Democrats should throttle back their desire to rain terror on Republicans – even if they will soon have the ability to do that – because that’s not what the public wants.
That was one of the many pearls trotted out by Skip Rutherford, legendary Arkansas political insider, who spoke Thursday at the Arkansas Times fundraising luncheon held each month at Copper Grill.
“We don’t need revenge and rebuttal,” he told the packed room. “The Democrats don’t need to do that. That’s not what voters sent people to Washington for. We should not think of Tuesday as an overwhelming mandate to do something stupid. We’ve done that before.”
In a wide-ranging talk, Rutherford, the founding president of the Clinton Foundation and the longtime dean of the Clinton School of Public Service, touched on everything from newly passed Sunday alcohol sales in Pine Bluff and Hot Springs to what Democrat might be able to win the presidency in 2028. (He thinks Georgia Sen. Jon Ossoff has a chance.) And, of course, Tuesday’s election.
But Rutherford spent much of his time saying Democrats need to spend their political capital on topics that move the needle in people’s lives – restoring Republicans’ cuts to Medicaid, the Affordable Care Act and SNAP benefits, for instance.
That take was questioned by an audience member who spoke of
Trump as heading up a “crime family” that needed to be investigated and punished.
“We can walk and chew gum at the same time,” Rutherford responded. “But we need to walk before we chew gum. We’ve got to get the cost of healthcare down, end the war in Iran, take care of places in our country that don’t have grocery stores. We’ve got to build people up before we tear people down. Impeaching Trump should not be our priority. Let’s get people back to a life that’s civil, that’s respectable.”
Rutherford used Issue 3, which was defeated by voters, as an example. The issue would have allowed local entities to levy taxes and give tax dollars to private businesses and developers in special economic development districts. He said Issue 3 didn’t fare well in many urban areas in the state because voters associated the measure with the spread of data centers.
“Those voters said, ‘We just don’t trust these guys. We don’t trust the government,’” he said.
“But voters in the Delta voted overwhelmingly for Issue 3,” he continued. “They are desperate for something positive. They are crying for help. We need to listen to those voters. They don’t care if (Defense Secretary) Pete Hegseth is impeached. They are looking for something that makes their lives better.”
Rutherford said Tuesday’s national election results, in which Democrats from coast to coast were swept into state and federal offices, were quite a surprise for him.
“I did not predict the political sweeps in Texas and Georgia,” he said. “I didn’t see that coming. I also would never have predicted South Carolina and now what looks like could be a Senate win in Mississippi. And look how close we got in Florida and Louisiana. None of these were on anybody’s radar.”
And even though the blue wave did not extend in the same way to Arkansas, Rutherford said Democrats here could take some comfort in the political progress represented by Tuesday’s outcomes. He said Clarke Tucker, then a Democratic member of the House and now a state senator, got 35% of the vote in Faulkner County in 2018 when he ran against Republican Congressman French Hill. “Chris Jones got 42% on Tuesday,” Rutherford said.
And while Tucker got 30% of the Saline County vote that year and 65% of the Pulaski County vote, Jones got 36% and 65%, respectively.
Wendell Griffen, Rutherford said, gets credit for identifying the public’s negative response to data centers, which helped the former circuit judge get 69% of the vote, making him the next county judge for Pulaski County. Had the 2nd Congressional District not been gerrymandered by Republicans in 2021 and Jones received 69% of the Pulaski County votes that were carved out of the district to protect Hill, “we’d be calling Jones Mr. Congressman-elect today.”
Rutherford also praised the state legislative seats that were flipped from red to blue and said that even the governor’s race showed improvement.
“Sanders got 10 percentage points less than she did the first time she ran,” Rutherford said. “It’s a drop. It’s a big drop.”
He said money didn’t buy Republican happiness across the country where the GOP largely outspent Democrats – but it did in the race between Republican incumbent Tom Cotton and Democrat Hallie Shoffner, in which Cotton raised many times over what Shoffner banked.
“He was able to use the subject of transgender athletes and American citizenship against her,” Rutherford said. “And she didn’t have the resources to respond. She couldn’t defend against those attacks. So my advice, if you’re going to run for office, have an early war chest. Money doesn’t always talk, but it did for Tom Cotton.”
As for getting rid of Trump, Rutherford asked why Democrats would bother.
“You’ve got a president obsessed with helipads, arches, a ballroom, monuments and muscular rear ends,” he said. “He’s the best thing that could happen to Democrats. You couldn’t be given that kind of gift.”