The Arkansas Press Association will convene tomorrow in Hot Springs. That should mean nothing to you other than for the political event that might have been.
Until Friday, the schedule of events listed a debate, or joint forum, at 2:30 p.m. between the epic and ever-warring U.S. Senate combatants, Mark Pryor and Tom Cotton.
But now it won't happen. That leaves the marquee to the gubernatorial candidates, Mike Ross and Asa Hutchinson, and the ever-ready panel of media pundits who'll wrap up with piercing analysis and insight.
I lack the will or energy to make much of an issue of who is ducking whom and why.
I don't think Cotton fears Pryor. And I don't think Pryor would mind bringing up Cotton's clumsy attack on his religion and Cotton's absence from the Pink Tomato Festival for a Koch brothers' confab and Cotton's typically extremist votes against federal disaster relief.
As best I can determine, this is what happened:
Cotton's people noted to the press association people weeks ago that the U.S. House of Representatives' schedule showed votes on the day of the debate.
There was discussion that Cotton might Skype in, which is what U.S. Rep. Tim Griffin will do for his set-to with Democratic opponent John Burkhalter in the lieutenant governor's debate.
But then Cotton's people related several days ago that the Skype session wouldn't fit into the schedule either.
Cotton's people suggested moving the day of the debate, but the press people said they couldn't.
Then Pryor, aware Cotton was out and that he would appear for grilling either by himself or with a third-party foe, said he couldn't make it either.
On Friday, the July 4th holiday, the APA canceled the Senate event.
David Ray, spokesman for the Cotton campaign, counsels me not to portray young Tom as unwilling. Quite the contrary, Ray said, Cotton would take on Pryor on Saturday for any amount of time under any format.
Indeed, it is Cotton who has suggested a series of free-form debates in the Lincoln-Douglas style.
Curiously, Pryor and Cotton have been unable as yet to agree even to a date for a statewide debate offered by television station KATV, Channel 7.
I suspect--and this is merely instinct, not informed speculation--that the format is the issue for Cotton and Pryor.
I figure Cotton wants a free-form debate, with the candidates talking to each other and challenging each other, and that Pryor wants the usual concession to decorum and protection.
That should not reflect poorly on either candidate.
Cotton is the lesser-known challenger who, I think, trails narrowly in the race. (That's despite three recent polls from Republican firms putting him slightly ahead.)
Either way, Cotton has more to gain from being the aggressor. He'd like to break through Pryor's mealy-mouthed moderation.
Pryor likes the prevailing dynamic. He has more to lose.
He would prefer the usual moderator and panel and timekeeper, and perhaps a leash for Cotton.
Conventional wisdom is that Cotton would enter a debate as the favorite because he is, if nothing else, decisive. Pryor is, if nothing else, moderate and given to mushy finesse.
Decisiveness, even of a zealous and extreme nature, better serves a debate than qualified and finessed answers.
But conventional wisdom can be wrong.
Pryor's meekness and niceness could work well, especially if he is doing some polite hammering of Cotton amid that moderation and niceness.
Cotton could come off as unpleasant and unappealing, which is how he pretty much is coming off in his campaigning.
In that regard, U.S. News and World Report dipped into the state the other day. It was interested in why Cotton, the darling of the conservative commentariat inside the Beltway, is having trouble connecting with people on the campaign trail in Republicanized Arkansas.
The article says Cotton is burdened by a campaign style that is too academic and wooden for a state that still values retail politics as practiced by outsized personalities like Bill Clinton and Mike Huckabee.
The quotation from the article getting the most notice came from Janine Parry, a political science professor at the University of Arkansas. She said that Cotton, "bless his heart," is getting a bit of a reputation as a "cold fish."
You've read that basic analysis in this space, absent any blessing of hearts.
It's this simple:
Cotton wins a race that is about Pryor.
Cotton loses a race that is about Cotton.
Pryor has succeeded to some extent, with Cotton's help, in making the race about Cotton.
Any time you spend fretting about Cotton is time not spent riled at Pryor over Obamacare.
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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 07/10/2014