By John Brummett

Bill Halter seems to be something of the illegitimate child at a Clinton family reunion, speaking metaphorically, of course.

I’m reminded of a conversation I had the other night with a state senator who likes and admires Halter. Oh, dear, I’ve practically outed the senator right there. He said old-line Clinton people didn’t like Halter because he’d ventured into politics his own way, independent of their club.

So now the latest is that a bright young Clintonite, a 34-year-old Little Rock lad named Tyler Denton, is contemplating running for lieutenant governor in the Democratic primary next year.

That would be against, presumably, our lottery champion himself.

Let’s establish the Clinton insider bona fides for this Denton youth. While we’re at it, let’s establish those bona fides in the context of the process by which this trial balloon has been floated.

After graduating from the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville, where he was vice president of the Student Government Association, Denton got work as an advance man for Clinton’s re-election campaign in 1996.

Then he went to work in the Clinton White House doing advance work. The job had him traveling the world, meeting important people and setting up scripts for the president’s forthcoming visits.

Then, after brief stints with Regions Bank and the Greater Little Rock Chamber of Commerce, he joined the then-former president’s global initiative and worked for a year in southeast Africa. After that he signed on with the Clinton Foundation, toiling locally under the supervision of Skip Rutherford, now dean of the Clinton School of Public Service. He helped get the Clinton library opened and dedicated.

Now Denton works for the worldwide charitable foundation called ONE and organized by Bono, the rock icon. Denton splits his time between Washington and Little Rock, where he maintains his permanent residence.

So it came to be on Tuesday that a local blog item got posted spreading a rumor of Denton’s interest in running for lieutenant governor next time. It was on a blog called Blake’s Think Tank, which is the operation of Blake Rutherford, a young Little Rock lawyer and advertising executive who happens to be the son of the aforementioned Skip Rutherford.

I wrangled Denton’s cell number and rang him. He said he could understand how somebody might see his interest as reflecting a Clintonian animus toward Halter. He said he could not speak for how others might feel.

But he said he merely was interested in pursuing public service and that lieutenant governor struck him as a good place to focus his interest. He said this was wholly his own idea. He said he’d spend the next few weeks talking to “people I respect” to assess whether he ought to do this.

Denton did mention that he’d heard Halter might be running for something else. There are rumblings that, if U.S. Sen. Blanche Lincoln should be forced to vote against “card check” and lose organized labor’s endorsement, someone like Halter could run against her from the left in the Democratic primary. That would be a good way to enter political retirement.

So what’s Clinton people’s deal with Halter, anyway?

They always had Mike Beebe lined up to be governor. Then, all of a sudden, here came Halter back into state politics after a successful business career and service in the Clinton presidency, at the end as the acting commissioner of Social Security. Halter, a North Little Rock product, Stanford grad and Rhodes Scholar, had been a young intern on Clinton’s gubernatorial staff in the early 1980s.

He announced his candidacy for governor.

The long story made short is that Clinton people whispered about how no one had much liked Halter anyway in Washington and that it was an affront for him to inject himself against Beebe. There was a big Democratic bash hosted by Wes Clark, a confirmed Clintonite. Clark introduced Democrats in attendance, including Beebe. He somehow neglected to mention Halter.

Halter decided to drop down and become lieutenant governor and to champion the lottery. He is now busy being ignored and resented at the Legislature and by the governor down the hall.

And now here’s this Tyler Denton business.
——-
John Brummett is a columnist for the Arkansas News Bureau in Little Rock. His e-mail address is jbrummett@arkansasnews.com; his telephone number is (501) 374-0699.