That's absolute nonsense. If it had nothing to do with social issues then Republicans wouldn't be so successful at using social issues to convince Southerners to vote GOP.
And Arkansas is now quickly completing the transition to becoming a GOP state at a state level.
We're talking about Arkansas here, not the bloc at-large. A state that opposes abortion (55-45) and gay marriage (72-25) by large margins has continued to elect the party of such decades after civil rights, Roe v. Wade, forced busing, affirmative action and all of the other nonsense that the GOP has tried to use to destroy the Democratic Party's power and associate the national brand with the state party.
It worked almost everywhere else: why didn't it work in Arkansas? Because Arkansans still trust Democrats with their tax dollars - period. It isn't an accomplishment to wear down a party after 40 years of hammering them on social issues: that's just the New Deal coalition dying. Arguably the most socially conservative Southern state will be the last one to go, but please, continue to tell me how it all relates to social issues.
Notice that Democrats were still successfully dominating many Southern states long after the social cleavages engendered by 60s social movements became salient.
You're completely forgetting that in Arkansas, the GOP never even bothered to contest enough winnable state legislature seats until 2012, which meant that it was actually impossible for them to gain the legislature.
And? That's like saying Hawaii or Rhode Island would be Republican-controlled right now if they had just ran enough candidates. 
Please engage brain. Common sense highlight to you that this isn't the same at all. Hawaii and Rhode Island are the bluest of blue states and Arkansas is a red state.
No, they didn't run candidates because their local party infrastructure was, and still is a disaster. Republicans have not recruited candidates for very many winnable seats this year either.
We can even take a look at the State Senate District 21 special election 2 months ago to highlight how poor local GOP infrastructure is; Democratic ground operations and funding absolutely trounced the Republicans' (who had an inept teabagger disgrace of a candidate) in this historically deep blue seat which the GOP had never contested before.
Ultimately, the GOP still managed to win this seat
in a landslide (and this was a race that was ferociously fought on fiscal issues and unfortunately voters didn't trust the Democrat with their tax dollars).
Party infrastructure failures cannot be ignored.
