What Couldn't Beebe Do?

As much as he'll hate it that I'm regurgitating and relinking another Arkansas author, John Brummett, the consummate political columnist and humanitarian, as well as my best friend in the whole wide world, made an interesting point that seems to have slipped under the radar, but opens the door to something that isn't often discussed here now in the third of his almost-assured eight year reign.

What else is Beebe going to do?

This will be a more discussed query in four years, when the governor will be winding his reign down, tidying up his legacy, and trying to pick who the next governor of Arkansas will be (I hear Beebe thinks the attorney general is just a swell guy).

Beebe, on the cover of a reputable periodical about state and local governments, has been hailed as perhaps one of the state's best governors, even by the person who has been voted as the state's best governor, Dale Bumpers.

Beebe is currently 62 years young. By the time he exits, forced out by term limits, he'll be 67, a still politically viable age, especially if good health prevails, heaven forbid the contrary. But Beebe is who he is because of where he's been: Arkansas. The thought of Beebe flying off to Washington doesn't seem like something we could see our cover boy doing.

Then I read this:

Imagine Beebe’s doing that today, announcing that he would run not for re-election, but for the U. S. Senate, and imagine him doing so because the incumbent of his own party, Blanche Lincoln, looks anemic in the polls.

Lincoln, Dustin McDaniel and Bill Halter would collide — she in frightened flight from a race she’d almost assuredly lose and the two men in frantic pursuit of the vacancy Beebe would be creating.

He's right. He's got more pull than Lincoln. Than Pryor. Than Berry. Than anyone. The fact of the matter is that Gov. Beebe is hands down the most powerful politician in the state, federal, state, and local combined.

That fact in and of itself opens a lot of doors to what Gov. Beebe could do.

Now there's nothing to say this is what he'll do. He could very well do what many believe he will do, ride off into the sunset, leaving an unblemished legacy as the best ole guvner this state has ever done seen. But, while that might be the only option for not just some, but many who are pushed out by term-limits, this is not the case for Beebe. He is unfettered.

And he's done it before. After being pushed out of the legislature in which he resided for about a billion years or so due to then-new-fangled term limits, Beebe set up shop as attorney general, waiting out Huckabee for the governorship.

Maybe there's another office that Beebe could inhabit. Could is the wrong word. Would is a better word.

It's there if Beebe wants it. And again, the fact that he could is a lot more than most people who could can say.