So many kinds of wrong
Arkansas Sen. Mark Pryor must not like his job. His 2014 re-election campaign has begun, and McClatchy reports that his first ad highlights
his opposition to President Obama's proposal to expand background checks for firearms purchases:
“Nothing in the Obama plan would have prevented tragedies like Newtown, Aurora, Tuscon or even Johanesboro," he says looking into the camera. "I’m Mark Pryor. And I approve this message because no one from New York or Washington tells me what to do. I listen to Arkansas.”
There's just one problem. Well, there's also the little matter of siding with the gun manufacturers in opposing a law that undoubtedly would save lives, but Pryor has another
little problem:
New PPP polls in Arkansas, Georgia, and Tennessee find that even in dark red states there's strong, bipartisan support for expanded background checks. And as we've found elsewhere, voters are unhappy with their Senators who voted against them.
In Georgia there's 71/22 support for them, in Tennessee it's 67/26, and in Arkansas it's 60/31. Female voters that the Republican Party really needs to reach out to if it's going to be successful moving forward are even more supportive of background checks. They favor them 81/12 in Georgia, 73/21 in Tennessee, and 67/25 in Arkansas.
Pryor is touting his opposition to a proposed law that has overwhelming support in his state. And this
wasn't the first poll to reveal such support.
In fact, yet another previous poll revealed that:
Arkansas voters are also more likely to vote for their U.S. Senator by a 31-point margin if their Senator votes in favor of requiring background checks at gun shows. A strong majority (56%) say they would be more likely to vote for their Senator if he voted in favor of this requirement, while just 25% say they would be less likely to vote for him.
But Pryor may think that he'll gain traction by running against New York, whose mayor is helping push for increased gun safety laws.
McClatchy:
"Mark Pryor had no problem listening to New Yorkers when he scooped up over a quarter of a million dollars for his campaigns from New York donors," said John Feinblatt, Mayors chairman and Bloomberg's chief policy advisor. "It's time for Senator Pryor to stop the hypocrisy and explain why he voted against a background check bill that 84 percent of Arkansans support."
Indeed.