OPINION

OPINION | JOHN BRUMMETT: All about the letters

In her 30-second rebuttal to a pair of one-minute answers by her opponents, neither of which had given her anything to rebut, Sarah Huckabee Sanders extolled duck hunting and fly fishing in Arkansas.

The question on the floor was whether Arkansas political fundraising ought to be as heavily out-of-state as Sanders' campaign treasury, which has been supplied mostly from Trumpsters nationwide.

Sanders said haughtily, but I repeat myself, that she wasn't going to apologize for any support she gets.

Democrat Chris Jones had to acknowledge in his response that he, too, got a high percentage of out-of-state support. The Libertarian said even he got a little.

And, poof, there went your one statewide televised gubernatorial debate in Arkansas for 2022.

Sanders won it narrowly by being unopposed.

At another point in the hour-long debate-ish event Friday on the Arkansas Educational Television Network, Sanders vowed--after running up against the one-minute time limit--that she would manage in subsequent responses to get to all the letters in her LEARNS program.

That is what she calls her plan about ... letters. Jones has one of those, too, called PB&J.

Apparently, the campaign thing anymore is to put words together for an acronym. I don't know what either acronym stands for. And I don't care. Public policy should be about passionate beliefs no matter the first letters of words.

Sanders made the vow to get to all the letters in subsequent responses without regard for what subsequent questions might be. It didn't matter. As it turned out, no question or opponent challenged her in the least on saying Arkansas school teachers have been indoctrinating rather than educating, or that she might somehow lead Arkansas in violating federal law to spite Joe Biden, or that the federal government's failure in Mexican-border policies bears on what an Arkansas governor does.

So, the following exchange didn't really happen, but could have:

Panelist: Mrs. Sanders, do you accept that Joe Biden is the legally elected president of the United States?

Sanders: Thank you. Let me return now to my LEARNS program. The R stands for Razorback, which I am proud to be, which reminds me of the best poll numbers I've seen lately: Arkansas 52, BYU 35.

That exchange couldn't have happened because no panelist was going ask that, and no opponent was going to touch it, or much of anything negative toward her.

Had it happened, Jones likely would simply have agreed with Sanders about that big Hog victory in Provo.

Jones seemed entirely too timid, although I'm told he was being sanguine by strategic purpose. I don't know that purpose.

His only memorable line was that he loved both Sarah and the Libertarian, the latter of whom was there because Arkansas PBS, as a public entity, can't go around arbitrarily excluding candidates who aren't going to get many votes.

Private debate sponsors could set a polling minimum to qualify, but then Sanders wouldn't come. She consented to the Arkansas PBS debate, and it alone, for the very reason that it has one-minute answers, 30-second rebuttals and a Libertarian third wheel to relieve her of any stress 66.67 percent of the time, the Libertarian's and hers, all but Jones' share.

On Friday, Jones kept her stress-free 100 percent of the time.

Sanders did get asked if Arkansas politics should be less about national issues and more about Arkansas issues. She bravely replied you need a balance.

The others said ... oh, hell, I don't remember what they said.

Sanders also got asked about avoiding Arkansas reporters. She said the press has a responsibility to be fair and accurate, and that she has the right if it isn't fair and accurate to get out of the box in her communications strategies.

She insists on written questions even from this newspaper, which is conservative Republican editorially and, on the news side, fair and balanced for real.

It's perfectly understandable that she won't talk to me. I'm not a reporter, but an opinion-writer who compares her us-against-them demagoguery to Orval Faubus and George Wallace.

My job is to comment, analyze and stake out and support opinions. These days it often is to relieve myself into gale-force winds.

Liberal Democrats think my job is never to say Sanders won a debate. But it's their nominee's job to keep that from being the truth to which I'm beholden.

All Arkansas PBS debate participants are invited to proceed singularly post-debate in a drawn-for order into a room filled with cameras and reporters for a little post-game Q-and-A. Sanders didn't show.

I suspect it was because she couldn't be sure all the reporters possess the bountiful, obliging heart of Jones.

I saw a fellow I hadn't expected at an event Thursday night honoring the Arkansas press. He explained that Gov. Asa Hutchinson was among the speakers and that he thought it might be the last time for a while that an Arkansas governor spoke to a newspaper group.

That was in keeping with my MAST theme, which stands for Missing Asa Something Terrible.


John Brummett, whose column appears regularly in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, is a member of the Arkansas Writers' Hall of Fame. Email him at jbrummett@arkansasonline.com. Read his @johnbrummett Twitter feed.



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