Sen. Mark Pryor’s re-election campaign chides opponent Tom Cotton for not deigning to appear in person today before the Mississippi Delta Grassroots Caucus, meeting at the Clinton Presidential Library.
Instead, said Pryor, Cotton will speak via Skype. Will he take open questions from reporters? He doesn’t much.
Cotton has good reason not to appear at a Delta meeting. He was the only Arkansas congressman to vote to eliminate the Delta Regional Authority, a bipartisan group that has contributed to economic projects in the region.
Pryor also notes that Cotton skipped a vote on a measure to help the Delta Queen do more tourism cruises along the Mississippi River to attend a private fund-raiser. He wants to end the Affordable Care Act, which has put 170,000 Arkansans on insurance plans under the private option version of Medicaid expansion. He voted to cut Pell grants for college students. He voted to reduce Head Start.
But lest you think Tom Cotton is not a man of the people — or at least 2 or 3 percent of the people — let it be known that Mitt Romney’s endorsement of Cotton was announced today. This follows on the heels of John Bolton’s endorsement. Bolton is the famously bellicose and undiplomatic former diplomat who, despite his current posturing, took the National Guard route to avoid Vietnam in his youth.
Romney’s endorsement of Cotton, by the way, is apparently part of a plan to shed his loser image and become a GOP kingmaker. 47 percent, look out!