The early March 1 Primary filings for elective offices in Arkansas ended with little fanfare last week.
The Republican Party of Arkansas held and lightly extended its majority rule in both the State Senate and State House of Representatives down in Little Rock.
Only a couple of last minute filings caused some political wrinkles in what looked to be a lack-luster primary season.
The out-of-nowhere entry of Conservative GOP operative Curtis Coleman of Little Rock challenging U.S. Senator John Boozman in the March GOP primary was a surprise.
What this does, of course, is compel Boozman to run a GOP Primary race in March, while the winner of the primary faces a Democratic challenger, Conner Eldridge of Fayetteville in the November General Election.
Does running in a GOP Primary help Boozman? Probably not.
It will, no doubt, expose his weakness in the state both geographically and politically.
The GOP Primary will, however, allow Boozman to gather in larger sums from individual donors, who can now give both primary and general election funds to the candidate.
Coleman's entry will, however, cost Boozman upwards of $1 million to $2 million of a war chest he could have saved to run the November contest against Eldridge.
Coleman has faced Boozman before and lost.
Many see this race as a "kink in the armor" of the quiet Boozman. He was listed as a lack-luster name and energy in the polls for a first-term U.S. Senator facing re-election.
The other was the entry of attorney Clark Mason of Little Rock as a challenger to Circuit Judge Shawn Womack of Mountain Home in the battle for an "open" seat of the State Supreme Court.
Womack, a former state Senator and outspoken advocate for Tort Reform and anti-Gay legislation as a senator, announced early on for the seat.
Mason was one of apparently three attorneys posed to file at the deadline to challenge Womack.
Womack's legislative record is rife with political fodder on how he will potentially vote on a myriad of issues if elected to the State Supreme Court.
Mason, as a long-practicing attorney, will have his legal representation in lawsuits under scrutiny as well. But Womack, even as a local Circuit Judge in North Central Arkansas, will have the most to answer to voters in this race on his often-quoted legislative tenure in the Arkansas Senate.
The Mason-Womack race will only be a preliminary card event before the main event of Supreme Court Justice Courtney Henry Goodson's challenge from Circuit Judge Dan Kemp of Mountain View.
Goodson, we all know, was elected as Courtney Henry but went through a quickie divorce and married the well-connected and super rich Texarkana based attorney, UA Board member and politically powerfully connected John Goodson. There have been questions about her hyper-rise to electoral power and certainly on her judicial ethics.
She is in the midst of her first term as a Supreme Court justice but jumped at the chance to be elevated to the role of Chief Justice upon retirement from that spot by former Chief Justice Jim Hannah.
Kemp on the other hand is a very quiet, deliberate jurist. He was elected first to the Circuit Court bench in 1986 -- about the time Justice Goodson was attending Harrison High school.
Kemp is talking about restoring the rules of ethics and accountability in judges of all stripes; something voters seem to be focused on these days.
The ever-prepared and eager to please Justice Goodson seems, as she was in her first campaign, to be laser-focused on a wholesome, caring, young blonde mother image of purity, volunteerism and a caring individual, not getting bogged down in all the legal mumbo-jumbo of ethics and rules of law.
There will be much more written about these three races and other local races before the March 1 primary.
Stay tuned.
MAYLON RICE, AN AWARD-WINNING COLUMNIST, HAS WRITTEN BOTH NEWS AND COLUMNS FOR SEVERAL NWA PUBLICATIONS AND HAS BEEN WRITING FOR THE ENTERPRISE-LEADER FOR SEVERAL YEARS.
Editorial on 11/18/2015