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 ...
G-d forbid!
Which isn't always a good thing (SC, TN, MS).
I wonder what made Arkansas so different from the trajectory of the other Southern states.
A lack of those damn Yankees?
If that's what kept Arkansas Democrat, the "damn Yankees" should have invaded long ago.
BTW, isn't everyone forgetting Winthrop Rockefeller?
Ah, yes, I’ve heard of them. I have both their autographs.
Read further down, I addressed Winthrop Rockefeller.
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