Cook: Pryor Goes On Offense In Latest Ad

This week Senator Mark Pryor has been on the offensive against his Tea Party Republican opponent, Congressman Tom Cotton.

Today, Pryor released a new television ad entitled “Seventy” that goes after Cotton’s votes to raise Social Security eligibility to 70, along with cutting benefits, and voting to turn Medicare into a voucher program.

Here’s the ad:

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yIyV700XLFk]

It’s an effective ad, showing a clear contrast between Mark Pryor and Tom Cotton.

Republicans no doubt will claim Pryor is engaging in scare tactics to spook seniors, but the reality is Cotton cast votes not in the best interests of Arkansas’s growing senior population.

At the end of the post, I list the documentation sent out by the Pryor campaign showing their arguments against Cotton are grounded in fact.

I suspect Cotton, or his special interest allies, will soon run a television ad countering Pryor’s ad.

Pryor also made news this week by tying Obamcare to Tom Cotton. Sounds odd, granted, but Pryor in an article in The Hill noted that Cotton’s political director, State Rep. John Burris, was one of the architects of the Medicaid Private Option which was only made possible through Obamacare. Part of Pryor’s argument is that if Obamcare is so bad, why did one of Cotton’s key advisers help implement a version of it in Arkansas?

Pryor correctly notes that if Cotton has his way with repealing Obamacare, roughly 63,000 Arkansans would lose health care since they are enrolled via the Private Option.

An article posted online today in The Atlantic entitled “The State Where Obamacare is Working” gives Cotton a little bit of heartache.

Arkansas is becoming a national success story in our crafting of a compromise between Democrats and Republicans to get affordable health care to Arkansas’s working poor.

As more people become enrolled in the Private Option, it gives Pryor more ammunition to show that while Obamacare needs fixing, it does have many successful parts that should remain in place.

Cotton may soon have to defend denying tens of thousands of working poor access to health care. Also, Rep. Burris in the upcoming fiscal session likely has to fight off extremist Republican attempts to defund the Private Option he helped craft.

Which sadly puts Burris between a political rock and hard place. Defunding the Private Option takes away a significant Pryor talking point and helps Tom Cotton. However, in doing so it directly harms tens of thousands of Arkansans.

I disagree with Burris on a myriad of issues, but I don’t believe he’ll play politics with Arkansans’ health care.

Unfortunately, I can’t say the same about the others in the Republican legislative caucus who would gut a national success story on health care to score political points.

Regardless, unlike other Southern states, the back-and-forth over Obamacare between Democratic and Republican candidates is very slowly becoming more nuanced.

The ACA national rollout was an abysmal failure, but here in Arkansas it has had some significant success. Arkansas voters have more of a sense of nuance over policy than many give them credit for.

The unknown question is which nuance or permutation of ACA will they prefer next November?

LINK TO BACKGROUND ON PRYOR AD.