Mark Pryor: Another Democrat Liar
How do you know when a Democrat politician is running scared? That’s easy; it’s when he trots out that old Democrat chestnut that his opponent is out to destroy Medicare and Social Security.
Every election cycle, you can bet the farm that a few desperate Dems will begin running television ads aimed to scare the old folks – that sector of society whose desperate fear is losing their medical care and those twice-monthly checks that they worked all their lives for.
Seniors are America’s best voters, but they are also the demographic most dependent on television as their primary news source. Many can no longer read the small newsprint in newspapers, and only a small portion of them are computer-literate. So those Democrat ads are indeed effective in striking fear into older Americans.
Cruel, isn’t it? Damnably heartless and despicable come to mind. One has to wonder if these Dem candidates who spread these callous lies call up their own aged parents and grandparents and reassure them that they shouldn’t worry, that it’s just politics. Yet they have no compunction about planting a cold seed of fear in the hearts and minds of the rest of the old folks out there, purely for political gain.
Such a cold fish liar is Mark Pryor, Democrat incumbent senator here in Arkansas, a state with a growing retiree population, the perfect target for such targeted deceptive advertising. Pryor, raised as a true-believer Democrat by his politician father, marches in lockstep with his party with incredible obedience, devotion, and fervor. Well, at least until re-election time rolls around and it comes time for Pryor to dance his little sidestep around all the lockstep loyalty demonstrated by his voting patterns for the past five years.
Ooh I love to dance a little sidestep, now they see me now they don’t,
I’ve come and gone and, ooh I love to sweep around the wide step,
Cut a little swath and lead the people on.
– Best Little Whorehouse in Texas, 1982
Watch that video and tell me it isn’t just too easy to picture Porky Pryor’s face on the corpulent Charles Durning, whose real-life credentials as a combat infantryman in WWII cause Pryor’s privileged path to politics to pale in comparison.
Tom Cotton, Pryor’s hard-charging young Republican challenger, is as much an opposite figure as any campaign manager could pray for. Cotton, with the lean face and figure that reflect his service as a combat Army infantry officer in our Mideast wars, comes from a comfortable family background just like Pryor. However, how the two chose to use their respective springboards of financial comfort and influence is where their paths diverge: Pryor pursued privilege, while Cotton chose combat
I sincerely hope that Cotton’s campaign has the good sense to produce a television ad pointing out that Pryor’s lies about Medicare and Social Security being targeted by the Republicans are as empty and baseless as they have been for decades.
Crossposted at American Thinker
Category: Politics
No, no, NO NO NO!!!!
NO SMEAR CAMPAIGNS! If Cotton wants to do something that will actually get him elected, he needs to showcase HIS ACCOMPLISHMENTS. THAT will cause people to stop and listen.
I already know what’s wrong with the other guy. I want to know what YOU’RE GOING TO DO FOR ME. That is what I, as a voter, want to hear.
Unfortunately, that’s not a winning strategy. We might like to think it will work, but history has shown that it won’t.
“Negative” campaign ads work, period. And when those ads are based on stoking fears, they work even better because, for survival reasons, our brains are conditioned to prioritize danger ahead of everything else.
In a perfect world, perhaps, ignoring a fearmonger and touting your own accomplisments works. And if Cotton enjoyed a comfortable lead over Pryor he would have the luxury of being able to do so as well.
Unfortunately, we don’t live in a perfect world, we live in a country that is split 48/48/2 in many areas and that means that a demagogue can completely disgust the majority of the electorate and still win:
He’s going to get 48% guaranteed (his own party), and all he’s got to do is pinch off a percent or two of the remaining 52% and he wins.
So, for Cotton, remaining silent is a tacit admission that Pryor is correct. So Cotton’s only viable tactic is to hit back and hit hard.
And THAT is why I will never vote again.
If I have to toddle along to hell with the rest, at least I will have the pleasure of knowing that I did not enable the system that sent me there.
If them Dems really want to win, threaten the young voters with cutbacks on Facebook and Twitter time by new Republican legislation being talked about, you know, in the cloak room.
Democrats have no monopoly on assholism. They are just more numerous and better practiced than the Republicans, generally. And if old people care so easily swayed by 30-second bullshit ads, then they, like most of the rest of the population, should lose their vote. It won’t happen, of course, so, it makes sense that a fearful and ignorant public would be influenced by ignoramuses and fear mongerers. One of the things I taught my progeny was that if they were ever in a mass panic situation, go in the direction opposite the crowd, observe, and think.
Another fine example of douchebaggery from Mark Pryor. Is there no depth that rat-bastard won’t stoop to?
He makes Democrats look bad, and that’s saying something!
I am a Cotton supporter that lives in Kansas, in fact I try to support conservatives where ever they may be because I believe they will be able to change the insane direction this country is headed.
isn’t “Democrat Liar” as redundant as “Republican Liar”?
Have I missed something? The republicans no longer want to privatize social security like was done in chile where most lost their retirement funds. They now support medicade? They now support the mandate to get emergency care for those who can’t afford it? Republicans will now tell me they believe in social security and medicare?
Well, I see “dumbcluckus maximus” has “graced” us with another appearance . . . .
VWP was being sarcastic, but he does have a point. After all I’ve paid into SS, I cringe whenever I hear someone going on about privatizing it.
Actually, Pinto Nag – you haven’t paid anything “into” Social Security. You own nothing. All you’ve done is follow the law by paying your taxes.
If Congress want’s to change the law and say, “Sorry, no more Social Security” – or cut your benefits by 50% when you get old enough to draw them – the SCOTUS that’s completely legal. See Nestor v. Fleming, 1960.
Social Security is nothing but an income transfer program that primarily benefits older US residents. Or in plain language, it’s welfare for the elderly.
Social Security was not originally a tax, at least, not as it is now. But I won’t split hairs with you, Hondo, because the point you’re making is rock solid. I would take it one step further, however; it’s not even welfare for the elderly anymore. Now it is simply a tax. And when it finally does become insolvent, the government will declare it to be exactly that, and nothing else.
I expect to receive very little or nothing from SS when and if I retire.
Actually, Pinto Nag, it was. It was always misrepresented as some type of “retirement account” or “insurance”. It’s never been either.
FICA taxes have always been exactly that: taxes. And Social Security has always been just another income redistribution program. It’s just never been represented truthfully by those who forced it on the US public.
More stretching the truth. No Republicans ever said they were going to privatize Social Security for everybody. First, people of a certain age or older would not be included and would continue with the old SS system. Younger people would have a CHOICE. They could CHOOSE to stay in the old SS system or they could CHOOSE to be in the new PRIVATE system somewhat like a 401K. When this was announced the people that screamed the loudest, other then Democrats LYING about it, were the older people and the AARP who would not have been affected by it. But the Democrat lies worked because I even heard well informed friends say…”The Republicans want to take away my Social Security.” Useful Idiots.
Making an ad showing your opponent is lieing through his teeth and pointing out his voting record is not a smear campaign. Avoiding that to be a nice guy got us obama twice.
i fully expect another good natured ad like the one he did with his former DI. That type of ad makes Pryor look like an asshat
pinto social security will still take in 90% of what it pays out when it goes “bankrupt” they don’t tell you that and if they do away with maximum limit on rich people it will be 97-98% and the 1-2% can be taken out of general fund by doing away with oil subsidies and tax breaks for the rich.
Seriously, VWPutz, the little pink tablet in the urinal is not candy! Stop eating the damned things!
The actual best estimate is 75% or so, vwp. And by law, when the so-called “trust fund” – AKA a bunch of IOUs from one part of the Federal government to another – is exhausted in less than 20 years, payouts will be limited to no more than is collected in FICA taxes.
Keep drinking the Kool-Aid. It’s already pretty much fried your brain, so you’ve really got nothing to lose.
What dumbass here-whose understanding of economics is on par with his ability to construct a coherent sentence-is trying to say is that the government will be able to continue to transfer money from current workers to retirees at a lower percentage largely because of changing demographics.
What he doesn’t say, most likely because he is so incredibly stupid, is that all of this discourages savings by current workers and that that stifles future growth. It’s probably too much to expect his obviously drug-addled mind to understand incentives, but the argument has to be made for the benefit of anyone else who stumbles across this thread.
If I as a private employer tried to foist a plan like Social Security on the employees of my company, I’d be in the cell next to Madoff.
Even if I draw what I’m currently forecast to receive when I retire, I figured I would have to live well into my 90’s before I ever recouped what I (and employers) paid into SS.
Sell that as an investment plan. Just try.