The Asa rumor mill ablaze

If you’re sitting around not doing anything, you might invest a few minutes pondering whether it would be good or bad if former Gov. Asa Hutchinson became president of the University of Arkansas System—not the Fayetteville campus or another one, but the whole combined entity.

Don’t think too long or hard about it because I’m inclined to think it will be an idle process, as in not going to happen.

But I can assure you that insiders have been talking about it. Reporters have asked about it and been dismissed or laughed off.

Public disclosure of insider discussions has balloon-floating value. Public feedback should always be welcome.

Ridicule of this column—that it is comically out in left field and that the poor old columnist has lost it—would be worth it if the matter was under any degree of consideration and public feedback was helpful or potentially influential. If not, the embarrassment to me would be minimal by the standard to which I’m long accustomed.

Here is what I can relate confidently: Two good sources, one with a history of closeness to Hutchinson and the other a history of closeness to the UA, tell me separately—I’m thinking independently of each other, and I’ve not identified either to the other—that they are hearing that persons on the UA Board, which consists of eight Asa appointees in its 10-seat membership, are talking about buying out the contract of the president, Don Bobbitt—who is somewhat embattled largely due to the debacle about proposing to buy the online University of Phoenix— and installing Hutchinson, who seems interested.

Neither source knew the rumor to be so. They knew only what they were hearing.

Close readers of this column know that I have often quoted Hutchinson from personal text exchanges. He usually responds promptly, even from Iowa and New Hampshire.

So, I shot him a bit of a whimsical text nine days ago saying that I would hold him to his agreement to talk to my LifeQuest class next month about presidential politics even if I had to lengthen the introduction to say he was the new president of the University of Arkansas. I told him he needn’t reply because I wouldn’t be delving into the matter until the next week.

That was a bit of a tactic. I had in mind that, if my text was absurd, Hutchinson would reply promptly that it was the craziest thing he’d ever heard. But I got nothing. So, on Monday, I texted him direct questions: Was he interested in the job?

Was he aware of any board members considering or advocating his hiring?

I got nothing.

So, I followed up to advise him that, absent a response, I’d just report that he declined to comment. Again, nothing.

I later heard everything from that he was making calls advocating for himself, to that he had the votes, to that a leading legislator was opposed, to that one of his appointees had told him no, to that Gov. Sarah Sanders had said she didn’t like the idea but didn’t figure she’d go to the mat to stop it if that’s what the board wanted.

On Thursday, one of those sources reported being told that Hutchinson, apparently wanting the job and running into board hesitation, had said he might just take his interest public. At that point, I texted the former governor to ask him not to take it public after 10 a.m. Friday because that would ruin my column for Sunday.

To that, at last he responded, with a smiley face and a single word: “Understood.”

That tells us nothing other than that a playful former governor understood I was concerned about his making a definitive statement after this column had become irretrievable because of the Sunday-section pre-print schedule.

So, in the dense fog of all that, I’ll tell you what I think: As I said to the former governor in the final text, I would write that it would be a mistake for him if this remote notion turned out to have currency.

He ought to have a legacy more on his mind than a job. He has a chance to be regarded as one of the state’s better governors, notably for bridging with pragmatism and competence the convulsive gap between pre-Trump and post-Trump Arkansas. And he gets high marks for his handling of the covid crisis.

History stands to regard him favorably for defending the rule of law, resisting authoritarianism and standing up nearly alone to Trump against great odds.

Engaging in a maneuver that would give the appearance that he leaned on eight of his political appointees to land for himself a cushy, lofty-salary job for which he lacked direct experience or credentials … that would not be a good look.

John Brummett, whose column appears regularly in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, is a member of the Arkansas Writers’ Hall of Fame. Email him at jbrummett@arkansasonline. com. Read his @johnbrummett feed on X, formerly Twitter.