Arkansas GOP Leaders Still Support The Three Stooges

Monday was a study in contrasts in Arkansas politics.

Yesterday, Democratic Governor Mike Beebe was in Prescott announcing 100 new jobs at the Firestone plant.  At roughly the same time, Arkansas Republican leaders were scrambling on how to respond to the racist comments of not one, but of three of their Republican candidates.  Moving forward, I’ll refer to Jon Hubbard, Loy Mauch & Charlie Faqua as The Three Stooges to save time.

In my last post, I argued that Republican leaders faced a test of their moral leadership, and that while they failed the first test, they still had time to redeem themselves.  Was this election about winning at any cost, or was it about standing by your morals?

On Monday, Arkansas Republican leaders failed yet another moral leadership test.  Republic Party of Arkansas Chair Doyle Webb and other Republican leaders still want Arkansans to elect The Three Stooges.

Webb said yesterday, after Republican leaders have already given tens to thousands of dollars to the Three Stooges, they will not send them any more campaign money.  Gee, there’s a profile in courage for you.

However, Webb refused to ask these men to resign and he refused to ask Arkansans to vote against them.  That was the test of moral leadership and Arkansas Republican leaders failed – again.

Of course, Doyle Webb did once say that he knows what it’s like to be “brown, black or minority, in this state” because he was a Republican in the 1960s, so the bar was already very low for him.

In short, Republican leaders so desperately want a legislative majority they’re willing to abandon their morals and elect multiple racist candidates to achieve their goal.

Arkansas Republican leaders are bereft of moral leadership.

The Three Stooges comments have made national news and this hurts our state’s image and our economy. Consider this, what goes through the mind of a CEO that is considering moving company operations to Arkansas after reading about The Three Stooges?  Does Arkansas sound like an attractive place to the out-of-state CEO to send employees when State Legislators write such racist comments?

It’s clear now what the fight for the State Legislature is all about.  We can move forward with the progress we’ve made with the leadership of Governor Mike Beebe or we can go backward with the leadership of the Arkansas Republic Party.

A vote for a Republican legislative majority is a vote to put Three Stooges into power.