Arkansas: Stephens

Frank Rich has a pretty good summary of the fratricidal GOP battle for an upstate New York congressional seat. Already, a solid Republican has been driven out of the race by  a torrent of attacks from the Club for Growth/Beck/Palin conservative candidate.

I should add that the conservative is the chosen candidate of Jackson T. Stephens Jr. of Little Rock, a Club for Growth moneybags. Stephens may buy himself a seat in upstate New York. If he does, it won't be of much help to locals, not that Jacko cares. The candidate is a carpetbagger who doesn't live in the district and knows next to nothing about it. But he's solid on the starve-government orthodoxy of his patrons.

The opposite of progressive is regressive, right? So the Jackson (Steve) Stephens-engineered ad that paints a New York Republican candidate as "progressive" -- pro-gay, pro-stimulus -- in order to cost the candidate votes says a lot about today's ultra right. They like dirty tricks, and their politics are backwards.

Here's the story reported on several blogs, including Politico: An organization called Common Sense in America, headed by Stephens, is running TV ads in New York that appear to endorse Republican Dede Scozzafava for Congress.

“Dede supports President Obama’s efforts to stimulate our economy. Dede supports organized labor’s drive to expand membership. And Dede is the only candidate for Congress who supports marriage equality.

I got a comment from Tre Kitchens, one of Jennings Osborne's attorney in his lawsuit over the amount he'd received in payment for sale of his Arkansas Research Medical Testing Center, primarily to companies controlled by members of Little Rock's wealthy Stephens family.

A jury last night awarded Osborne $3 million against drug researcher ARMTC, but dismissed claims against two Stephens companies that provided most of the money for the purchase of Osborne's company. He got $20 million for the company, plus $1 million in consulting fees and another $3 million as part of what he expected to be a three-year payout of $3 million annually based on profits.

Coverage of the end of the Northwest Arkansas newspaper war in the affected newspapers didn't advance the story much beyond stories linked here yesterday.

Among the questions virtuallly unmentioned and not yet answered: The future of the affected weekly newspapers free and paid; of redundant printing plants; redundant ad and circulation employees; redundant editorial and technical employees; related, but independent operations elsewhere (such as the significant Stephens Media bureau in Little Rock that provided beefed up state coverage to enhance the Springdale newspaper in the now-ending war); what local competitors might think about the new might of a single owner of virtually all weekly and daily newspaper publication in Washington and Benton Counties.