Maybe the time for change has arrived
Depending on your social and political preferences, you may watch a PBS program aired on Friday nights titled “Arkansas Week.”
Steve Barnes, the moderator, has a wide variety of guests with various backgrounds covering political as well as other issues. Hence, his program can appeal to a variety of Arkansas viewers. On Friday evening, Feb. 19, his guest was current Arkansas State Senator Jim Hendren of District 2 and a native of Gravette. Senator Hendren comes from a family with political recognition from Arkansas including his father Kim Hendren, a former Senator and member of the Arkansas House of Representatives. There is also a family connection to former U.S. Senator Tim Hutchinson (R) , and current Republican Governor Asa Hutchinson — both Jim’s uncles. Jim’s sister, Gayla Hendren McKenzie (R) , is currently a member of the Arkansas (District 92) House of Representatives.
The purpose of the interview was to follow-up on a recently announced decision by Senator Hendren to leave the Republican Party and continue his political career as an independent without party affiliation. Senator Hendren acknowledged he has also helped form a non-partisan political group called Common Ground Arkansas — commongroundar.org. The interview by Mr. Barnes is available on Arkansas Week’s website if you wish to hear the details of the senator’s decision. In addition, many of the specifics of Senator Hendren’s political career are available on several sites on the internet. The purpose of the preceding information is not to promote PBS and Steve Barnes program. It does lay the groundwork for what every American has seen on the news media over the last several weeks.
Since the storming of the United States Capitol on Jan. 6, we have been overwhelmed with television footage of the unruly crowd breaking into the House of Representatives ostensibly to stop the vote count on the Presidential election from continuing. Past president, Donald Trump, made a speech to those he had “invited” to
Washington, which may have contributed to their storming of the Capitol. What we hear from his speech depends on the listener, but he obviously did not control those listeners in a positive manner.
Apparently the Jan. 6 event and those days which followed, influenced a lot of people’s political views in a very personal way. Our household felt that Trump’s leadership had been influenced by his over-blown ego. This ego problem probably contributed to his losing the Presidential election. Senator Hendren apparently felt he needed to step away from the Trump-led Republican Party base and become the independent we saw in the Arkansas Week program. It is a personal opinion but it seems the established Washington politicians seem far removed from the average American’s views on governing. We are asked (forced) to cast our votes from the choices the political party’s have provided for us — not for people we actually chose.
Senator Hendren has been an influence in the Arkansas legislature for several years. And, Arkansas is not immune to a mixed political party leadership. Winthrop
Rockefeller was elected to become our Governor as a Republican when the State was top-heavy with Democratic leaders. Mike Beebe was our Democratic governor as Arkansas was making the political shift from Democratic control to Republican. Given a valid qualified choice, the voters don’t seem to respect party affiliation. Today we have primarily a Republican Legislature, a Republican governor and most key offices with a Republican label. The previous generations of my family were probably classified as yellow-dog Democrats because of Roosevelt. Other states have similar backgrounds of elected leadership which can defy the norm. Wisconsin currently has a Democrat governor but the legislative bodies are largely Republican. It isn’t difficult to switch parties. It requires name recognition, however, to get elected.
Senator Hendren’s decision will probably be the topic of discussion for months as the governor’s position will be filled by a new person — in the next election cycle — due to term limits. Governor Asa Hutchinson will be at the end of his two terms and two ladies’ names have been thrown around as probable candidates. Could it be possible that Senator Hendren has long term aspirations to run for governor at some point? This could be a means of separating one’s self from the supporters who gave President Trump a very strong signal that Arkansas supports his style of governing, even if it may not be a valid base of Republicans. Being angry at Washington doesn’t make you a Republican.
If Arkansas doesn’t do anything else, we do provide political entertainment along with our dayto-day activities. I’m sure other states have similar mixes of political parties, but we don’t hear much about one of their more prominent elected state officials changing parties. If we take time to count the number of non-party elected officials in Washington, D.C., I believe only two senators are not affiliated with the two major parties.
Ross Perot tried to establish a new “maverick” political party and competed with Bill Clinton (Democrat) and George H.W. Bush (Republican) in the 1992 presidential election. (He got 19% of the vote.) Of course Ross Perot was a very wealthy businessman much like twoterm New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg — who didn’t have much success in trying to gain his party’s nomination in the party’s presidential primary. These are not state elections but these gentleman demonstrated one needs money, lots and lots of money, to mount a successful independent political campaign.
How Senator Hendren will make out with Common Ground Arkansas only time will tell. We might find that the Trump-era turned enough people away from our two prominent well-financed organized parties to warrant a statelevel third party.
Maybe the time for change is here and we need to recognize it. Maybe some of our prayers for a new kind of leadership in politics have been heard.
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Editor’s note: Leo Lynch, an award-winning columnist, is a native of Benton County and has deep roots in northwest Arkansas. The opinions expressed are those of the author. He is a retired industrial engineer and former Justice of the Peace.