Cotton, Bloomberg: Strangest Bedfellows

The most accurate punditry I’ve read all week says New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s anti-gun group “wants a scalp.” Somebody with Time magazine wrote that.

Sen. Mark Pryor, D-Ark., voted against extending criminal background checks for gun purchases at gun shows. This seriously annoyed supporters of these checks, including Bloomberg of New York, N.Y. The mayor’s group, Mayors Against Illegal Guns, bought TV ads targeting Pryor.

I’ve heard the arguments these ads will backfi re. I don’t believe them. All these ads do is boost the chances Republicans will beat Pryor next year. Here’s the thing: Mayors Against Illegal Guns clearly believes this, too, and clearly doesn’t care.

The line has been drawn, folks. Anti-gun groups are perfectly willing to let Arkansas have a hard-right Republican senator if it helps them scare the other 99.

This is a “fi ght fi re with fire” approach. The “mayors” group is no more unyielding here than the National Rifl e Association is in the other direction.

Anyone running for off ce must pick one or the other.

They ofter no neutral zone.

I have a grudging respect for this ruthlessness. My main point today is this: Don’t believe for a minute Pryor can help himself by reversing his vote on guns now. It would clearly be caving. If support for background checks was half as important to Arkansasvoters as Pryor’s liberal attackers would have you believe, they would have found a Democratic primary opponent already.

Pryor’s critics cite a poll saying 60 percent of all Arkansans and 85 percent of Democrats support background checks at gun shows. I don’t doubt it.

For the sake of argument, though, let’s pretend 85 percent of Arkansas Democrats prefer apples to oranges. If Pryor’s caught eating an orange, will that cost him the election? Of course not, because there are other issues more important to Democrats.

I humbly suggest the overriding issue for most Arkansas Democrats in this Senate race is their fear Rep.

Tom Cotton, R-Ark., will win it.

The fear is justifi ed. On guns and so many other things, there’s no middle any more.

!!!

While I’m on the subject of bright Republican prospects, allow me to mention state Sen. Michael Lamoureux, R-Russellville.

Rep. Davy Carter, R-Cabot, got all the attention as the next generation’s Republican prospect for governor and such. I don’tdeny his talent, but a lot of the attention lavished upon him sprang directly from his dramatic, contested rise as House Speaker. Lamoureux’s rise to Senate President Pro Tempore was a lot less dramatic. There are good reasons for that besides the larger Republican majority in the Senate.

I met Lamoureux in 1999 when he was a freshman House member. You could tell then this was a man of good sense who punched above his weight. Nothing I’ve seen in the intervening 14 years and four months has raised any doubts. Getting health care legislationthrough his end of the Capitol was no less daunting a task for Lamoureux than it was for Carter. I wonder if it wasn’t tougher. There was first-rate policy crafting and political hardball on both ends of the building.

True story: Last year, Gov. Beebe made the argument we ought to accept “Obamacare” because we were covering the costs of the uninsured anyway. That’s why paying customers were charged $5 for an aspirin at hospitals. I needed a response to that, so I called Lamoureux. I caught him on his cellphone, driving back home fromLittle Rock. My question came out of a clear blue sky. Without hesitation, the senator replied: “And how many hospitals do you think will drop their prices if we pass this? If the hospital association is going to use that argument, I want to see some figures and have some assurances before I consider it.” That, ladies and gentlemen, was the answer of a politician who’s hard to fool.

Lamoureux’s biggest problem in state politics is he comes from Russellville.

The power base of the state’s Republican Party lies north of the Interstate 540tunnel. The base for the rest of the political establishment and the news organizations that cover state government is Little Rock and its environs. Cabot is not a far commute from Little Rock. It’s no slight on Carter to say coming from there didn’t hurt in getting a lot of attention.

I drive I-540 and I-40 a lot. There’s a whole lot of state between Fayetteville and Little Rock. Both parties should scout the talent there, among other places.

DOUG THOMPSON IS A POLITICAL REPORTER AND COLUMNIST FOR NWA MEDIA.