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I thought it very ironic that Gary Stubblefield
R-Branch is already fighting Jonathan Dismang R-Searcy for the position of president
pro tempore of the Senate, only eighteen months after Dismang was elected unanimously
to that position.
Perhaps the Republicans should step back,
take a deep breath, and look back at history.
The Republican Party has been in trouble
in Arkansas for 140 years. In the 1872 governor’s race, the Democrats entered
no candidate, preferring instead to step back and give the Republicans enough
rope to hang themselves, which they proceeded to do in splendid fashion. The
feuding Republican candidates, Elisha Baxter and Joseph Brooks, eventually
caused the Brooks-Baxter War in Little Rock, which grew into the largest civil
conflict during the Reconstruction. Thousands of armed men faced off around the
Statehouse and Anthony House, just across the street. The Baxter forces even
dug an old cannon out of the river, cleaned out the mud and, naming it “The
Lady Anthony,” pointed it at the Statehouse.
A stray shot triggered five minutes of
sporadic firing at each other. However, the results showed little signs of
accuracy, with only one old man, watching from an upstairs window being killed.
A few in the conflict were wounded. A woman was injured jumping from an
upstairs window, and an old man hurt when jumping through a glass door.
However, a good number of men were later killed before the President put an end
to the conflict, naming Baxter the winner and awarding Brooks the position of
postmaster.
This scrapping became a blow that the
Arkansas Republican Party has never recovered from……until this year.
Today, the Republicans are finally, after
140 long years, back in power. But, only days after the election, they’re back
to their old scrapping and feuding ways…….. among themselves once more.
Good grief! With a perfect historical
example staring them square in the face, will they ever learn?
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