Tom Cotton's drill sergeant debunks Pryor's "entitlement" slam

Recently U. S. Sen. Mark Pryor (D-Arkansas) made news for his statement that the military service of his Republican opponent, U. S. Rep. Tom Cotton, has given Cotton "a sense of entitlement" to take a seat in the Senate. Cotton, an Army veteran who served two tours in Afghanistan, has rebutted Pryor with a lighthearted ad featuring the man whose job it was to drill any sense of entitlement out of him -- his drill sergeant:

Matt K. Lewis, writing in the Daily Caller, says that Pryor's "sense of entitlement" comment was a muffed attempt at forwarding his campaign's message that Cotton is too ambitious for Arkansas. The "too ambitious" gambit follows an attempt to knock Cotton down by saying that his conservative voting record was reckless and irresponsible -- a message that failed to resonate with Arkansas voters.

Cotton is a graduate of Harvard, and Harvard Law School -- and he worked as a management consultant in Washington for McKinsey & Co. These are all very impressive credentials, but they are presumably outside the experience of most Arkansans. Pryor would have to try to turn McKinsey & Co. into Cotton's Bain Capital.

The good news for Cotton is that the sixth generation Arkansan actually looks and sounds like an Arkansan. The attacks on McKinsey have (so far) failed to resonate.

But Pryor still had something to work with. In order for a narrative to work, it has to ring true, and having met Cotton several times, it's fair to say he does carry himself with an air of superiority that might not play well in Arkansas....

Grasping at straws, however, Team Pryor must have seen this trace of arrogance (a prerequisite for a one-term Congressman daring to challenge a sitting U.S. Senator and heir to a local political dynasty!) as a lifeline. Presumably, voters who would meet Cotton on the trail would have this sense reinforced by his demeanor.

This would help explain the anti-Cotton micro site called "Ambitious Tom."

Mark Pryor is not someone who should talk about another person's sense of entitlement. He holds the Senate seat that his daddy, also a former governor, used to hold.

With few serious challenges to Republican elected officials in our state, Oklahoma conservatives won't have much to keep them busy this fall, but just across the state line they could help Republicans take control of the U. S. Senate by replacing an entitled princeling with an intelligent, accomplished conservative.