The National Republican Senatorial Committee put out a new ad on Tuesday morning cheerfully attacking Sen. Mark Pryor (D-AR) as a liberal Democrat hiding behind the camouflage of being a moderate.
The ad used a British nature channel-style voice to describe Pryor’s “camouflage” as a moderate — and even subtly implies that Pryor is akin to the now-extinct dodo bird at the end.
“In the open, he tries to camouflage himself as a moderate, sometimes even tactfully hiding himself amongst the conservative species,” the voiceover in the ad explaind. “But when no one’s looking, his true colors are revealed in their glory, exposing the dangerous truth like voting to raise the debt ceiling six times.
“Alas, Pryor supports Obamacare with its massive tax increases. His species looks and acts much like the leader of the liberal family, Barack Obama. Pryor undeniably feels close to Obama, voting with him 93 percent of the time. Simply fascinating. Most predict extinction from the Senate when the truth is revealed. Mark Pryor truly is a liberal, when no one is looking.”
The NRSC has been busy attacking Pryor on this front, asking the question of what kind of Democrat he is: a moderate that’s more loyal to his state or a Democrat who quietly toes the line of the national party’s agenda? Republicans are hoping that a two-pronged approach of painting Pryor as a liberal in an increasingly conservative state while simultaneously propping up Rep. Tom Cotton (R-AR), a darling of the right, as the more honest alternative will move Pryor’s seat into Republican hands.
Attacking Pryor on Obamacare is no surprise, given that that has been a conservative strategy to attack Democrats since the law’s passage. Pryor himself said he has been expecting those kinds of attacks for a while now. In an interview with local news outlet KARK-TV in August, Pryor was asked if he had been second-guessing supporting Obamacare. Pryor responded, “It actually is working in a lot of ways.”
But despite the ad’s claims, when you look at Pryor’s voting record, he is inescapably one of the more moderate members of the Senate Democratic caucus. In National Journal’s 2012 Senate rankings Pryor was only more liberal than two other Democrats: Former Sen. Ben Nelson (NE) and current Sen. Joe Manchin (WV). Earlier in the year, Pryor voted against banning high-capacity magazine clips that held more than 10 bullets.
