Be Prepared for Beebe (Editorial)

Everyone knew that Arkansas Attorney General Mike Beebe was going to run for governor. Now that the Democrat has made it official, Republican gubernatorial candidates Asa Hutchinson and Lt. Gov. Win Rockefeller have a decision to make:

Which one of them is going to get a pick ax and try to start a rockslide at the Bobby Hopper Tunnel? That might be the only way to keep Beebe from making in-roads in the GOP’s northwest stronghold.

Forget the politics. Forget the demographics, some of which are a figment of the Arkansas General Assembly’s anti-Northwest Arkansas bias anyway.

Beebe will be a formidable opponent because of his ability to relate to the average Arkansan. It’s that simple. We’ve seen it in person, whether he was “shelling down the corn” to poultry farmers off a flatbed trailer or engaging an intimate setting of power brokers. The man is as genuine and sharp as a sling blade.

The state’s political tide swept the way of conservatism for the last decade, and we’re not discounting the viability of Hutchinson and Rockefeller.

Just consider this a word of warning. A charismatic kid from the wrong side of Searcy’s tracks is exactly the kind of catalyst who can electrify the electorate. If his campaign proposals actually address Northwest Arkansas’ infrastructure mess, the results up here might even be shocking.

Voters of all political persuasions sit in gridlock on Arkansas Highway 102 and dozens of Interstate 540 off ramps. Fortune 500 firms send potential Arkansas jobs elsewhere because infrastructure is a decade behind now and nothing is happening. Talk about economic development.

Neither Rockefeller nor Hutchison can win without Northwest Arkansas. Beebe will have to offset his opponent’s war chest by winning some northwest moderates.

We urge area leaders to press all three to do more than just praise the state’s economic engine. It’s time someone did something to keep it running.