A Republican state legislator unveiled a website Monday to promote a movement to draft the state's freshman U.S. senator, Tom Cotton, to join a crowded GOP field seeking the White House in 2016.
"There are many fine candidates currently in the race," Charlie Collins of Fayetteville said on the home page of the website, callingcaptaincotton.com. "This isn't about them. This is about the need for a battle-tested leader to give us hope and keep our country safe."
The captain in the domain name refers to Cotton's rank when he was in the U.S. Army. Cotton served tours in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Collins said Monday that he is pursuing the draft movement on his own with some help with the technology part of it.
"This is a Collins initiative, not something that Tom is doing through me," he said.
But Collins said he spoke with Cotton several weeks ago. "He knows I think he is a great candidate."
Drafting a candidate isn't unusual but it typically goes nowhere. On the Democratic side, discussions have taken place about the possibility of drafting Vice President Joe Biden to seek his party's 2016 nomination, as well as U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts.
Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is seen as the party's presumptive nominee. Several others, including U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders, an Independent from Vermont, also are seeking the Democratic nomination.
The former Arkansas first lady is one of two candidates with connections to the state seeking the presidency already. The other is former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, running for the GOP.
Collins said a Biden draft movement is further along than Cotton's, but that he believes Cotton is well-positioned to enter the race if he does so within the next 60 to 90 days, which would give the senator enough time to establish his viability as a candidate in the March 1 primary across several Southern states.
The primary electorate doesn't seem to count government experience as a necessity, given that three of the top candidates, billionaire Donald Trump, former Hewlett-Packard Chief Executive Officer Carly Fiorina and retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson, have "zero" government experience, Collins said.
Cotton served one two-year term in the U.S. House of Representatives and is in his first year of a six-year Senate term.
Cotton also has proved he can raise money, Collins said. Cotton and former U.S. Sen. Mark Pryor, D-Ark., together raised more than $50 million in their campaign last year, the second most expensive U.S. Senate race in 2014, he said.
More than that, Collins said, Cotton "is going to be the kind of Reaganesque leader we need."
A spokesman for Cotton, Caroline Rabbitt, didn't respond to a telephone call or email Monday afternoon.
Last week, Cotton said he wasn't running for anything but "some 5 or 10Ks later this year" when he was asked whether he would be willing to be part of a third-party bid, as a conservative pundit suggested, if Donald Trump was the GOP's 2016 presidential nominee.
"I will be supporting the Republican nominee who I believe will be the next president and who will help unwind this disastrous deal with Iran," Cotton said.
His comments came after Bill Kristol, editor of the conservative Weekly Standard, told CNNMoney in an email that he would back a third-party candidate -- in particular,former Vice President Dick Cheney with Cotton as his vice president -- if Trump is the Republican candidate.
It isn't the first time a Cotton presidential candidacy has been mentioned. The Legislature earlier this year enacted Act 742, which would allow a sitting U.S. senator, presumably Cotton, to seek re-election and simultaneously run for the presidency or vice presidency. Cotton is up for re-election in 2020, a presidential election year.
Metro on 09/22/2015