By John Brummett
It appears Arkansas may have had the big one, by which I mean a political earthquake reconfiguring our landscape.
When I got into political reporting in the 1970s, people got elected in Arkansas merely because they were Democrats. Republicans ran for office without daring to reveal their lethal party affiliation.
Contrast that with two polls conducted several days ago for Roby Brock’s Talk Business and Hendrix College in Conway, neither any remote kind of Republican sympathizer.
One of these polls was conducted by automatic phone calls one night. The other was conducted by the same process the next night. The same political races were surveyed each night.
The only difference was that one of the polls listed the candidate choices along with the candidates’ party affiliations while the other listed these same candidate choices but only by the candidates’ names and not with their party affiliations.
This was the utterly remarkable finding: Republicans performed 20 to 30 points better when they were identified as Republicans than when they weren’t. They led widely when identified as Republicans. They trailed by margins ranging from slim to significant when not.
To best assess the raw advantage or disadvantage of party labels, these back-to-back polls deliberately surveyed minor state constitutional offices for which voter awareness tends to be superficial.
These are the kinds offices occupied by people who won them only because they had identifiable names, like Charlie Daniels or Bryant, be it Kelly, Winston or even L.J.
It appears something is even stronger afoot than being fortuitously mistaken for a country fiddler or some other fellow with the last name of Bryant.
That would be the suddenly golden “R.”
For secretary of state, state Rep. Mark Martin led Pulaski County Clerk Pat O’Brien by 18 points when Martin was identified as Republican and O’Brien as Democrat. Without the party identification, O’Brien turned around and led Martin by 10 points.
For lieutenant governor, pizza guy Mark Darr led state Sen. Shane Broadway by 17 points when Darr was identified as Republican and Broadway as Democrat. Without the party identification, Broadway led by 3 points.
For land commissioner, John Thurston led L.J. Bryant by 25 points when Thurston was identified as Republican and Bryant as Democrat. Without the party identification, Bryant led by 6 points.
It would stand to reason, though these findings don’t support it, that Mark Martin would be an overpowering winner for secretary of state both on account of his being the Republican and on account of his having the same name as a famous race car driver from Batesville.
But that the name Mark Martin doesn’t seem to do him any good, while being Republican does him a world of good — well, there’ll always be something about Arkansas politics that makes absolutely no sense.
My explanation, advanced previously in this space, is that Democrats were artificially sustained beyond the Reagan Revolution in Arkansas by inertia and the uncommon skill and popularity of such Democrats as Clinton, Bumpers, Pryor and Beebe.
But now all of that has been changed by the deficit-explosion and health care reform law of a Democratic president inherently unpopular in the state for some reason or reasons, Barack Obama, as abetted by a Democratic House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, also uncommonly unpopular here.
A leading Republican predicted the other day that Republicans will come to the next session of the Arkansas General Assembly with 40 of the 100 House seats and 12 to 15 of the 35 Senate seats.
More significant, he said, was that this new landscape would allow Republicans to go into communities and recruit prominent and conservative-minded persons to run for legislative seats as Republicans whereas, in the past, these courted ones demurred only because local political viability was more readily available on the Democratic ticket.
That is to say this may not be an anomaly, but a permanent new Arkansas.
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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.
September 16th, 2010 at 4:04 pm
I guess Bill Clinton and Obama have had a positive impact after all.
September 17th, 2010 at 3:51 pm
Problem w/ Dr. Barth’s and Roby’s polling is that in all of their case studies, they overwhelming question voters over the age of 40. For example, in the recent polls they conducted in US House District 1, and US House District 2, 92% and 93% of the sample was over the age of 40(with 55% of the samples over the age of 60)
Most political scientists will tell you that as you age, you will trend more conservatively. I find it to be a disservice that they were patting themselves on the back and giving critial anaylisis of their polls, while failing to admit that they overwhelming chose people (92% of the time) over the age of 40. By failing to correct or “weight” their result to account for the lack of not only young voters, but people of color as well, they produced numbers that favored Republican candidates by 17 points in each poll. Strange when you consider both of these seats have been held by Democrats for the last several election cycles.
Having said that, I won’t deny that Dems are in trouble. But anyone reading a Talk Business Poll should be weary of the results.
September 17th, 2010 at 3:55 pm
Problem w/ Dr. Barth’s and Roby’s polling is that in all of their case studies, they overwhelming question voters over the age of 40. For example, in the recent polls they conducted in US House District 1, and US House District 2, 92% and 93% of the sample was over the age of 40(with 55% of the samples over the age of 60)
Most political scientists will tell you that as you age, you will trend more conservatively. I find it to be a disservice that they were patting themselves on the back and giving critial anaylisis of their polls, while failing to admit that they overwhelming chose people (92% of the time) over the age of 40. By failing to correct or “weight” their result to account for the lack of not only young voters, but people of color as well, they produced numbers that favored Republican candidates by 17 points in each poll. Strange when you consider both of these seats have been held by Democrats for the last several election cycles.
Having said that, I won’t deny that Dems are in trouble. But anyone reading a Talk Business Poll should be weary of the results.