The state’s economy and culture are thriving while politics are turning sour, the spokesman tells NWA Political Animals

FAYETTEVILLE — The Arkansas economy and culture are thriving, but the state’s politics are a mess, spokesman Rex Nelson told the Political Animals Club of Northwest Arkansas on Friday.

“We have a largely incompetent state legislature coupled with a dysfunctional governor’s office,” Nelson told the crowd of at least 150 at the lunchtime meeting in Fayetteville. Nelson, a newspaper columnist and author, was director of policy and communications for the then governor. Mike Huckabee – the father of current Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders.

Sanders’ office did not comment when contacted.

The state’s history is full of natural and self-inflicted disasters and setbacks, Nelson said, from the 1811-1812 New Madrid earthquakes, before Arkansas became a state, to the self-inflicted anti-integration crisis of 1957. Now Arkansas is ready We could overcome all of that, Nelson said, unless state governing bodies impede progress.

“Thinking people have been pushed to the political fringes,” Nelson said. “They don’t reinforce themselves. Fringe people have filled that void.”

For example, school board elections attracted candidates “who want to ban books rather than add them,” he said.

The legislature and the governor’s office are full of careerists, he said.

“Before, lawmakers used to come in for 60-day sessions every two years and then go back to their communities,” he said. “How many hearings are there in Little Rock? You have too many. They need the subsistence allowance” to make a living, he said.

“We need people who love our state more than their own political career,” Nelson said, to applause.

In contrast, Northwest Arkansas continues to thrive economically and culturally, Nelson said. Fort Smith has an extensive international Air Force pilot training program. South Arkansas has the prospect of a lithium production boom that could potentially rival the region’s oil boom of the 1920s, he said. Northeast Arkansas has become the largest steel producing region in the United States. Central Arkansas has booming distribution center businesses for Amazon and others.

“Now again I’m afraid we’re going to screw it up and stop being serious,” Nelson said. “I love you Arkansas. Please prove me wrong.”

The crowd gave Nelson a standing ovation.

Tom King of Fayetteville said Nelson gave a very good presentation. Don Nelms of Jasper, a businessman and former associate of the then governor. Mike Beebe said he saw the early days of careerism and focused on national partisan issues rather than state interests. Beebe left office in January 2015.