There is a little something positive happening in the Democratic gubernatorial candidacy of Chris Jones. It is unclear at this time how little it is.
Evidence is entirely anecdotal except for a bit of polling along with theories from political analysts that seem relevant.
This may also explain why Jones went soft and loving in the debate last week. If he already is getting the entrenched anti-Sarah Sanders votes based on her pronounced negatives, then why hammer those in a debate and risk seeming mean? Why not seek to appeal personally to swing voters who may have some aversion to Sanders? Why not let loose with a pastor's loving, generous nature?
Here is the anecdotal evidence: I've received a few entirely unsolicited comments from white male conservatives that they are thinking of voting for Jones because they want a governor in the Mike Beebe-Asa Hutchinson mold, and Jones seems to offer that more than does the hyper-conservatism and national-profile obsession of Sanders. Others say they're hearing the same thing while seeing a strong dominance for Jones in yard signs--which are not votes, of course--from Batesville to Rogers.
The polling element is that, twice now, weeks apart, the Talk Business and Politics-Hendrix College poll has shown Sanders with a smaller lead over Jones that that of other statewide Republican candidates over Democratic challengers. The lead in the first poll was 51-40. It was 51-41 last week, which is perhaps confirmation that Sanders limps while other Republicans coast.
On Sunday's "Capitol View" program on KARK-TV when host Roby Brock presented the 51-41 findings, he solicited explanations from two solid political analysts--one, Jay Barth, a Democrat, and the other, Robert Coon, a Republican.
It was mainly Coon the Republican who provided the explanation, though Barth concurred. It is that Sanders is breaking the modern Arkansas Republican 60 percent-plus mold of running to win both the Republican vote and the independent and right-leaning vote. She's running only for the Republican vote.
I told Brock in our regular Monday video that I didn't understand running by design for an inside straight and maybe 54 percent rather than for something more comfortable and impressive at 60 percent or above. He explained that it makes no sense in the state context, but does make sense if the greater interest is a national solid-right profile--the idea being to compete in that arena with the likes of Ron DeSantis and Greg Abbott.
Of course. Sanders runs from a national political profile as Donald Trump's press secretary. Her campaign rhetoric appearing on her vast social media presence is mostly about protecting the state from national liberal Democrats. That is both a serviceable message for the state and a sustaining one on the national level.
But the explanation essentially concedes that Sanders is running less about Arkansas than her national profile. And that, in turn, is why she polls less impressively than other lower-profile Republicans.
Sanders calculates that her tactic will be enough for the state and sufficient as well nationally.
It helps explain why she could stay stymied around 50 percent or in the low-50s while independent voters turn to or begin to take a serious look at Jones.
I'm not suggesting great risk of defeat for her. I'm not suggesting this dynamic could produce a Jones upset. I'm saying it's a little something that's happening.
I'm citing it to tell you that state Democrats have appealed to the National Democratic Governors Association for financial help by arguing that Jones is as robust a Southern Democratic gubernatorial candidate as they possess, including Beto O'Rourke or even Stacey Abrams.
I'm citing it to tell you that even realistic Democrats are permitting themselves to dream of 45 percent and what that might portend for eventual turning of the ship at sea.
I'm also citing it to contend, or at least express my hope, that the office of governor remains separate in Arkansas from national Democratic-loathing trends.
Governor is an office for which the Democrat Beebe could win all 75 counties in the modern day even as the Republican wave rose up around him. Arkansas is where Hutchinson could maintain generally high job approval ratings while doing war with the raging right-wing base in a supermajority of his own party in the Legislature.
Even Sanders' dad, Mike Huckabee, governed pragmatically and moderately--sometimes even progressively--as a recent Arkansas Republican.
But time flies and this is not Sanders' father's Republican Party. It's one dealing with the after-effect of the Trump toxins.
The new Huckabee generation has seen the bright national neon. And it has done calculations to design a path to stay in the neon's national glow while incidentally holding serve as governor of Arkansas.
And, from that, a little unquantifiable something percolates down in Arkansas for Chris Jones.
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.