For … this kind of politics

We could all learn something from these two

THERE’S something mighty strange going on in the Fourth Congressional District of Arkansas, that wide swath of the state’s south and east. Why are the candidates for Congress there being so nice to each other? Where’s all the petty bickering? Where are the vicious attack ads, the “debates” in which each contender is out to throw the most mud at the other? The opposing candidates don’t even interrupt each other with jibes and “questions” that are really partisan attacks. Where’s all the un-interrupted, un-Southern, and just plain unattractive rudeness we see in other races? Has some angel cast a spell over the whole congressional district?

Can you believe it, these candidates actually seem to, well, like each other. They even admit it. Just listen to them:

“Bruce Westerman is a really nice guy,” says the Democratic nominee, James Lee Witt, about his Republican opponent. “I don’t have anything against him. We get along really well as two individuals, and we are both running for a position that is extremely important for the Fourth District. We just have a difference on issues and how to make the Fourth District better.” Goodness. We’re not used to such reasonableness in today’s politics.

Then there’s Bruce Westerman on the subject of James Lee Witt: “In the interaction I’ve had with my opponent, he’s been nothing but a gentleman.” And both these candidates were talking on the record, as if neither was ashamed of being a gentleman. How long before a phrase like “my honorable opponent” comes back into vogue in political debates—and as more than just a phrase?

Did you catch that televised debate between the contenders the other night? Messrs. Westerman and Witt couldn’t have been more respectful of each other, even while discussing their differences. The same goes for the Libertarian candidate, who was also in attendance. And who sounded, well, as Libertarian as ever, hankering for an ideal 18th Century world and constitution that never was. (No need to go into detail here about some of our founding fathers’ low tricks, feuds and deadly duels. In one such faceoff, a scoundrel of a vice-president of the United States gunned down a secretary of the Treasury, and probably the best one we ever had, too—Alexander Hamilton.) Still, even if it’s a history that’s more mythic than factual, the myth makes for a pretty picture. Even if Libertarians confuse it with reality.

AS FOR the more relevant candidates in this race, Bruce Westerman is a conservative after our own heart—and mind. He’s a leader both practical and idealistic, a smalltown boy and a Yale man, too. He’s a busy forester and businessman in Hot Springs who still found the time, energy and political skills to become the state’s first Republican majority leader of the Arkansas House since Reconstruction. (It seems there was a little hiatus there in the state’s two-party system of about, oh, a mere 138 years. )

As for his stand on the issues, Mr. Westerman was a leading opponent of this state’s variation of Obamacare, aka the Private Option, once he got a good look at it, which didn’t take him long. The man is a quick study. Maybe because he’s had all that experience in the private sector of the economy. But that doesn’t mean he’s a kneejerk conservative the way others are kneejerk liberals. He’s more of a practical conservative, that is, someone who puts more trust in what works rather than abstract theories. Just ask anybody this agricultural engineer has ever built a sawmill for.

Other examples of Bruce Westerman’s respect for the realities of politics, economics and life abound. It’s not just that he’s an entrepreneur who knows how the always encroaching federal government can stifle innovation and cost Americans jobs. Ask him about raising the minimum wage, which sounds like a fine idea but, alas, only in theory. Mr. Westerman can see how raising it to an unrealistic level will stifle innovation and cost too many Americans their much needed jobs.

Or ask Bruce Westerman about the big, growing and all too long neglected headache known as illegal immigration. We’ve got to get control of our borders, he says, but he’s not pretending that you can just load up some 12 million people and haul ’em off: “That’s not a United States of America I know.”

How would he improve education? Bring competition to the schools and watch them take off, he says. And they do when charter schools are introduced and given a chance to sink or swim. And so conservatively, practically and idealistically on.

MR. WESTERMAN has drawn, yes, a worthy opponent in this race. James Lee Witt is a former county judge of Yell County, good old Mattie Ross’ stomping grounds in True Grit. He’s as much its native son as Tom Cotton, and it shows. He was appointed director of the state’s Office of Emergency Services by a governor named Bill Clinton, then appointed to head the Federal Emergency Management Agency by a president named Bill Clinton, and he makes a point of emphasizing, however delicately, maybe only by omission, that his friend and patron was the last Democratic president of the United States, not the current one. Which is one more indication of his prudent judgment. A lot of Democratic candidates this year evidence the same prudence. (“Barack Obama? Who’s he?”)

In both his critical jobs in government, state and federal, always meeting or planning for emergencies, James Lee Witt has been the finest kind of public servant, rushing to help people when we most needed help, standing there amidst the ruins of our house or business or town, wondering where that help would come from. Often enough it came from good and faithful servants like James Lee Witt. He’s got the great advantage in this race for Congress of a long and extensive familiarity with the workings of the federal bureaucracy, and how all too often it doesn’t work.

What’s more, Mr. Witt’s website notes, he’s been a lifelong cattle rancher, which alone should endear him to those of us who know the difference between an Angus and a Brangus, even if we haven’t yet figured out how to breed Santa Gertrudis with Brahman. (We once knew an old boy deep in the heart of Texas, a cousin actually, down around Waco, who never quite got the hang of it, either. Over a lifetime of trying on his little ranchero. But that’s life and ranching, which have their similarities—and difficulties.)

So there you have it, ladies and gentlemen voters of the Fourth District. This year’s congressional election boils down to a choice between a politician who knows his agriculture and a politician who knows his agriculture. Take your pick.

Here’s ours: We’re definitely for more political races like this one—in which Arkansas can’t lose. There’s not a Pat Hays or other mudslinger in sight. These gentlemen shake hands when they meet, smile at each other and, most impressive of all, seem to mean it. When we inky wretches try to goad them into saying something ugly about the other, they concentrate on the issues, on their plans and ideas, and not on the failings of their opponent. We can all learn from their example—an example to emulate this election season, not still another to beware.