We must not let 2014 pass without recognizing its appropriate place in Arkansas history, which is no less than seismic, indeed epic.
This was the year when the old Arkansas died.
Left was a place where only about four in 10 mourned.
The state's terminal condition was made known in 2010. Symptoms intensified in 2012. Time of death was an early evening hour of Tuesday, Nov. 4, 2014.
That is not to say Arkansas is gone. It lives via resurrection in another form. It is now something akin to Kansas or Oklahoma, with certain lingering southern and eastern seasonings of Mississippi and Louisiana.
But it is to say that the Arkansas that had generally existed since the end of Reconstruction, and certainly the one I'd covered for newspapers since the late 1970s, is no more.
The Arkansas now departed was distinctively one-party Democratic, at least nominally, and rural-dominated and Little Rock-centric.
The newborn Arkansas is none of that, and, in some cases, the antithesis.
Arkansas now is nigh unto one-party Republican. And Little Rock's political and economic dominance has been challenged and in some cases dwarfed by:
• Its white-flight suburbs.
• Explosions of Republicanism, population, commercial activity and cultural influence in Benton and Washington counties of Northwest Arkansas.
• A steep decline in eastern Arkansas except for new concentrations in the Jonesboro area, which now appears to be as Republican-dominated as the counties surrounding Little Rock and those tucked in the northwestern corner of the state.
The departed Arkansas, the one taking ill in 2010 and expiring in 2014, was a place where a Democrat named Pryor was an irrepressible force. The new Arkansas is one in which a Democrat named Pryor gets 39 percent.
The departed Arkansas was one in which a liberal Democrat like Vic Snyder could represent the state's central section in Congress. The new Arkansas is one in which a popular moderate Democrat and former mayor of North Little Rock could carry Pulaski County by 20,000 votes in the race for that congressional seat, yet still lose 57 percent to 43 percent when the suburban counties reported their routs of him.
The departed Arkansas was one in which farmer interests dominated politics. The new Arkansas is one that, in 2010, could give a mere 37 percent of its vote to the chairman of the Senate Agriculture Committee, then, in 2014, give 57 percent to a Republican newcomer who voted against a farm bill favored by the state's farm establishment.
The Arkansas of 2010 had strong Democratic majorities in its state legislative chambers. The Arkansas of 2014 elected strong Republican majorities for its legislative chambers.
The Arkansas of 2010 had Democrats in all seven of its constitutional offices. The Arkansas of 2014 elected Republicans to all seven of those offices.
The Arkansas of 2010 gave five of its six seats in Congress to Democrats. The Arkansas of 2014 elected Republicans to all six of those seats.
All of that is recounted merely to assert the full extent of the revolution of 2014. That full extent should not go under-appreciated. Well ... under-noticed. Some don't necessarily much appreciate it.
And it's not only a matter of politics. It's also of broader cultural implication.
It also happened in 2014 that nearly everyone in Arkansas seemed to concede that the football Razorbacks from the University of Arkansas no longer needed to play even one game a season in War Memorial Stadium in Little Rock. Not so long ago, the Razorbacks typically played three of their home games in Little Rock, owing to a fan and revenue base centered in the central, eastern and southern sections of the state.
But now television revenue matters and recruits are drawn to consolidated state-of-the art facilities, not distant second homes and quaint antiques.
There were three other major political developments in Arkansas in 2014.
One was the rise of talented and inquisitive bloggers--lawyer Matt Campbell of the Blue Hog Report, primarily--who could bring down a lieutenant governor, break news destroying a circuit judge in Faulkner County and generally advance the cause of transparency for a political culture long known for abuse and occasional corruption.
The second was that voters passed Issue Three to ban lobbyist gifts to state legislators, thus sending the revolutionized new legislative culture into a tizzy about where to find lunch and with whom to go to dinner.
The third was nothing less than remarkable: Two judges, one state and one federal, declared unconstitutional the state's ban on same-sex marriage--a policy probably favored by 70 percent of the people of the state.
In fact, same-sex marriage emerged as inevitable, both in legal and generational terms--even in Arkansas. That's despite the palpable statewide aversion whether referring to the old dead state or the new resurrected one.
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John Brummett's column appears regularly in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. Email him at jbrummett@arkansasonline.com. Read his blog at brummett.arkansasonline.com, or his @johnbrummett Twitter feed.
Editorial on 12/30/2014