The GOP's
(#47) Ronin were presumably led onto their Pyrrhic
stern letter-writing path of duty and honor by yet another "young gun" who may meet the same fate as other pretenders before him: Paul Ryan, Eric Cantor, among others. After all, what good is a massive MIC and a standing army if you can't eventually keep it on the road, bombing new targets, and occupying foreign soil for another decade.
Tom Cotton and his current PR trip to Gitmo is meant to take the focus away from the Open Letter to the Iranian leadership. "He just feels like it's an important counterterrorism tool and wants to see it himself firsthand," Or so his spokesperson says. If taking the White House could have a RW strategy this seems to signal the "big stick" path Cotton has chosen for the next fours years. This will be the Dixican deal dealt for 2016, or 2020 at least. More Ronin Reaganites and less Jeb Bushido.
Tom Cotton was a mere seven months into his tenure as an Arkansas congressman when he announced that he would challenge Democratic Sen. Mark Pryor in 2014 — a contest Cotton proceeded to win handily. The Republican has now been in the Senate for all of about five minutes, but this is a man on the move: Yes, the Tom Cotton for President chatter has already commenced. Indeed, it’s been underway for some time now; back in January, the New Republic identified the Harvard-educated veteran as a “dark horse” contender in 2016.
In a post last September, New York Times columnist Ross Douthat wrote about the path to victory in a potentially wide-open GOP primary: “[Y]ou want to seem conservative enough but not too right-wing, electable but not a liberal sellout, a safe choice for donors who also makes the party’s activists feel respected... [Y]ou win by straddling dispositional and ideological conservatism, raising lots of money, and promising the best chance of victory in November.”
That, alas, does not appear to be in the cards. Say what you will about Cotton, but he’s savvy enough to know that the optics of seeking the presidency after less than two years in the Senate — where he arrived after just two years in the House — are not good. So Republicans who wish to see the brash neoconservative ascend to the Oval Office will likely have to wait until at least 2020.
Cotton comes to Harlem (1970)
Lando Calrissian: They told me they fixed it! I trusted them to fix it! It's not my fault!
Darth Vader: Good. You know it would be unfortunate if I had to leave a garrison here.
Lando: [to himself] This deal is getting worse all the time!