OPINION | REX NELSON: A governor’s charge


It's hard to believe it has been almost 30 years. I vividly remember that Tuesday night in the summer of 1993. Bill Clinton was in his turbulent first months as president, and Arkansas was holding a special election for lieutenant governor.

Clinton resigned as governor following his election as president in November 1992, and Democrat Jim Guy Tucker automatically moved up from lieutenant governor. Tucker called the special election. A Republican preacher from Texarkana named Mike Huckabee had lost handily in November 1992 to U.S. Sen. Dale Bumpers (D-Ark).

Huckabee, a gifted orator, had gained name recognition in that losing campaign while assembling an impressive 75-county organization of volunteers. He put those volunteers back to work in his race for lieutenant governor against Democrat Nate Coulter, another fine orator who these days runs the Central Arkansas Library System.

As political editor of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, I spent several days on the road that spring with each candidate. Huckabee was helped by the fact that the chairman of the Republican National Committee was Haley Barbour from next door in Mississippi. With little else going on around the country in the way of elective politics, Barbour set out to embarrass the new president on Clinton's home turf.

Huckabee won, though just barely. I was in the Democrat-Gazette newsroom at the corner of Capitol and Scott streets in downtown Little Rock as votes were counted, writing the lead story for the next day's newspaper. By the time we finished work, it was nearing midnight. I placed a call to Huckabee, seeing if I could meet him the next day to get quotes for a follow-up story. He invited me to join his family in the next hour for a meal at a Denny's in west Little Rock.

In the wee hours of Wednesday morning, I sat with Huckabee, his wife Janet, sons David and John Mark and the youngest, a daughter named Sarah. I was impressed with how articulate and keyed in to politics Sarah was for a 10-year-old.

No one could have guessed on that night that Mike Huckabee would move up to governor following Tucker's resignation three years later. And I couldn't have guessed that I would leave this newspaper to serve as policy and communications director in the governor's office. I went to work on his first day in office--July 15, 1996--and was at Huckabee's side for most of the next decade, until being appointed in 2005 to a position in the administration of President George W. Bush.

The new governor worried about Sarah having to leave friends behind in Texarkana while getting to know people in the big city of Little Rock. Being a governor's daughter can't be easy, especially for a 14-year-old girl. But I watched during that decade as Sarah flourished at Little Rock Central High School and then at her father's college alma mater, Ouachita Baptist University.

The reason I was appalled by the general election campaign Sarah Huckabee Sanders ran this year is because I know how smart she is. How could she miss an opportunity to reach out, open the "big tent" as Ronald Reagan called it, and unite Arkansans behind a common vision prior to taking office? In one of the country's reddest states, there was no way she was going to lose.

Her refusal to focus on a vision for Arkansas made me fear that she might actually believe the gibberish she spewed when she worked at the White House. I understand politics. I managed her father's campaign in 1998 for a full four-year term as governor.

Though I didn't like it, I understood Sanders' contribution appeals to members of the Donald Trump cult nationwide. The tactic worked, scaring Lt. Gov. Tim Griffin and Attorney General Leslie Rutledge out of the race. Sanders was only left with primary opposition from the GOP's nuttiest fringe.

When the filing period ended, she could have shifted. She never did, continuing to run against a nonexistent "radical left" in Arkansas.

Better late than never, the shift occurred election night. Sanders gave an upbeat victory speech that was all about Arkansas. The next day, she announced that highly respected Little Rock attorney Kevin Crass would head her transition effort.

Maybe, just maybe, Sanders will govern like her father--as a moderate and pragmatist. I'm biased, but I think Mike Huckabee was among our best Arkansas governors.

Sanders is a bit young to be thinking of her legacy, but I would encourage her to ask herself a question: "How would you like be remembered--as someone who lied to reporters on behalf of a man who likely will go down as the worst president in American history, or as one of the country's top governors?"

I hope our governor-elect will consider a few pieces of advice from an old family friend:

• Surround yourself with good people. A governor is going to attract sycophants who don't have the best interest of taxpayers in mind. They seek only to advance their own fortunes and thus tell the officeholder what he or she wants to hear. Sarah, you need qualified people who will tell you what you need to hear, not what you want to hear. The selection of Crass for the transition was a great start. Don't worry about party affiliation. Look instead for knowledge, professionalism and a shared love of Arkansas.

• Forget national politics for now. The silliness coming out of Washington, D.C., has little to do with building a better Arkansas. You're only 40. You have decades of public service ahead of you if that's the path you choose. If you want to get on that national stage, the best way is to be a successful Arkansas governor for eight years, who shows she can unite people rather than further divide them at this critical juncture in U.S. history. Forget the culture wars. The path to national stardom is helping Arkansas reach its potential. Play the long game.

• Quit coming across as haughty. Arkansans hate haughtiness. Your refusal to meet with reporters and take questions from the public on a regular basis during the campaign was a bad look. Like your father, you have a gift for thinking on your feet. Use that gift. Get out in the state. Take any question that comes your way. Hang out in coffee shops. Be one of us. This isn't the White House. This is Arkansas.

• Focus on education. Your father fought a truly heroic battle in his final four-year term after the Arkansas Supreme Court ruled in November 2002 that the state's system of funding public education was inadequate and inequitable. He pushed needed school consolidation through the Legislature along with the necessary spending increases. Your task now is to expand the definition of public education from K-12 to pre-K through 14 or 16. On the front end, we must spend more on pre-kindergarten programs in an era when many children come from one-parent or no-parent households. On the back end, we must quit starving higher education. We'll never increase the per capita income until we have far more Arkansans with associate's, bachelor's and even master's degrees.

• Become the broadband governor. It's essential to the survival of rural Arkansas in an era when two-thirds of counties are losing population. Make it a goal to have reliable broadband Internet service in every part of Arkansas before the end of your first term.

• Remember how important quality-of-life amenities are to attracting and retaining talented people. One of your father's greatest feats (with lots of help from your mother) was leading the campaign for what's now Amendment 75, the so-called conservation tax that allowed us to establish the finest system of state parks in the country. Be a conservationist.

Good luck, Sarah. Please know that Arkansans are rooting for you. We're all in this together.


Rex Nelson is a senior editor at the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.


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