Meet The Press Host David Gregory Offers Take On Pryor-Cotton Race

This week on Capitol View, which airs Sunday mornings at 8:30 am on KARK, Ch. 4, Meet The Press host David Gregory sized up the Pryor vs. Cotton Senate race.

Gregory, a former White House chief correspondent, said that there is much interest in the Sen. Mark Pryor (D) versus Cong. Tom Cotton (R ) U.S. Senate race. He said Cotton may be taking a page out of President Obama’s 2008 playbook.

“Some of Cotton’s approach here is similar to Obama, right. Which is, he hasn’t been in Washington a long time, but he knows enough, having been there, that it needs to change. He can run with sort of an outsider message,” said Gregory.

Indeed, Cotton has invoked his lack of longevity in office as a selling point for his candidacy.

This week, Pryor went on the offensive in defending his vote for the federal health care law, which remains unpopular in state and national polling. Pryor said the bill was a jobs creator in Arkansas and he pushed its positive points, while noting that the law needed improvement. Gregory said he strategy may be the best way to play the issue.

“The Supreme Court has affirmed it. Even Republicans say that you’re not going to repeal Obamacare,” said Gregory. “So I think the strategy there is to say, ‘Look, let’s really talk about the things that people are going to benefit from.’ Because any new entitlement is something that people are ultimately going to be attracted to, even if they don’t like the role of the federal government in creating it.”

Gregory said there is widespread belief that Washington, D.C. may not accomplish much more this year.

“I think Washington is stuck and I think it’s been a rough go for the President here at the beginning of his second term,” he said, noting that issues ranging from gun control to immigration to the farm bill appeared stalled. “Then he’s only got the promise in the fall of another big fiscal budget fight that would just be a repeat of the last two fights that we’ve seen that nobody’s really won from. So I don’t things are great days here in the dog days of August in Washington.

You can watch his full interview below.