Too early to call it a generic Republican victory in Arkansas just yet. Mike Beebe got far more votes than John Boozman. Mike Ross will survive. The 1st District remains up in the air. Tim Griffin will win the 2nd District. Steve Womack has won the Third.

Early votes are odd in the statewide races. Based on the same boxes, Democrat Shane Broadway is leading the race for lieutenant governor, but Republicans Mark Martin and John Thurston are leading races for secretary of state and land commissioner, respectively. Martin gets points for his name, enough to overcome some truly deserved bad publicity over his honesty, expense account abuse and nutty politics. Thurston, who knows? Maybe those underground mailers about his late black wife really were effective. We love hunting and fishing and corporate welfare and higher interest rates on consumer loans, based on runaway victories for constitutional amendments.

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Too early to tell where the state legislative races are headed in terms of partisan pickups. I may wait until morning to be surprised.

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