Free Republic

At the start of the 2014 election cycle, Mark Pryor's future in the Senate was widely considered as dead as the raccoons at the Gillett Coon Supper, an annual fundraiser and gathering spot for Arkansas pols. ....... A series of Pryor television ads focus on Medicare and Social Security, hitting his opponent for supporting Paul Ryan’s budget proposal, which would alter the structure of the programs and increase the eligibility age. It’s a well-worn strategy used by Democrats in states and districts across the country and designed to portray their adversaries as extreme. But there are a couple of particular...

Democratic Sen. Mark Pryor is trailing Republican challenger Rep. Tom Cotton in the Arkansas Senate race according to a poll released Monday. Forty-eight percent of respondents support Cotton compared to 41 percent behind the incumbent Pryor, according to the poll. The poll shows that the race has taken a turn due to Pryor’s support for Obamacare, according to Politico. The last published numbers from this marquee match-up came in the midst of October’s government shutdown and before the national focus turned to the disastrous rollout of Obamacare, which Pryor voted for. Four polls taken that month showed the race within...

KATV) Sen. Mark Pryor is out with a new TV ad offering a Biblical solution to the already heated 2014 Senate race in Arkansas. Pryor's campaign said the ad will begin airing on Wednesday. In the 30 second ad, Pryor speaks directly to the camera about his faith in the Bible. The ad is a substantial purchase for the campaign and will run statewide. "I'm not ashamed to say that I believe in God, and I believe in His word. The Bible teaches us no one has all the answers. Only God does. And neither political party is always right,"...

Mark Pryor, the incumbent Democratic senator from Arkansas up for reelection next year, is releasing a new TV ad Wednesday in which he invokes his belief in God. The ad first aired on the news broadcast on ABC affiliate KATV in Little Rock Tuesday evening. "I'm not ashamed to say that I believe in God and I believe in His word," says a bespectacled Pryor, who is holding an open Bible. "The Bible teaches us no one has all the answers--only God does. And neither political party's always right." Watch the ad and news report on it below:video at link...

Red-state Democrats always knew Obamacare would be a problem during next year's midterm election. But a new poll released Tuesday shows just how daunting a threat it is. **SNIP** Those numbers draw a bull's-eye on the back of the four red-state Democratic incumbents who voted for the health care reform in 2010 and are up for reelection in 2014: Mary Landrieu in Louisiana, Mark Begich in Alaska, Mark Pryor in Arkansas, and Kay Hagan in North Carolina. Each already faces a slim path to victory in their respective conservative-leaning states, one narrowed further by the law's increasing unpopularity. There's little...

As Democrats on Capitol Hill are growing increasingly angry with the White House over problems with Obamacare — and increasingly uneasy about their individual fortunes heading into 2014 — Colorado Sen. Mark Udall Wednesday became the latest Democratic lawmaker to introduce legislation to change the beleaguered Affordable Care Act... With support building for a plan introduced by Sen. Mary Landrieu, D-Louisiana, that would allow people mislead by the president”s promise to keep their plans to actually do so indefinitely, Udall has come up with a scaled down version that would allow policyholders to keep their current plans, being cancelled under...

Senator Mark Pryor has tried to tar his likely opponent in next fall’s Senate election, Tom Cotton, as part of an intransigent group of Republican party that shut the federal government down and nearly forced the nation into default. Meanwhile, Arkansas voters disapprove of Senator Pryor more strongly than they ever did Democrat Blanche Lincoln, whom they voted out of the world’s greatest deliberative body in 2010. Cotton has avoided taking a strong stand on the issue, but regardless, the strategy doesn’t look like it will work for Pryor anyway: 39 percent of Arkansas likely voters, according to a new...

So Obama can delay at will - at whim even - the Big Business mandate and other parts of ObamaCare, and then either he or Sen. Harry Reid (D-DEM-e) can follow that up (when people cry foul) by saying "It's the law." So others, in due course, namely Republicans, can push for a delay in the individual mandate, as well as an end to subsidies for federal employee fat-cats, and then here comes Obama and Reid in all of their regal splendor saying basically "No, you can do this...you cannot delay this..." and "It's the law!" It now appears that...

... President Bashar al-Assad did not personally order last month's chemical weapons attack near Damascus that has triggered calls for US military intervention, and blocked numerous requests from his military commanders against opponents in recent months, a German newspaper has reported, citing unidentified, high-level national security sources. ...

Sen. Mark Pryor gets an assist from Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand to save him from Bloomberg’s money, then cuts the ribbon at an ammunition factory. Gun control advocates are fine with the factory thing, but not Gillibrand’s money. Welcome to Arkansas 2014. WASHINGTON — Sen. Mark Pryor broke ground at an expanded Remington ammunition factory in his home state of Arkansas Thursday — a gun-friendly move by a gun-friendly Democrat. That’s not normally something that would make much news: Even ardent Democrats in Arkansas are firmly supportive of gun rights. But with pro-gun control Democrats coming to his aid, Pryor’s 2014...

Hey guys and gals, I've just recently moved to Arkansas within the past 2 years from Oklahoma. So, being from Oklahoma, I'm VERY used to having my voice heard when I call my Senator or Congressman. I'm definitely not used to seeing a Senator or Congressman vote for something as awful as Obamacare or Immigration. With the election coming up, Senator Mark Pryor is the most vulnerable Democrat candidate in the entire United States. For all intents and purposes this guy has already lost his job BUT it never hurts to put a group of like minded people together to...

Haven't heard much mentioned about this. Senator Mark Pryor from Arkansas is in what is considered a fairly Conservative state. Not near as solid as Oklahoma to the west, but still a fairly decent state. He is VERY vulnerable. He just voted FOR the first part of the amnesty bill. I called his office and chewed them good!! They will ask for your zip code to make sure you are from Arkansas. But I think if enough people called we could make this guy REAL nervous about his job! Washington, D.C. Office 255 Dirksen Senate Office Bldg Washington, D.C. 20510...

PrimaryVille, or so severely weakened that his actions could elicit a Democratic challenger? Rubio is going down in the polls among Republicans, according to Rasmussen. He now sits at 58%, but is down 15 points from February and 10 from May. Palin has now ripped into Rubio, and he isn't gaining any friends fast that will help him stave off a primary challenge. He may be joining McConnell and Graham in in primary fight, and certainly could be dashing any chances at a presidential run. Senators Grahamnesty and McConnell are ripe for being primaried (as is Democrat Mark Pryor from...

And dumb enough to support this immigration bill given the Senate's 54-43 rejection of the Cornyn plan for a border security 'trigger'? The CBO dynamically "scored" (with numbers supplied to it by Dems) the immigration bill (S. 744) and found that it - low & behold - will DECREASE federal deficits over the next 20 years. Hmmm. How are those CBO-scored ObamaCare numbers working out for ya? They were only $2 TRILLION DOLLARS off when predicting the cost of ObamaCare. But no way they could botch this....right? I wonder what the odds are of these 4 getting primaried, given that...

Mayors Against Illegal guns — a group of nearly 1,000 mayors, the vast majority of whom are Democrats — lacks any obvious Republican target to lash out at over last week’s gun control defeat in the Senate. So the group is now mulling over how to express its rage, and the likely victim appears to be two-term U.S. Sen. Mark Pryor, D-Ark. President Obama’s post-campaign campaign just scared Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont., into retirement after his “no” vote last week. The mayors’ group now wants Pryor’s scalp on their wall — even if there’s no other Democrat in line to...

A Democratic senator claims impostors pretending to work for his office are calling people in his state to ask how many guns they own. Sen. Mark Pryor, of Arkansas, took to Twitter Friday to clarify that he is not the one behind those calls.

The Senate Conservatives Fund announced Wednesday that it has made defeating Sen. Mark L. Pryor, Arkansas Democrat, its No. 1 priority in the 2014 election. “Mark Pryor pretends to be a moderate in Arkansas but votes like a liberal in Washington,” said Matt Hoskins, the executive director of the group -snip- Mr. Obama lost Arkansas by a 23.7 percentage point margin to GOP rival Mitt Romney in the 2012 election.

WASHINGTON — As the Senate prepares to begin debating new gun control measures, some of President Barack Obama's fellow Democrats are poised to frustrate his efforts to enact the most sweeping limits on weapons in decades. These Democrats from largely rural states with strong gun cultures view Obama's proposals warily and have not committed to supporting them. The lawmakers' concerns could stand in the way of strong legislation before a single Republican gets a chance to vote "no." There's a core group of Democratic senators, most but not all from the West, who represent states with a higher-than-average rate of...

Senate Democrats balk at ending Bush-era tax rates for wealthyBy Alexander Bolton - 06/19/12 05:00 AM ET A growing number of Senate Democrats are signaling they are not prepared to raise taxes on anyone in the weak economy unless Congress approves a grand bargain to reduce the deficit. At least seven Democratic senators have declined to rule out supporting a temporary extension of the Bush-era income tax rates, breaking with party leaders who have called for letting the rates expire for people earning more than $1 million per year. That gives Senate Republicans a chance to push a temporary extension...

U.S. Sen. Mark Pryor, D-Ark., said he will not actively campaign in Arkansas for President Barack Obama during the 2012 general election cycle. Pryor noted his unwillingness to support the Obama, the titular head of the Democratic Party, during the second edition of the The City Wire show, presented by 5News. “Not very active,” Pryor said when asked about his level of support for Obama. “As much as I may love all of our presidents, ... I just don’t really get involved in those races. My view is, Democrat, Republican, it doesn’t matter, my view is I’m in Washington to...