The insiders' buzz in the governor's race last week was the utter blundering catastrophe Asa Hutchinson made of a simple question.
Was he a member of the Arkansas Farm Bureau?
Either you are, or you aren't, or you're Asa.
It's all on YouTube, and you really need to see it. Go to youtube.com and, in the search box, enter "Congressman Hutchinson's Farm Bureau fiasco." That's the Mike Ross campaign's title for the video it posted from an audience member's recording.
If that doesn't work, wait around for Ross to make a television commercial of the video, as surely he will. Perhaps he'll use this tagline: "Which of these candidates for governor seems out of touch with Arkansas?"
Let me make something perfectly clear: A candidate for governor need not be a member of the Farm Bureau. And I have never agreed with the Farm Bureau on much of anything.
My interest is different. I'm curious as to the remote location Hutchinson parked his brain before he went on stage Tuesday morning in Springdale with a moderator and Ross for a joint forum before a Farm Bureau group.
One of myriad compelling reasons I could never run for office is that I would answer an inquiry as to whether I was a Farm Bureau member by saying, "Nope. I'm a city boy. Get my insurance from State Farm. Disagree with the Farm Bureau on just about everything. But, hey, I'm happy to be here."
That would have been better than Hutchinson's response, which went as follows: "I didn't pay any money." (He paused; there was a murmur in the audience, so he kept digging.) "I don't know whether I'm a member of the Farm Bureau or not. I haven't--I've been in Congress. I worked with the Farm Bureau. I've been to your meetings. I'm not sure what it takes to be an official member."
Then came Ross, who has also been in Congress. He said: "I am a member of the Arkansas Farm Bureau. I pay my--what is it?--$35 annual fee. And I always get that free dinner at the Prescott-Nevada County Fair."
Ross got applause whereas Hutchinson got a "hmmm" and a "huh?"
I heard speculation afterward that the question might have been a Ross campaign plant, asked by a Democrat standing at the ready with a smartphone recorder. The question came from a television journalist as moderator who was merely reading audience members' submissions.
But a planted question is no excuse for a brainless answer.
In some ways, but not every way, this vignette depicts the same political and cultural divide as in the U.S. Senate race.
Mark Pryor, like fellow Democrat Ross, is a lingering practitioner of traditional Arkansas politics, attending the tomato festival.
Tom Cotton, like fellow Republican Hutchinson, is far less of that culture. He is more about a national political essence, hobnobbing with the Koch brothers.
But this momentary Asa meltdown represents an additional and vexing dynamic.
Yes, Hutchinson is less immersed in Arkansas political tradition than Ross. But the more relevant question is whether he lacks some basic ability to relate to the state's voters.
It's whether his 0-3 record in statewide races over three decades is the fault of the very hamfistedness he revealed one more time Tuesday in Springdale.
They say Hutchinson is a good courtroom lawyer. So it can't be that he has an essential failing in thinking on his feet.
It may be that personal detachment is simply his chronic political weakness. It's hard on a long campaign trail not to reveal yourself once in a while.
It should not have been hard to answer: "No, I am not actually a member of the Farm Bureau. But I've certainly been a longtime admirer and supporter."
Instead, Hutchinson stepped in more you-know-what than he ever got on his boots as a kid on the farm--which he once was, you know.
That background makes even more confounding the horrible answer that put a little juice to Ross' charge that Asa has gone all Washington as a Bush administration muckety-muck and lobbyist.
In the Senate race, the ultimate question is whether Arkansas has become so nationalized, Republicanized and monetized in its politics that even a cold extremist like Cotton can beat a consummate traditional Arkansas politician like Pryor.
In the governor's race, it's whether Arkansas has become so nationalized, Republicanized and monetized in its politics than even a guy who professes not to know whether he's a member of the Farm Bureau can beat a consummate traditional Arkansas politician like Ross.
Has Arkansas become so irrepressibly Republican that even Cotton and Hutchinson can win?
It's a generational question and a generational moment.
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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 07/27/2014