Sure, 19 Republican and Democrats are on the Arkansas presidential primary ballot March 1. And some voters can participate in Republican bloodletting between ultra- and ultra-ultra-conservative legislative candidates over Obamacare.

But the real action will be the nonpartisan judicial races, particularly two contests for the Arkansas Supreme Court.

Associate Justice Courtney Goodson will face Circuit Judge Dan Kemp of Mountain View in a race for chief justice. It's a position that once had administrative authority over the court, but the power has been diminished by rump majority caucuses of the seven-member court. Now-retired Chief Justice Jim Hannah was too nice for his own good.

Goodson was Courtney Henry when she got elected to the Court of Appeals on scant law clerk experience. Her Democratically connected in-laws were critical in her reach for a seat on the Supreme Court. Shortly after her election, she shucked her husband. She remarried to a powerful lawyer, John Goodson, who'd gifted her with mounds of expensive purses. She'd later disclose that she and hubby enjoyed a $50,000 Mediterranean cruise on a private Tyson yacht, courtesy of a well-connected lawyer friend.