Tom Cotton doesn’t think you should worry about money in politics. In an interview on NPR’s 1A, a constituent asked him a fair question, “Do you believe that the huge ever increasing money needed to run a viable campaign for Congress or Senate has had a corrupting influence on government?”
His response was “No, I don’t. We spend much less in this country on politics than we spend on potato chips or toothpaste. Often times as you see in the Democratic presidential primary, financial contributions are a way for people to support a candidate of their choice when they have too busy a life or too busy at work or have kids to be able to knock on doors or stuff envelopes or volunteer in another way.”
[buzzsprout episode=’1190234′ player=’true’]Senator Cotton totally avoided the question. Voters are worried about mega donors and special interests outright buying U.S. Senate seats. Instead of taking the issue seriously, Cotton made a dig at regular, working people, who he thinks are too busy eating potato chips to get involved in elections.
Cotton didn’t answer the question about secretive, big donors. He deflected because he doesn’t want you to know who is funding his campaign. It is not middle class and working families, the people who know the price of potato chips and toothpaste, who are donating to Tom Cotton.
As you can see, only 18.5% of his campaign donations have come from regular people since 2013. In fact, most of his contributions aren’t even from Arkansas!
Why would non-Arkansans be so interested in financing Tom Cotton’s campaigns? Well, when you look at which companies and groups are giving him money, the answer is clear.
Out of Cotton’s top five fundraising sources, two are conservative PACs, and the other three are banks and investment groups. Simply put, these are the people that Tom Cotton answers to. Because of what he’s done in Washington, these special interest groups have thrived while people in Arkansas, especially farmers, have been totally forgotten.
Big money in politics isn’t a problem for Tom Cotton, he loves the legal bribes he gets in campaign contributions from big banks and PACs. It means that he doesn’t have to listen to the needs of regular Arkansans who buy potato chips and toothpaste.
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