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Gilbert Baker: nonpartisan partisan Saturday, Jun 7, 2008 By John Brummett Gilbert Baker is having it both ways. When I accused him of that Friday morning, he simply said, "Hey, it is what it is." Translation: I'm trying to get re-elected to the state Senate and you go ahead and write whatever you want. Baker is the Republican state senator from Conway and part of that controlling Brotherhood in the Senate, a bipartisan coalition. He is opposed for re-election this fall by a Democrat, retired businessman Joe White. Gov. Mike Beebe and Bill Gwatney, state Democratic chairman, have proclaimed that unseating Baker, former state Republican chairman, is their top electoral priority for November. Baker irked Beebe when, as state Republican chairman, he funneled money to a supposedly independent group that tried to make Beebe out to be an accessory to Nick Wilson's crimes. But other prominent Democrats, including Sen. Bob Johnson of Bigelow, the incoming president pro tempore, have actually endorsed Baker and allowed themselves to be listed hosts of fund-raisers for him. That included a big bash for Baker out near Wooster attended by a few hundred Thursday evening. I understand the curious and insular bipartisan or nonpartisan nature of Arkansas legislative politics. I've flirted with outright defenses of Johnson's aligning with Baker, even as Gwatney has sent letters asking Democratic office-holders to do the party the kind and reasonable favor of not helping Republicans raise money. It has always seemed to me that Arkansas legislative politics is about personal relationships and a pervasive conservatism that can come either with a Democratic or Republican label, mostly meaningless. You could argue that a little legislative bipartisanship or nonpartisanship doesn't look so bad when you compare it to Congress. But now there's this: Baker reaps this nominal Democratic support from Johnson and a few others, and extols his bipartisan or nonpartisan co-operation, even as he fires up the troops by invoking partisanship. He stirs Republicans to rally to his cause to keep "Little Rock Democrats" from trying to stop him and, in the process, any two-party movement. He brought in Mike Huckabee for Thursday night's event and Huckabee made the same highly partisan argument. More power to Baker if he can get way with it. Politics is about having it both ways, especially in Arkansas. And that's probably true even still in Faulkner County, where there are a lot of Republicans and a lot of conservative Democrats. But I wondered whether any of that was giving Bob Johnson pause. So I phoned him up at Johnson Brothers' offices in Bigelow. I hadn't talked to him since Beebe shoved that severance tax increase down his throat. Johnson said he appreciated my briefing him on Baker's goings-on because, actually, he's disengaged lately while obsessing on his three kids, all younger than 4. The answer was no - on being given pause by Baker's red-meat partisan tactics, that is. "One of the good things about having a consistent position, whether in business or politics, is that you don't have to get up every day worrying about what you said yesterday," Johnson said. "I'm for Gil. I think he's done a good job for those people over there. I was for him yesterday; I'm for him today; I'm going to be for him tomorrow." He said it's irrelevant that Baker may find it advisable to tap certain partisan sentiments. It's just politics. Also endorsing Baker, by the way, is his predecessor, former state Sen. Stanley Russ of Conway, a veteran nominal Democrat who got term-limited and who showed up to extol Baker at the event Thursday night. I always accused Stan of being a Republican anyway, and he always replied that he was a throwback to the good old days, a "Jeffersonian Democrat." The best way to put all this is the way Baker puts it: It is what it is. ------- John Brummett is a columnist for the Arkansas News Bureau in Little Rock. His e-mail address is jbrummett@arkansasnews.com; his telephone number is (501) 374-0699. |
