also a change in philosophy for Huckabee. His efforts in 1992 to paint U.S. Sen. Dale Bumpers as a supporter of pornographic art indicate he’s well aware of what it takes to threaten an incumbent.

n With 376,080 votes cast in the combined Republican gubernatorial primary and Democratic senatorial primary, just 15 percent participated on the GOP side. Local races remain the driving force for primary turnouts.

n In the GOP race for U.S. Senate, Fay Boozman defeated Tom Prince by a margin of 2-to-1 on Prince’s home turf of Pulaski County. It was a waste of energy and money for the central Arkansas Republicans who were determined to find an alternative to Boozman, who supposedly doesn’t meet their geographical (he’s from Northwest Arkansas) or philosophical (he’s a social conservative) criteria.

n There wasn’t a single upset in the state legislative races. No incumbent was held responsible for the alleged misdeeds of the Democratic-controlled Legislature.

n The labor endorsement did absolutely nothing to help the cause of Nate Coulter in the Senate race. Finishing fourth out of this group likely wipes out any future statewide office hopes for Coulter, who needs to find a local legislative race or move to the Fourth District and consider a congressional bid.

n Why would anyone jump on the Winston Bryant bandwagon in the runoff? Ferguson’s conservative supporters will move to the Lincoln camp. Democratic Party insiders who were behind Coulter want a winner in November, and they will recognize that Lincoln is their best hope. The handful of labor voters are Bryant’s only hope, and his support from the elderly will be split with Lincoln.

In summary, we can prepare for a Lincoln-Boozman matchup in November. Lincoln is conservative enough to keep the votes of the entire spectrum of Democrats, and she’ll draw votes from Republicans who can’t get comfortable with the thought of two U.S. senators who are social conservatives from the same county. But with plenty of money and reluctant support from Huckabee, Boozman will put up a solid fight.

(By the way, Boozman supporters should be pleased with a recent statewide poll commissioned by KATV, Channel 7, that showed most people aren’t less likely to vote for him just because he’s from the same county as U.S. Sen. Tim Hutchinson.)

I don’t think we’ll see many people willing to line up against Huckabee, who isn’t going to do or propose a thing that could be the least bit controversial before the election — i.e., no highway program and no endorsement of objectives of the Murphy Commission. The governor has some negatives working against him, but Democrat Bill Bristow of Jonesboro hasn’t demonstrated an ability to strike the kind of personal chord with voters that it would take to be competitive.