Brummett figures two of the three choices for 1st District Congress — both the Republican nominee and nominal Democrat Tim Wooldridge — are Republicans. In the Democratic runoff, Chad Causey is the clear choice.

Here’s the essence of Wooldridge’s campaign: He is a devout member of the Church of Christ, a fundamentalist religion where the members tend to stick together politically and which has a strong presence in this economically populist, culturally conservative and nominally Democratic region.

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I can say that because I was brought up in this denomination. We were told we were the only ones going to heaven. Sometimes on a Sunday before an election the man making the announcements would remind us there’d be voting on Tuesday and that so-and-so was “a member of the church.”

Wooldridge’s message is that his daddy knows how to fix a carburetor in an old pickup and that he himself is a pure Arkansas old boy who drives a tractor instead of a fancy car and wears work clothes instead of a tuxedo.

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When pressed on an issue, he’ll inevitably spout some conservative superficiality and banality, such as that employers ought to be able to fire gay people just for being gay because being gay is a behavioral choice and a sin.

Now he wants to say he’s the better choice in this runoff because he is married and Causey, a much-younger man who was engaged to be wed the last time I talked with him, isn’t.

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By the way, just so you know: As a young state representative, Wooldridge put in a bill to reinstate public hangings.

Wooldridge and Wills would make a fine pair, wouldn’t they?

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