Gov. Mike Beebe: Popular, Quoting Harry S. Truman

STATE’S TOP OFFICIAL VISITS

Last week, Gov. Mike Beebe found himself at the Northwest Arkansas Political Animal’s Club quoting the late President Harry S. Truman.

Some liked the historical quote. Others, really didn’t. But just like former President Truman — Gov. Beebe didn’t care how they took it.

“Some say, why do you give them (the opposition) so much hell? I say I give them the truth and they think it is hell,” Gov. Beebe said paraphrasing the former President’s quote to polite laughter from the largely Democratic gathering at the non-partisan noon group.

Sitting just two tables away from the podium, state Rep. Justin Harris, R-West Fork, fired up his Twitter account and began 140-word versions of many of the remarks that Gov. Beebe made to the club membership.

And it didn’t take the governor long to get around to the upcoming fiscal session and the rumors that the Affordable Care Act (also known as Obamacare) might have trouble being approved in the fiscal session in 2014.

Beebe took close aim at those who did not vote for the state’s Private Option plan, which passed both the state House and the state Senate by more than the mandated three-fourths vote margin.

“Those who voted against the Private Option measure either didn’t listen to the facts presented or their ideology took over,” Beebe said, pausing for a chilling effect on those who were present.

Continuing on, the governor said those who were against offering health care to the poor, an estimated 250,000 Arkansans, were simply in the wrong political arena.

“Many were doing what their constituents wanted them to do, oppose Obamacare, but that’s a fight they will have to make in Washington D.C. — not down at the state capitol in Little Rock,” said Beebe.

Harris, following the meeting said he “knew what I was walking into,” going to hear the governor speak.

Harris was one of a minority of the house members from Northwest Arkansas to vote against the Private Option.

He was joined in the ‘no’ with State Reps. Charlene Fite, Jonathan Barnett, Bob Ballenger, Randy Alexander, Dan Dotson and Debra Hobbs.

Republican State House members voting “for” for Private Option were: Charlie Collins, Micah Neal, Duncan Baird, Les Carmine, Mary Lou Slinkard, Sue Scott and Dan Douglas.

The lone two Democrats in Northwest Arkansas, Rep. Greg Leding and David Whitaker, both voted, “yes.”

Northwest Arkansas house members voted 9-7 for the Private Option, a statistic not lost on Beebe.

Another point the governor brought out both prior to and when speaking was on his legacy of two-terms in office.

“I would have thought through the years in the state Senate and as attorney general and now as governor, I would be thought of as an education/ economic development reformer, but some of my staff — like the state’s Surgeon General and the Director of the Department of Human Services — said I might go down in the history books as a ‘Health Care Governor.’ Who knew? I sure didn’t but I’ll take it,” Beebe said to polite laughter.

The state’s chief executive started the day in Fort Smith announcing 65 new jobs, spoke at a luncheon fielding questions and ended the early afternoon with a ceremony on Advanced Placement Test Scores at Prairie Grove High School.

Fit, tanned and rested, the governor, again, resisted the pull of running for elective office again.

“There will be some opportunities for me to serve on some boards that will have an impact, but elective office, I’m done,” he said.