Michael Cook: Standing For Something

On Wednesday, Arkansas Democrat-Gazette columnist and TB&P contributor John Brummett penned an online column arguing that modern Arkansas Democrats don’t seem to stand for anything other an winning. Brummett argues that Arkansas Democrats just offer evasions and avoid taking real stands on issues in order to win elections.

From Brummett’s column:

So, for now, continued euphemism and evasion offer Arkansas Democrats little more than the very real threat of permanent minority status and utter irrelevance.

If you stand only for finding an evasive way to express yourself in a veiled way and thus to win, then you have nothing to fall back on when the jig is up.

And, believe me, for Democrats in Arkansas, the jig is quite up.

When you stand only for winning, then you don’t stand at all when you don’t win.

If you’re going to get beat—and Democrats are going to get beat, badly, for the time being in Arkansas—then you ought to get beat for a reason.

I will concede that for a time Arkansas Democrats had to employ a bit of finesse, nuance and downright figurative dancing around to win elections and avoid being tied to the national Democratic Party which is perceived as being liberal in this moderate-to-conservative state. And after America elected a black President with a Muslim-sounding name it became even more of a noodle dance for Democrats in this former state of the Confederacy.

However in my opinion, Brummett’s column on Wednesday neglects to give Arkansas Democrats credit for taking a clear stand on a major issue that has dominated Arkansas politics for the past two years – the Private Option.

Arkansas Democrats took a tough stance by supporting the Private Option and paid the political price for it. The Private Option would not exist if, in part, every legislative Democrat had not voted for it, every time.

In the 2014 election, many legislative Democratic incumbents were defeated because of their support of Obamacare, aka the Private Option. Their Republican opponents used the Private Option vote to tie them to the wildly unpopular President Obama. Some legislative Democratic candidates attempted to go on the offense on the Private Option issue and that strategy only worked in a few districts.

Then the same Republicans who campaigned against Obamacare turned around and voted for Obamacare once they got elected. Talk about not standing for anything.

During the 2014 gubernatorial race, Democrat Mike Ross made it very clear he supported the Private Option while Asa Hutchinson repeatedly equivocated on the issue. One could make a reasonable argument that Hutchinson is kind of still equivocating a bit on the issue by creating a “task force” to “study” the Private Option while keeping it funded for two years.

But back to Brummett’s column. If Arkansas Democrats just stood for winning, then they would have voted against the Private Option. Arkansas Democrats, along with a number of Republicans, had the gumption to support a program that was only made possible by Obamacare in a state where the Affordable Care Act is about as popular as the measles.

Politically, it would have been better for Democrats to have opposed “Obamacare in Arkansas” or just let it quietly die, but they fought for what they believed was best for the people of Arkansas.

That is standing for something other than winning.

There were other issues where Arkansas Democrats stood for something, offering a clear vision for the state.

Raising Arkansas’s minimum wage is an example of where Arkansas Democrats stood for something. Republicans jumped on the minimum wage bandwagon very late in the 2014 campaign and only after numerous public polls showed its popularity. That was Democrats standing for something.

Finally, universal pre-K is another issue that Arkansas Democrats have taken a clear stand on and so far Governor Asa Hutchinson has only provided lip service to the issue. Hutchinson says pre-K is a top priority for him, but that is not reflected in his budget.

On a quick side-note about pre-K: isn’t it odd that we can remove about $100 million a year from the state budget with tax cuts and scrounge up more money for prisons, but somehow we can’t find the funds to invest in a program proven to improve the future of Arkansas’s children?

Anyway, back to the column and in Brummett’s defense, Arkansas Democrats definitely do need to begin crafting a message that appeals to Arkansas voters, especially working-class voters lest Democrats remain in the minority for a generation. There is much work to be done on that front, both in Arkansas and nationally.

However, to say Arkansas Democrats don’t seem to stand for much of anything except winning completely ignores recent history.

Arkansas Democrats have fought for better health care, better wages and investing in our children’s future and today there are fewer Democrats at the State Capitol because they stood for something.