Posted on 09/13/2014 9:05:48 AM PDT by centurion316
In 1949, Harvard political scientist V. O. Key Jr. declared in his book Southern Politics in State and Nation that in Arkansas “we have the one-party system in its most undefiled and undiluted form.” Other Southern states, nearly as Democratic in those days as Arkansas, gradually became Republican. Arkansas didn’t. One-party Democratic rule in the state lasted another 60 years.
It was an amazing Democratic run that didn’t end until 2010. Now Arkansas has emerged as one of the most reliably Republican states in the country. And if Republican Tom Cotton defeats Democratic senator Mark Pryor in November and Republican Asa Hutchinson captures the governorship, the GOP ascendancy will be complete. Both Cotton and Hutchinson are favored to win.
Not long ago this was Bill Clinton’s state. Today he’s a nonfactor politically. His influence in Arkansas is striking in its absence. “I don’t think you can exaggerate how much the landscape has changed,” says Janine Parry, a professor at the University of Arkansas and director of the annual Arkansas Poll.
The partisan realignment here is historic. No state has switched party control as suddenly and totally as Arkansas. Before the 2010 election, Democrats held both Senate seats, three of the four House seats, the governorship, and both chambers of the state legislature. Republicans feared they were doomed to permanent minority status.
After the 2010 election, they stopped worrying. Republicans won all four House seats, and Republican John Boozman crushed incumbent Democratic senator Blanche Lincoln, 58 percent to 37 percent. Two years later, they took over the state legislature for the first time in 158 years. And Mitt Romney defeated President Obama in Arkansas, 61 percent to 37 percent.
(Excerpt) Read more at weeklystandard.com ...
When people first started voting for Republicans, they didn't talk about it in public or even at family gatherings. Word got out slowly that some in the family had become Republicans. It was almost as big a scandal as when my Great Great Grandfather married his daughter in law.
It's hard to find a Democrat in Bentonville these days and those that are don't talk about it. One problem, of course, is that many of those old Democrats have become Republicans, but they still think like Democrats.
Arkansas was simply late to the GOP realignment in the South. Now all Southern states are under Republican rule.
Texas used to be solidly RAT until the rats organization was captured by the commies and sodomists. Having been a sovereign nation, maybe we’re more skeptical of interlopers and usurpers.
I wonder what made Arkansas so different from the trajectory of the other Southern states.
“One problem, of course, is that many of those old Democrats have become Republicans, but they still think like Democrats.”
And therein lies the rub!
Seems you can no longer ‘mug’ a Democrat ENOUGH to turn him Republican. :(
The switch from blue to red may have been in the making for some time. Arkansas has voted Republican in every presidential election beginning with 2000.
A lack of those damn Yankees?
“Now all Southern states are under Republican rule.”
Yeah, like Thad Cochran, Saxby Chamblis, and Linda Graham just for openers. Oh, and then there’s Floriduh, but I guess it’s hard to describe Floriduh as “The South.” It’s really the Cubano-Jewish “Riviera.”
Unfortunately much the Delta region to the south east is still Dem.
Caused it to take LONGER to set down the Kool-Aid and stop electing Dems??
I could easily find Rats in Bentonville.I'd check out the waiting room at the Social Security office and,bingo...everyone there who's under 62 is a Rat!
Population growth would be my guess. It takes a while for the FDR democrats from the 30’s & 40’s to die off.
If you look only at the ruling GOP, I think they're to the left of where Democrats were forty years ago.
There's a whole lot of empty space on the Right.
>> One-party Democratic rule in [Arkansas] lasted another 60 years.
They say inbreeding lowers intelligence, and here’s Exhibit A. :-)
Exhibit B: anything Huckabee.
True, but you’d think that would be reasonably uniform across the region.
Arkansas has changed politically more rapidly than any other state in the union. But it’s not because its people have changed, but because every other part of the country has changed and it’s responding to those changes to protect its own best interests.
More good news out of Arkansas, Tom Cotton appears to be regaining the lead over faux moderate Mark Pryor.
Plus, many hangers on who had careers based on Democrat patronage jobs.
...
I think that’s how Democrats and liberals control so much power in states like California, where conservatives actually outnumber liberals by a couple of percentage points. They are good at doling out the money and favors.
With Democrats, politics and party is all about money, if they don’t have to work for it, so much the better. Since the advent of public employees unions, government workers have become overwhelmingly Democrat.
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