Cotton, Pryor On Air, All The Time

Because you haven’t seen enough political advertising in the current U.S. Senate race, today a slew of new ads are making their debut.

Republican challenger Cong. Tom Cotton unveiled a three-prong television ad strategy that features two new ads and one that has been in rotation.

The new ads are titled “Indoor Plumbing” and “Social Security for Illegal Immigrants.” The plumbing ad features Cotton’s mother, Avis, who has previously appeared in his commercials. She and Cotton are unpacking groceries and discussion “keeping commitments” to seniors.

“That’s why every vote I’ve cast, and will cast, on Social Security and Medicare protects and preserves benefits for seniors like mom,” Cotton says.

“That’s right. I’ve been watching,” says his mother, who Cotton says grew up without indoor plumbing.

In the illegal immigrants ad, Cotton accuses his opponent, Democratic incumbent Sen. Mark Pryor, of casting the decisive vote that allowed illegal workers to get Social Security for “work they did with forged identities.”

“On illegal immigration, Mark Pryor never takes your side,” a narrator concludes.

The Pryor campaign pushed out a PolitiFact repudiation of the claim in the new Cotton ad (as well as a National Republican Senate Committee ad making a similar assertion). Politifact says the claim is “substantially misleading.”

It further states, “First, the provision was much more narrowly targeted than the ad suggests — it addressed the treatment of past payroll taxes paid by legal Social Security beneficiaries who at one time had been illegal immigrants. Second, the ad cherry-picks one vote Pryor cast against this provision while ignoring two separate votes he cast for the provision. We rate the claim False.”

Cotton is also keeping in rotation an ad that suggests Pryor wants to raise Social Security eligibility to age 68 or 69 — a notion that Pryor publicly discussed but that Pryor’s campaign says is an inaccurate representation of his position.

Pryor also debuted a new ad on Thursday. In the ad, titled “Medicare,” Pryor claims he has worked to cut waste in the Medicare program by reigning in insurance companies.

“My opponent knows I did not cut Medicare benefits. I cut waste and protected benefits,” Pryor says. “Making sure seniors get the health care they need is responsible. Overpaying insurance companies isn’t.”