By John Brummett
We’ve heard rank speculation and specific rumor, both rampant.
But U.S. Rep. Vic Snyder told me unequivocally last week to dismiss all of it. He said we should consider ourselves assured that he fully intends to run for re-election next year.
Even one of the 2nd District Democratic congressman’s closest friends inquired of him last week whether there might be something to any of these rumors of his imminent retirement. Snyder advised him there was not.
And Snyder himself told me that, two weeks ago, U.S. Sen. Mark Pryor telephoned and said there was this hot rumor. It was that Snyder, uncommonly diverse by profession as a doctor, lawyer and 13-year congressman, would get a “lucrative” joint teaching position at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences and the Clinton School of Public Service.
Snyder admitted that the adjective — lucrative — got his attention. But he says he can’t imagine how such things get started. No such job, joint or separated, lucrative or regular-paying, had ever been discussed.
They’re not offering. He’s not looking. He’s going to stay in Congress if the voters will be so kind. That Snyder’s story and he’s sticking to it, and I’ve never known him to shoot anything but straight. That’s sort of his shtick.
These rumors emanate from the fact that Snyder, at 60, is the brand new father of triplet boys — these kids joining a big brother still under 3. The theory is that Snyder has too many responsibilities to his newly overrun household to serve in Congress.
But another theory, every bit as plausible, is that a 60-year-old man with three newborns at home needs a job now more than ever.
As for this idea that it might be revealing that Snyder isn’t yet raising campaign money — well, be advised that’s another of Snyder’s shticks. He believes the ever-ongoing raising of money is a scourge on our politics.
He always limits his fundraising to a tightly confined campaign period. And he always raises enough.
Actually, my line of inquiry had been a tad personal, uncomfortably so.
The rumor related to me — and upon which I was basing my inquiry of him — had nothing to do with any new jobs, about which I’d heard not a word, nor with the babies, exactly.
It was that Snyder would leave Congress because his wife, the Methodist preacher Betsy, had been rendered unwell after giving birth at 47 to those triplets.
Snyder was seemingly candid in response to that, explaining this way: Betsy indeed wasn’t well a few days after returning home from giving birth to the three boys. On her return trip to the doctor, it was determined she had a postpartum condition in which her heart was, well, kind of failing. She spent two days in coronary care.
She is better now.
Snyder said the four kids were well and that their mother had some valuable help. And he said the doctors described Betsy’s condition as typically going one of three ways, with about a 33.3 percent chance for each.
She could get worse. She could stay the same. She could get better.
He said she’s clearly not worse and, in fact, a little better. He’s counting on the lucky third.
The dozen young Central Arkansas politicians salivating at the prospect of a rare congressional opening, a conservative number, no doubt, need to settle down.
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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.
