Republican Matt Bevin is using a National Republican Senatorial Committee aimed at Sen. Mark Pryor (R-AR) to bludgeon his opponent in the upcoming Kentucky Senate primary against Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY).
The ad, released earlier on Tuesday, attacks Pryor for voting for Obamacare and to raise the debt ceiling six times. The ad paints Pryor as a secret liberal “camouflaged” as a moderate.
Bevin’s campaign tied the attacks to McConnell saying that, like Pryor, McConnell voted to raise the debt ceiling multiple times.
“We agree 100 percent with the NRSC that we don’t need liberal, big-government senators like Mark Pryor or Mitch McConnell in the U.S. Senate,” Bevin spokeswoman Sarah Durand said in a statement. “We need strong conservatives in the Senate like Matt Bevin who will fight for taxpayers when Congressional leaders – be they Republicans or Democrats – try to push liberal policies through.”
Asked about the Bevin campaign’s email highlighting the ad, NRSC spokesman Brad Dayspring said McConnell has a strong record of pushing for spending cuts in a debt ceiling increase deal, unlike Pryor or President Barack Obama.
“Mitch McConnell personally fought [for] and succeeded in getting $2.1 trillion in spending cuts attached to the last debt limit increase, while liberal Senators like Mark Pryor were simply trying to give President Obama a blank check,” Dayspring said in an email to TPM. “In fact, before Mitch McConnell took on President Obama to make sure that any increase in the debt limit was accompanied by spending cuts and reforms, Washington had previously just increased the debt limit blindly. It is because of conservatives like Mitch McConnell that now before any increase in debt limit by the Obama Administration, there is a worthy debate about cutting spending and additional reforms to lower the deficit and debt.”
