John Brummett comments further today on Sen. Mark Pryor’s emergence as a vigorous voice of right-wing Republicanism in the case of gays in the military and immigrant children.
Pryor, who got cancer and fundamentalist religion along the way, always has leaned to the considerable right of his father and to the more-distant right of his mother.
Now he positively plunges in that direction, somewhat imaginatively, actually, strongly suggesting that his natural leanings have been accelerated by fear of the Republican sweep that took place in his state a few weeks ago and which presumably could threaten him four years hence when he ventures back to the ballot.
It is beginning to appear, in fact, that Pryor and John Boozman may be able to work in a single-minded senatorial tandem reminiscent of that of Pryor’s father and Dale Bumpers in the ‘80s and ‘90s.
Pryor can pick and choose all he wants according to his (flawed) beliefs on where the majority of voters stand on various hot button issues. But if he builds a four-year record as an opportunistic, backbone-deprived religious zealot interested only in his own re-election, voters on both end of the spectrum will have little reason to feel common cause with him. They might fancy any old colorless Republican lump that comes along as an alternative. Or simply stay home in droves. See: Blanche Lincoln.