Whither Hutchinson?

 Steve Barnes

On the political chatter: For almost a half-century the South Carolina primary has been a watershed for presidential candidates of both parties. Joe Biden’s victory there revived his 2020 campaign, providing the fuel essential for securing the Democratic nomination and the White House. The opposition candidate had no difficulty in South Carolina since the state GOP canceled its balloting and handed him its delegates on a platter.

Arkansans seeking the Oval Office have had mixed results in the Palmetto State. A fellow named Clinton won almost two of every three votes in the 1992 Democratic primary and, as the opposition party would do several years after, the Democrats dispensed with their ’96 primary and awarded Clinton their delegates by acclamation. Another former Arkansas governor — a Huckabee, you’ll recall — finished a strong second to John McCain in South Carolina in 2008 before dropping out of the Republican race. Eight years later he ran again but ran out of steam before reaching the Low Country.

Now another Arkansan, another former governor — wasn’t it just yesterday that Asa Hutchinson had the job? — seeks the nation’s highest office. He is skipping South Carolina. No point going there, for the coastal air this season is too thin: Two of the state’s highest-profile Republicans, former Gov. Nicki Haley and Sen. Tim Scott, are hoping to establish themselves as viable alternatives to the former president. (Clinton, in ’92, chose to bypass the customarily mandatory Iowa caucuses, given that favorite son Sen. Tom Harkin was assured victory.)

The larger question is why Asa Hutchinson chooses to remain a candidate. (Note how we’re backing into this.) He has said he wants to reorient his party, pull it more to the center, more to a “traditional” Republican posture — a Main Street domestic conservatism and an internationalist foreign policy. Not a solitary poll — those pesky polls again — suggests that there is room for that approach in the current political climate. To the contrary, those same surveys register Hutchinson with microscopic support while the red meat, hot button populism of the former president makes him still the overwhelming front-runner for the GOP bid.

Hutchinson insists on admonishing Republican audiences that the former president would not only fall short next November but damage the party’s down-ballot prospects, and that he may well be a convicted felon before year’s end. Then weathers the boos and catcalls that follow, as at the recent Florida “Freedom Summit.” (Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, with the same message, gets the same response.) To the earlier point: Florida Gov. Ron De-Santis, who had hoped to displace the former president in the party’s affections, is said to be losing ground in his own state, where (as elsewhere) the mayor of Mar-a-Lago is viewed as the Real Thing, not Brand X. Should he maintain his present momentum, with or without criminal convictions, the previous president should cement the Republican nomination on March 5, when 16 states choose their delegates. Such was Gov. Sarah Sanders’ assessment, ergo her endorsement of her former boss, perhaps not always assured; and less an insult to Hutchinson than an investment in her political future.

Hutchinson’s longtime spokesman and campaign manager, Rob Burgess, departed several days ago, and was quickly replaced by Allison Williams, who has been at the candidate’s side virtually without interruption since his Congressional days, nearly 30 years ago. Williams has the candidate’s confidence, and for however long the campaign continues it might as well be her at the helm.

It’s not Hutchinson’s effort that animates the political conversation in Arkansas, nor the foregone conclusion that the previous president will capture the state a third time should he become the Republican nominee. No, what ricocheted across the email and telephone circuits before dawn on a recent Sunday was a New York Times poll that delighted Republicans and pitched Democrats into deep despair. The newspaper’s survey found that in all but one of the six crucial swing states — Pennsylvania, Nevada, Wisconsin, Michigan, Georgia and Arizona — Mr. Biden trails his most likely Republican rival.

“This has to ratchet up the pressure to withdraw,” one Arkansas pol posted.

A Democrat with a somewhat larger audience blogged along the same lines.

“Mr. Biden has defied the conventional wisdom before,” wrote David Axelrod, Barack Obama’s principal strategist, but the Times polling “will send tremors of doubt thru the party — not ‘bed-wetting’ but legitimate concern.

“If continues to run, he will be the nominee of the Democratic Party,” Axelrod acknowledged. But: “What he needs to decide is whether that is wise; whether it’s in HIS best interest or the country’s.”

As if in direct response, take a deep breath, suggested David Frum. A veteran Republican operative of the Asa Hutchinson school, Frum noted that at this same point in the 2012 campaign, the polls were essentially identical for a president named Obama.