This post was originally published by the Arkansas Times on December 2, 2023.
A banner hangs down in front of the store, a ripple and crack as the wind snaps the rainbow fabric in an early November gust. I’m strolling the streets of Eureka Springs before speaking to the Carroll County Democrats at their annual fall fundraiser. I’m enjoying a quiet afternoon in this enclave of inclusion, an Ozark anomaly that exists in contradictions as stark as the contrast between a fluttering gay rights flag and a memorial to xenophobic politician Gerald L.K. Smith that overlooks this corner of the Boston Mountains.
That evening, I’ll challenge a crowd that trends older, whiter, and more liberal than most of the audiences I’ve met over the last year. I’ll demand that they seize the opportunities that lie before us – opportunities to contrast the Democratic Party with the supermajority GOP, beset by accusations of cover-up, extravagant spending, dominance by out-of-state bureaucrats who’ve blown into town and crafted a voucher scam that will divert hundreds of millions of tax dollars to private schools.
At the end of the evening, a prospective candidate on the fence will tell me he plans to run for the state legislature after embracing the challenge.
This has been my life for the past six months as the political director for a Southern state Democratic Party — have Subaru, will travel. In the face of a Republican legislative supermajority hellbent on bowing to the every whim of the swampy, D.C.-style bullying of the Sarah Huckabee Sanders administration, the only recourse is seismic electoral change across Arkansas. And the only path to that change is showing up in communities to listen, encourage, cajole, exhort, equip, and sometimes, demand.
It’s an incredibly fun and exhausting life. I’ve been to more than 50 counties in Arkansas since the beginning of the year. I’ve seen some of the most beautiful countryside on Earth, from rolling Ouachita and Ozark hills to Delta soil that feeds and clothes the world. Along the way, I’ve met farmers and ranchers, won silent auctions and live ones, fished the White River in Izard County and straddled the Texas and Arkansas borders at the federal courthouse in Texarkana. I’ve tasted the best catfish in St. Francis County and I’ve hopped across the river to pay my respects at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis. I’ve driven into Missouri to get between two Arkansas cities, I’ve DM’ed strangers and thrown tailgates and drank coffee with Army colonels and classroom teachers and NASA rocket scientists.
I have no idea how many miles I’ve put on my car and the poor rentals that are unlucky enough to be assigned to the Democratic Party of Arkansas. I’ve been in one fender-bender trying to get from Little Rock (where I work) back to Fayetteville (where I allegedly live). I complete a circuit between those two places and Bauxite, a town in rural Saline County, where my family lives and where I still spend a lot of time.
All the miles are worth it. The hard work is worth it because Arkansas is worth it.
In November, Democratic candidates filed to run in 64 of our 100 State House districts. It is the most House districts contested by our party since Mike Beebe was governor and Mark Pryor still held a seat in the U.S. Senate.
Our grand plans include winning a statewide election, kicking Tom Cotton’s hateful ass out of Congress and replacing Gov. Sanders. But first, we aim to break the Republican stranglehold on the People’s House. The people can do that in November 2024; that’s our state motto, after all: the people rule.
It’s abundantly clear that for this bunch in power, the people of Arkansas are the last things on their minds. Deference and submission to a haughty governor who bullies and mocks and uplifts cruelty as an ideal? Sure, that’s on the current Republican agenda. Selling out rural public schools for the 5% of Arkansans sending their kids to private schools? They’ve got it covered. Custom-printed pickleball shirts and parties with Kid Rock — the commingling of country club and trashy excess? Done and done.
But all that is out of step with Arkansas and the daily experience of regular people I’ve met in my travels. I think about the guys washing windows in downtown Blytheville: “Y’all got to do something about these guns, man. We got kids killing kids over here.” I think about the special needs mom whose kid lost state insurance. I think about the mayor in the Delta who needs a local grocery store with fresh food. I think about the Republican county judge in rural Southwest Arkansas who can’t get a meeting with the governor. And on and on and on the list goes.
The remedy? Democrats who are ready for a fight and unafraid to call out Arkansas Republicans for how far they have drifted from any recognizable form of political conservatism. Stripping out hundreds of millions of dollars from the public schools for the 5% of Arkansans, mostly the very wealthy, is antithetical to the fair and equitable education our state constitution guarantees. Conspiring to conceal the governor’s expenses on European travel and excessive luxury items for her mansion is just plain corrupt. And those are only two of the reasons the Republican supermajority must be broken in November 2024.
In this season of gratitude, I am thankful to the more than 70 Arkansans who signed up to run as Democrats for the state legislature. They’re ready for a fight.
We are, too.
