When I was 5 years old in 1951, I watched my daddy run for mayor of Little Rock, win, and become the first Republican elected in the South in the 80 years since Reconstruction after the Civil War.
Dad was a Lincoln Republican who believed all Americans, including Black people, had the right to vote, and he felt that our American democracy was sacrosanct.
I am currently frightened to see that in 2022, my beloved Arkansas is predicted by most pundits to be poised to elect a staunch supporter and virtual puppet of a blatant traitor to the U.S. Constitution. Blessedly for us locals, we have a better choice.
As a 75-year-old Arkansan with family roots here going back to 1803, I am happy we have a home-grown candidate who can make us all proud to be from here, Chris Jones, from Pine Bluff, a Morehouse graduate with a Ph.D. from MIT, is a kind, intelligent man, fully capable of running a very complex operation like our state's government.
After election day in November, our state's new governor will have to deal with three huge issues:
1. The global climate crisis as it relates directly to Arkansas. The best and brightest scientists in America and around the world told deaf political/economic ears 50 years ago that by the 2020s, unless industrialized nations drastically changed their patterns and created long-term sustainable economies, our world would be in major crisis. Duh. They were right.
Scientists predicted the polar ice caps and glaciers are melting because drastically increasing carbon in the atmosphere is creating global warming. Sea levels are rising, desertification is increasing, we are witnessing an extinction era of entire species of animals, fires in the American West are becoming hotter, more frequent, and more deadly, hurricanes and tornadoes are stronger, and huge downpours (i.e., feet) of rain are falling in hours (not days, weeks or months).
When this was predicted a half-century ago. I was in a quandary, having been raised to become a businessman, make money, and take a privileged place in the society where I grew up. However, I decided to go against the grain, not to try to increase the family fortune, but spend my little inheritance to do whatever work I thought might be useful.
I really believed our society would choose a sustainable path for humanity on Earth. I was wrong. We are at a very dangerous pivot point. Do I trust Sarah Sanders to help lead Arkansas into a sustainable workable future? Not at all. Sarah mimics her old boss who made the decision, against the best advice of the most renowned scientists of America, to withdraw the United States from the Paris Climate Accord. Sarah was his parrot. Her position now is to pretend that the global climate crisis does not exist.
2. People in the United States are politically polarized. A number of folks from Arkansas were proud to go to Washington, D.C., to attack the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. Then, when their treason failed miserably, they wanted us all to forget it: "Oh, come on, just let it go, it was just a protest!" Arkansas needs a moderating force as governor, not an ideologue who only is good at spouting negativity. We need political healing, not more division.
3. Arkansas is facing the myriad economic problems of being one of the poorest states in the United States: health care, schools, roads, taxes, infrastructure, to name a few. We have our own set of billionaires who are doing quite well; they need not be the focus of our state government. Our governor must work wisely for the vast majority of this state's citizens.
Chris Jones has a background of working with real problems in the real world, while Ms. Sanders' major political asset is that she was "world famous" for being the press secretary for the most divisive president in American history. While her father was a quite decent governor of our state (my sister Cathie Matthews was in Gov. Huckabee's cabinet for years as director of his Arkansas Department of Heritage) Sarah brings no proven leadership nor known ability for problem solving to manage this state of the union. While I'd like to believe she's a good person, kind to her family and friends, I'd never trust her to manage a government.
Democracy matters. This election in Arkansas Tuesday, then on Nov. 8, will show whether Arkansas voters choose democracy or want what Sarah seems determined to bring us: divisiveness and fake news. I believe Chris Jones believes in democracy.
I am honored to announce that my lifelong friend Kimberly P. Clark of Eureka Springs and I are creating Independent Voters and Patriotic Republicans for Chris Jones for Governor.
A similar organization, Democrats and Independents for Winthrop Rockefeller, played a real role in electing a shy scion of one of America's most famous wealthy families to become governor of Arkansas in 1966. Kind, generous Big Win was a very long shot back then, but the will was found, many people worked very hard, and it happened.
Kimberly and I are hoping the enthusiasm and good will of many independents and patriotic Republicans, working with Democrats, will likewise help to carry a different election on a different election day--this one for Chris Jones.
May we together go onward, forward, to repair democracy here in our beautiful, beloved Arkansas.
Pratt Cates Remmel Jr. lives in Little Rock.