Ep. 31 - National Stage: Will Arkansas Claim the White House?

Political dominance is rarely a permanent state, but Arkansas has managed a total transformation from deep blue to solid red in less than a decade. The stakes for 2028 are already high as two of the state's most prominent figures, Senator Tom Cotton and Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders, eye the national stage. In this episode, we sit down with veteran journalist Roby Brock to break down the calculated maneuvers happening behind the scenes in Little Rock and D.C.

We get into the tactical evolution of Arkansas campaigning, moving away from "chicken supper" retail politics toward a media-heavy national strategy. Roby Brock provides a boots-on-the-ground perspective on Tom Cotton’s disciplined messaging during the 2014 flip and his strategic choice to remain in the Senate rather than join the Trump cabinet. We also examine Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders' executive record, her deep ties to the Iowa caucus, and how her upcoming book tour serves as a functional launchpad for 2028. Our discussion covers the nuances of "missing-middle" political strategy, the impact of a legislative supermajority, and why JD Vance currently holds the pole position for the Republican succession.

The unglamorous truth is that national ambition often comes at the cost of local presence; Cotton has faced criticism for his focus on global foreign policy over Arkansas town halls. Furthermore, while a supermajority allows for swift policy implementation, it often replaces bipartisan compromise with internal party infighting and "foxification" of local issues. You will walk away from this conversation with a clearer understanding of how these two leaders are positioning themselves to capitalize on the post-Trump landscape and the logistical hurdles they face in a wide-open 2028 field.

Transcript

Welcome And Guest Background

SPEAKER_00 0:07

Welcome back, everybody, to the Radical Moderate Podcast. I'm your host, Pat O'Brien. And today I have a longtime friend and associate on the show of a veteran of uh 25 plus years in Arkansas journalism and the owner of talk business and politics. Uh Roby Brock, welcome to the podcast.

SPEAKER_01 0:29

Thank you, Pat.

SPEAKER_00 0:30

You know, it's really closer to 30 years.

SPEAKER_01 0:31

It's not 25 years, it's closer to 30.

How Tom Cotton Rose Fast

SPEAKER_00 0:34

So well, for anybody who is concerned that you didn't have the experience uh to be a guest on my my show here. So I asked you to come on. I, you know, I had to think of a little bit about like what exactly do I want to talk about? And and it occurred to me that in this decades-long uh experience you've had in Arkansas journalism, you have met and built relationships and interviewed a lot of different political figures, some of which have national reputations. So I wanted to start there. And I know quite recently you did an interview uh with the governor of our state, and I'll set that up in a second, but you I'm sure know a lot about and have conversed with Senator Tom Cotton, and he is a person who, and it looks like to me, is somebody who'd at least like to potentially run for president in 2028. And then clearly um Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders, you know, her father was former governor of Arkansas. He ran for president and I believe came in second place, which didn't get anywhere. But I mean, he he he stayed that uh ran the marathon a long time. And, you know, she's been uh spokesperson for President Trump in term one. And I think most people feel like she would like to run for president sometime. So let's start with these two figures. What you pick, which one do you want to talk about first?

SPEAKER_01 1:56

Uh let's go Senator Tom Cotton for uh 200, Alex.

SPEAKER_00 2:01

So tell us about uh, you know, the I'll set up by saying my impression of the senator is he came into politics at a time, maybe a transition point in Arkansas for those who I've everybody knows who Bill Clinton is, but Bill Clinton made his his real political career off of going from county to county and chicken supper to chicken supper and kind of one-on-one politics. Tom Cotton, I don't think, really did that. So, how did Tom Cotton rise to power in Arkansas?

Media Politics And The 2014 Money

SPEAKER_01 2:32

Yeah, so he kind of came on the scene as a uh unknown commodity in 2010. There was a lot of chatter about him then. And then in 2012, he ran for the uh U.S. House of Representatives and won that seat in the fourth district. And then in 2014 challenged Mark Pryor, the incumbent Democratic senator in Arkansas, and obviously a legacy name uh prior in Arkansas. But that 2010 to 2014 cycle in Arkansas politics, which you are familiar with, uh, was a transition time in Arkansas politics from deep blue to deep red. We really went in three election cycles over about a four or five year period from um from Arkansas being a solidly Democratic state in all of its offices uh to being a solidly Republican state. And we haven't really changed since then. It's it went full tilt red in um in 2014, and we have not really seen it dial back any since then. So we were doing a lot of polling back in that time period. Our news organization was. So we had a lot of really interesting kind of data that was coming in at the time, and I think a lot of people didn't believe it necessarily. I didn't even believe some of it. So I'll tell you a story about that somewhere down the road in this podcast. But um, you know, we stuck with the, you know, evidence-based data that we had, and it did turn out to bear fruit that we were pretty accurate with our polling. But Tom Cotton comes in in in the in that vacuum right there where things are really, really changing in Arkansas politics. He seizes the moment. He got a pretty clear path to the um to that congressional seat down there. You know, the field was fairly cleared. He didn't think he um he didn't have super strong competition necessarily. So he wins that seat. And in two years, he's kind of the poster child for the new Republican brand in Arkansas and nationally. He's young. He's uh, you know, comes in with this, you know, pretty he's he's really good at staying on message, trust me. I've interviewed him many times and does not deviate much from that. Um, and so in 2014, he he comes on board and challenges Mark Pryor at a time when the state was really ready to go fully Republican. Um, and so that was a circumstance that kind of catapulted him there. I remember I I helped moderate the the only Senate debate in 2014 between Pryor and Cotton. And every question you threw to Tom Cotton, he answered with Obamacare. You know, how do you feel about sending a man to the moon? You know, if we didn't have Obamacare, we could do things like send a man to the moon. Or, you know, what do you think about military intervention in the Middle East? You know, uh, if it wasn't for Obamacare, we we would probably have already, you know, closed up our chapter in the Middle East. Every question that you asked was a response with Obamacare. It was clearly what told negative uh in Arkansas. It was going to be the the talking point in that campaign. It was a little bit frustrating to not be able to get much more than that. So, to your point about, you know, uh being out in the field and doing hand-to-hand, you know, politicking, which was just the tradition of Arkansas for so many years, uh, Tom Cotton didn't do that. He, that Mark Pryor Tom Cotton Senate campaign in 2014 spent over$80 million in Arkansas. The uh record before that was 2010 with Blanche Lincoln and John Bozeman, and they spent$17 million. So you can see the gap in 2014. Uh, Arkansas was really ground zero for just a couple of Senate races that were going to determine the uh the balance of power in the U.S. Senate. I mean, we had national press down here, I mean, multiple members daily. Um, so when you've kind of seen this foxification of uh local politics, you know, where everybody gets their news from, you know, national news and national target points, that one played out just tremendously in 2014. And and Tom Cotton capitalized on that. He he did much more TV. He did a 30-minute infomercial um uh for uh after like the news was on, which was pretty unheard of and cost an arm and a leg and maybe another leg. And uh, but he had that much money to spend. And so uh so he didn't have to go to the Mount Nebo chicken fry or the Pink Tomato Festival to connect with voters. They were their their preferences were changing, number one, and then their way to be reached with messaging was changing from uh handshake politics to to basically they were consuming everything they could off of media and social media, and and he he ran a campaign that played to that.

SPEAKER_00 7:15

So I think if you were gonna ask a lot of maybe haters in Arkansas of Tom Cotton, they're gonna criticize by saying that he's maintained just a national profile more so than than wanting to be at home. Uh, I guess the first question would be, do you think that's fair? I mean, do you think that that there's something to that? And then whether it's fair or not, that criticism, is it gonna matter when he runs for president? Is that even gonna be something that people on a national level would care about that he didn't bring home the bacon or spend enough time with his constituents at in his uh elected state?

SPEAKER_01 7:52

Yeah, I think you could make an argument that he doesn't spend as much time as some of our previous U.S. senators uh and elected officials spend with their constituents. He doesn't do a lot of town halls. He um, you know, when he comes back to the state, it's usually uh, you know, some sort of tour of arms or manufacturing or defense or something like that. That's kind of the blueprint these days now, though. It's how most of the congressional officials do it. I think some of them are back in the state a little bit more often on their recess, but Tom Cotton does not, he's not here every weekend, you know. Like we used to see a Jay Dickey who was a Republican congressman from the fourth district or a Mike Ross, they came home every weekend and they went to events out in the district and and and you know, touch, let people touch the cloth basically, and it kept them in touch with what was going on a lot. So I think Cotton realizes that it's still a lot of local politics and state politics is still driven by national messaging, and he is plugged into that national messaging machine. You see him in leadership in the U.S. Senate. I think Tom Cotton probably had an opportunity to go to the Trump administration. I don't know this for a fact, but my I would think that he would. He was aligned with Donald Trump and he is aligned with Donald Trump, particularly on foreign policy. He um, I think that he chose not to go to the Trump administration. He very early, after Trump got elected to the second term, put out a statement that said he was gonna run for leadership in the U.S. Senate. That was a really clear message that I'm not going to work for the Trump administration. I'm gonna try to continue to build my resume in the U.S. Senate where I can move up through the ranks there. And honestly, it's probably pretty smart politics on his part. I mean, look at what's happened to Pam Bondi, look at what's happened to Christy Gnome. I mean, if you work in the Trump administration as a cabinet secretary, which Tom Cotton was being considered for, you're at the, you're, you work at the whim of one guy, Donald Trump. And um, and that that's not always real popular. And I don't think Tom Cotton's got the personality or the um uh the interest in working for one person like that. I think he's an independent-minded thinker on his own feet. He wants to control his own destiny, doesn't want to be at the whim of someone else. So he'll take his chances with voters versus taking his chances with uh a president who some would describe as erratic. Maybe even you, Pat, would describe it as that way. I mean certainly he'll fire people on a whim. You know, you might find out through truth social or Twitter that you've been fired sort of in that administration. I don't think Tom Cotton wanted to do that.

Cotton’s Resume And 2028 Message

SPEAKER_00 10:26

Yeah, well, I think a guy, a president who used to uh who made a lot of money with a reality television show where the tagline was you're fired is somebody who you you want to question whether or not it's a good idea to work for him. So let me pose the question with Senator Cotton this way. Do you think it would be smarter for him to focus on becoming a leader and maybe even someday majority leader in the United States Senate and or run for president? And of course, those don't have to be mutually exclusive, right? If he runs in the middle of his term uh for president, I don't know that it affects it. Like, what do you and if he did, what what's his message? Like what let's say he runs for president, what it what's he gonna tell people his story is and why, what kind of leader he would be, et cetera, et cetera. Yeah, I I I agree with you.

SPEAKER_01 11:17

It's not mutually exclusive. I think he can continue to stay where he is or even move up another spot in leadership if that opportunity presented itself and still run for president. It's um it's it's not gonna prevent him from doing that. I think his message is partially biography. Uh Tom Cotton has a compelling bio. I mean, he's Harvard educated. He's, you know, served overseas in Afghanistan, um, in the military. He certainly has a distinguished military career. He is uh has been a U.S. congressman and a U.S. senator. I mean, that that's not um that that's not something to snuff at, you know. So he's got a broad range of experience. And he clearly, you know, from the get-go in the U.S. Senate, he was gonna focus on foreign policy more than domestic policy. You see him doing that. He he issued that letter to the um leadership in Iran his first you know couple of weeks in um in the U.S. Senate. I don't know if every everybody remembers that, but he he got a bunch of senators to sign on to a letter saying, we're not gonna put up with your stuff, basically. And it was it's like this is a guy's a freshman in the U.S. Senate. He's got this kind of clout that he could get Mitch McConnell and all these other people to sign off on this letter. I mean, it was a pretty impressive debut, whether you agreed with the message or not. But I think his his biography of you know, having served in the military, of having grown up on a farm in rural Arkansas, of being harvard educated, he's clearly smart. And so these are things that I think will be assets for him if he were to run for president. And then I think he's distinguished himself on the foreign policy front. I think his message is going to be partially we live in a dangerous world. You want to put somebody in charge as the U.S. president who understands those dangers and challenges and is not afraid to make difficult decisions that would protect America. Um, I'm not trying to write the script for him, but that's where his strengths are. It's not on reforming healthcare or Medicaid or uh improving, you know, housing for poor people or things like that. It's military strength, it's diplomacy, it's standing up to bullies around the world and and challenging kind of the status quo where we are, America's role uh with other countries. I think he leans with quite a few of Trump's positions on that, quite frankly. I I would even go so far to say, because I know this kind of anecdotally, I think he talks to the president a lot. I think we're gonna answer that.

Sarah Sanders As A National Candidate

SPEAKER_00 13:43

Yeah, I you know, I I you hear things like the president talking about Greenland, and we're like, where did that come from? And then you see a New York Times article that Tom Cotton's whispering in his ear. So it sounds like he knows he's figured out how to navigate the halls of uh Congress and and you know, have the ear of a president. That's a a it's access and skill. And you know, maybe maybe that helps the people of Arkansas it's somewhere down the road, whether he comes home and shakes hands or not. He I'm sure there's things that his office can do for people. I I think it's an intriguing choice, but let's go with the one that's probably I think more, I think maybe even eminent. Uh Governor Sanders has really, in my opinion, maintained a national profile during her first uh gubernatorial campaign. She's running for re-election again. I know you recently interviewed her. There's an upcoming legislative session. Uh, but let's talk about, you know, for for anyone who who is curious about her, but you know, maybe they've just they're coming at it from one side or another, meaning they're a pretty strong Republican or pretty strong Democrat. For somebody who's in the middle and wondering what this governor is all about, give us some insight on her.

SPEAKER_01 14:56

Yeah, she's gonna have an interesting um potential candidacy there. I want to tie up one thing on Tom Python. That that New York Times article you're talking about about him putting the Greenland acquisition and Trump's ear. I you're talking to the guy that broke that story. So I did an interview with Tom Pyton, and he said something about it in an interview that I was doing with him. And I was, I thought he was joking. I was he's like, Well, I told President Trump to do that. I was like, Are you kidding? And he was like, No, I talked to him about it last week, and I was like, Oh my gosh. Anyhow, he turned out he was serious. I didn't realize it when he said it. I thought he was just making a joke about it, but he he really did put plant that there. Uh Sarah Sanders, um, first of all, I think here's some of the skill set that she brings. She's run a couple presidential campaigns for her father before. And as we all know, what's the starting gate for presidential politics? It's Iowa, um, the caucuses. She's run the caucuses for her dad on two different presidential campaigns. Uh, she goes up there periodically and stays connected. It is a heavily uh religiously influenced caucus, um, and that's her lane. You know, you got to pick your different lanes when you're running for president. And she'll play well with the um, with the, you know, the folks that vote based on their religion. Uh, we've seen that here. She's been governor. She puts several things out that, you know, are are clearly in that camp. And I and I think it's a personal belief of hers, too. Um, she'll also, she'll have youth on her side. Anybody looking for a fresh new face, even though she did serve in the trunk as Trump's press secretary, she's been out doing her own thing. On the national scene, she'll be seen as a young, rising governor, which has got executive experience. She's got some things to put under her belt in terms of accomplishments. Um, think about maternal health and some of the things that we've done that have been pretty progressive here on that front. Tax cuts, economic development, whether you like her education plan with Learns or not. Um, it's got some good things in it that are going to show some improvement. I think you're going to see kids' reading scores uh really start to move up in the coming years, if not sooner than that, uh, just because of the resources they're focusing on it. You might not like the voucher side of it, but there are some things in there that are, I think, really worthwhile that even uh liberals would agree with are good public policy. So she'll have a resume that will not be, you know, compared, it just depends on who runs, but she'll have a pretty good resume of accomplishments that she'll be able to hang out there as, again, a young candidate, a female candidate, a mom candidate. She's got kids that, you know, will come in tow with her. Her husband is a political consultant and strategist, so he knows how to navigate some things. Should she be a serious contender out of the gate. Now, I don't know how far she can go, and it might just set her up to be, you know, potential vice president material, which she would still have. I mean, she won't be 50 years old in the next presidential election. She'll be uh mid to late 40s. So um I think she's appealing for Republicans that are looking for somebody that's different from Trump, but can still kind of connect with some of the Trump voters. She'll be able to wait in both of those circles. And I think Tom Cotton can do that too. Tom Cotton is pretty good at waiting in establishment Republican circles and in uh MAGA Republican circles, which are very different.

Unapologetic Book And Iowa Strategy

SPEAKER_00 18:20

So well, one thing to kind of you know compare those two, Senator Cotton and Governor Sanders, and it it it takes him back to a story that I heard, they like third-hand information. But as you well know, uh Mike Huckabee ran for Senate against Dale Bumpers. That was his first big run. It kind of put him on the map. He didn't win. That was before the Republicans became dominant in Arkansas. But I've heard, you know, then he would later become governor. And I've heard uh, you know, hearsay that that he really realized at some point that being governor was a real job, right? Like, you know, like with real responsibilities. And I think he grew to appreciate that. And and I'm I'm of that mindset, you know, I have an executive mind. I don't want to work with 99 other people. I was on the school board working with six other people, and there was no, I have no record of success with working with those six people. So I can appreciate that. And I think, you know, Governor Sanders, you know, you're talking about how she's run campaigns. The other thing is she's got an advisor in her father who knows all of this stuff. And he is currently the ambassador to Israel, and we understand the political ramifications and the connections that he made. So I, you know, from people listening to this rundown and insights of Governor Sanders, I'd probably definitely I would give her the edge between the two. But I think she's kind of a dark horse, if you will. She's got a lot of things going for her. And, you know, the youth, I hadn't really thought about that previously. But um, you know, it's a it's a nice move on from MAGA Trump, right? It to say that yes, she can connect back, but then she can also say, well, I was just a spokesperson. You know, I didn't, I didn't, that wasn't my policy, et cetera. Whereas Senator Cotton, I mean, he's gonna own the Iran war if this thing turns out poorly. So that I want to go back, sticking with Governor Sanders. You asked her a question. She's writing, she's written a book, I believe, which, if I'm not mistaken, happens to come out right after the November 2026 elections. It's called Unapologetic. Tell us about your question of her during that interview and what you took away from her answer. Well, I was asking her what she was unapologetic about.

SPEAKER_01 20:39

What is the first question I'll ask you, I'm like, and uh, and it was basically, I think a lot of the book is uh does talk a lot about her faith um and just how that has guided her with some of her values and decision making, um, which she certainly has a prerogative to put a book out that talks about that. Uh, yeah, it does strike me as well as, you know, gosh, many people who run for president write their own autobiography and it tells stories about them and they go on these book tours, and and she'll be doing some of that uh at about the time assuming that she wins re-election, which I don't want to assume, but I do think she's in the driver's seat on that. Um, and it would take some Herculean acts for that to change. But um, yeah, I think so. I think the book is kind of timed for a national tour when everybody starts gets these November elections behind. Trump's a lame duck, Congress does whatever Congress does. And then people are like, let's turn our attention to the uh presidential race in uh 28. Who, who, who's out there? Well, she'll be front and center on Fox News and Newsmax and all these and doing all these speaking tours around the country. So she'll get a little buzz from that, I think. And again, we talked earlier about you know, what's her lane and where does she want to kind of get in early? I mean, she's a preacher's kid, so she's got religion in her corner right there now. Was a preacher, and he's she's got that connection in Iowa, which is again, Iowa's gonna be first to vote. And so you got to book out about your faith. You're running for the Iowa caucus to a potential you want to be the front runner coming out of that. I mean, she's gonna have a few cards to play in there, and there'll be some people playing catch up.

Supermajorities And Policy Tradeoffs

SPEAKER_00 22:19

I I think I think it's very intriguing. And I want to kind of stand on the same topic of those uh two individuals potentially running for president, but kind of bringing it back home to it, especially more so for the governor. Running a small state, Arkansas's got three million people, agriculture is a huge part of what we do. Northwest Arkansas does, of course, have some of the largest companies in the world, like Walmart. But I wanted to focus in on the relationship between a governor and a legislature. And I don't know how many states there are in this country that fit this description, but Arkansas is in a situation where the Republicans have a supermajority in both the House and the Senate. And from the Democratic stand, and I don't think that's good, but I don't I don't think it was good either when the Democrats had a a supermajority uh in Arkansas or any other state, quite frankly, because I think balance is important. You've interviewed so many of these political figures. Uh what do you what do you think happens to the political dynamic when one party has a supermajority and quite frankly doesn't have to pay any attention to the other political party? What what is that, what are the consequences of put for public policy?

SPEAKER_01 23:32

So I think public policy goes extremely far in the direction that whoever the party in power is wants to take it. So uh I'll give you a perfect example. In 2013, so we're in the middle of that three election cycles that I told you about 2010, 2012, 2014, where the state was turning from blue to red. In 2013, the um, let's see, Mike Beebe was still governor because he was going to serve till the 20th January of 2015. And the Republicans took a very small majority in the Arkansas House and the Senate. And what came from that at the time, we were debating uh the Affordable Care Act, Obamacare's health exchanges. And Mike B had pretty much committed with the help of Dr. Joe Thompson, who was, I think, his surgeon general at the time. They wanted to do just the Medicaid expansion, just a plain and simple Medicaid expansion. Just we're gonna build it out for a bigger audience. Uh that was the Democratic position. The Republican position was we don't want to do that, but we want the money. And so um Jonathan Dismay, who was a um state representative, I think, at the time, uh, John Burris, a state representative at the time. I'm sorry, Dismay was a senator. John Burris was a state uh representative, and David Sanders was a state representative, three Republicans. And they fashioned what became known as the private option, which was this we're gonna build this Medicaid expansion marketplace, but we want private health insurers to be the ones offering the plans. We don't want these to be Medicaid government plans. We want these to be Blue Cross, Blue Shield, Qual Choice, and Better and all that. And I think that worked pretty well, to be honest with you, but they had to kind of come together and meet in the middle and BB compromised on some stuff, and the Republicans compromise on some stuff. And they came up with a public policy that I know there's critics of it, but I mean it stabilized the health insurance markets in Arkansas. There were a lot of players in the market. Um they Arkansas got the money from the Medicaid expansion, but the private insurance companies short up. And that is why you did not see a lot of hospital closures in Arkansas at a time where in other states that did not go with that type of um plan or rejected it completely, did see a lot of hospital closures, particularly in rural parts of the state. And there's some other dynamics that are involved now where you're seeing some new challenges on hospitals in rural Arkansas. But for a good 10 years, there was stability in the health insurance uh markets in Arkansas. And that was because they had to work together. You had to get Republicans and Democrats to compromise on some things to get the number of votes that were needed to get the thing to pass. And you don't have to have that now. Um now you're fighting, and back in the day, I mean, I've covered it when Democrats had the supermajorities, the end fighting was within the parties. Can you, you know, Republicans did matter back in the day. I can remember there was one Republican in the Arkansas State Senate, a guy named Joe Yates from Bentonville, 34 Democrats in there. But not all the Democrats were of the same mindset. So the fighting was within the Democratic Party on stuff like that. Well same thing now with Republicans, though. It's it's they fight amongst themselves. The Democrats don't have enough leverage to block, but they will sometimes form coalitions with some of those Republican blocks, and you see them, you know, basically get something done. A great example is the Free Breakfast Program uh that passed the last legislative session. Democrats didn't have enough to block that. There were enough Republicans that might not have agreed with that because it was a government handout. But you saw Democrats partner with a big enough Republican bloc that they got that passed.

2028 Odds And Closing Thoughts

SPEAKER_00 27:25

Yeah, I think that one of the biggest differences between the federal government and the state governments, and certainly in a small state like Arkansas, the federal government does not have a balanced budget. There's not mechanisms that really ultimately force compromise. And even I think divided government can be good. In this case, you're talking about a Democratic governor working with a Republican legislature. They had to kind of figure it all out. And good public policy was the result. You don't get that in Washington because I think the structure is too different. I think it, I think it's unsustainable, quite frankly, and will lead to probably some really bad outcomes. We just have really just a minute or so left. I wanted to go back to where we started with Senator Cotton and Governor Sanders. Give a quick take on both. We'll start with Senator Cotton in terms of do you think he will run for president in 2028? And what do you think his chances are?

SPEAKER_01 28:24

I think he'll test the waters. Um, I think he'll be a long shot just because I I think it's a wide open field. I just don't think, other than JD Vance, I just don't think anybody else has any advantages right now. And the only reason J.D. Vance has an advantage is because he's the vice president and he's got the ability to kind of co-op Trump's coattails if Trump decides to throw him those coattails. Uh so I think Cotton will get in and test the waters. He'll go try some early states and just see how his name does and if he can uh catch a little momentum. But um I I think anybody but JD Vance right now is a long shot on the Republican side. And then Governor Sanders, what do you think she'll do? Same thing. I think she'll test the waters as well. She'll go up to Iowa, she'll go to New Hampshire, she'll go to South Carolina, um, she'll she'll go make some speeches and she's got a book to promote, so she'll need to. And um, or she might go campaign for someone, and she's done some of that uh since she's been governor as well. But um again, I think she's as much of a long shot as Tom Cotton is, just because I don't think the Republicans have a clear successor uh other than JD Vance. And if JD Vance kind of stumbles in that transition somehow, then I really think you'll see some people elevate. But um, but right now, just anybody's got a chance. If you run, you got a chance. And anybody can kind of come from out of nowhere and catch fire. We've seen it a million times before. So I don't discount Cotton or Sanders' political skills and talents to be able to do that. I'm just saying today, if you put the numbers out there, JD Fance would have probably an advantage over anyone else at this point in time by a substantial margin. Everybody else will be in the low single digits.

SPEAKER_00 30:08

Well, well, they're from the words of Arkansas's maybe most esteemed and uh experienced uh 27-year veteran of Arkansas Business and Politics, Roby Brock, making predictions about what uh two two people that could run for president. I I think one of them, and I'm not saying which one, one of them absolutely runs without question, but maybe not both. And uh for those who are concerned, this episode ended too shortly. We're gonna have Roby back next week. But for this week, that is the POV of POB.