Arkansas Gov. @AsaHutchinson joins us at #TribFest22 for a live conversation moderated by @DavidMDrucker on his eight years leading the state and what he’ll do next. https://t.co/EYTXFKynw1
— Texas Tribune (@TexasTribune) September 23, 2022
Governor Hutchinson got 40 minutes of exposure this week for his national ambitions at the Texas Tribune’s annual policy festival.
You can watch the interview with David Drucker in a video posted by the Tribune. It’s the usual Hutchinson act — a bedrock conservative masquerading as something of a moderate. A Republican version of Clinton triangulation.
I noticed an early dose of hypocrisy from the governor, who said he’d be reaching out to a part of the Republican base who believed in economic freedom and opposed over-regulation by the government. (He acknowledged his opposition to abortion might not be well-received in some quarters, such as Colorado and California.)
For example, Hutchinson said, “Should you pass a law and go after corporations that disagree with you? Absolutely not. That’s not limited government.”
So how does that square with his actions in Arkansas, where Hutchinson supported and signed the law challenged by the Arkansas Times that allows the state to punish contractors that won’t sign a pledge not to participate in a boycott against Israel.
He generally danced around culture war questions. He claimed government should be reluctant to do issue mandates on such issues, though he endorsed elected school boards doing so. And he also endorsed the government getting into abortion.
Drucker pressed Hutchinson’s insistence that the Republican Party was the party of less regulation, citing particularly steps by Florida’s Ron DeSantis. “You want to regulate this and not that,” Drucker commented. Hutchinson insisted the principles were “still out there” and insisted Arkansas had been less heavy-handed in the pandemic, for example.
Drucker asked Hutchinson about the “particular concern” of Republicans about transgender people . “Where is all this coming from?”
Hutchinson replied with his usual mush — let families and schools handle such issues. But he acknowledged he’d instructed Arkansas schools not to abide by a Biden administration guideline to treat transgender and gay children equally. He patted himself on the back for his overridden veto of a punishing bill on treatment of transgender children and his position, unexpressed by veto, to legislation that didn’t allow rape exceptions for abortion (or virtually any other consideration for the health of a mother.) He said he was “not inclined” to a national prohibition on abortion, but said it wasn’t likely until Republicans controlled Congress. “It’s going to be a longer discussion.”
Could Hutchinson be elected today in Arkansas, since he doesn’t appear to be a culture warrior of the short that “animates the Republican base today”? Yes, he said. He noted his defeat of a “Trumpian” candidate four years ago with 70 percent of the vote.
Could he vote for Donald Trump again? “Our party and our country need somebody different.” He said Jan. 6 and what led up to it changed his opinion on Trump. “That crossed a line.”
Of course, he “wants to be in the conversation” about 2024.
He downplayed the possibility of Republicans attempting to overturn a legitimate election if they didn’t like the outcome. He said he thought the action in 2020 was an “anomaly.” He said he believed in the end people would do the right thing. Not Donald Trump. Not Rick Crawford. Not Sarah Huckabee Sanders. Not Leslie Rutledge. To name just a new in Arkansas where the evidence suggests otherwise.
