By: Jack Bilyeu
FAYETTEVILLE, Ark.- Republican Senator Tom Cotton is up for reelection this November. Libertarian Candidate Ricky Dale Harrington, Jr. is the only other candidate on the ballot after Democratic challenger Josh Mahony dropped out of the race in March and Independent Dan Whitfield failed to gather enough signatures.
Cotton and Harrington were supposed to meet for a debate on Arkansas PBS earlier in October, but Senator Cotton did not attend the event. Instead, Harrington alone fielded questions from panelists for the duration of the broadcast.
Arkansas US Senate PBS Debate
A resident of Pine Bluff, Harrington spent much of his life working in church ministry. He studied at Harding University and traveled as a missionary to Scotland. He later worked in a psychiatric hospital.
“I learned a lot about our healthcare system,”Harrington said, “then shortly after went as a full time missionary to the people’s republic of china.” He said that his missionary work taught him about tolerance and understanding, which he uses to inform his views on one of his key issues: foreign policy.
Harrington said that healthcare, foreign policy and criminal justice are his most important issues. He aims to change the fact that the US accounts for one quarter of the world’s prison population.
“It’s a very bad policy for the government to advocate for more incarceration,” Harrington said, “because that’s abdicating more of the American people’s constitutional rights to an authoritarian government.” This is one of the key differences between Harrington and Republican incumbent Tom Cotton. Cotton is a firm believer in law and order.
Tom Cotton on Mob Rule
“In recent weeks, violent mobs have roamed our streets defacing and tearing down statues and monuments, in most cases with neither resistance from the police nor legal consequences,” Cotton said of mass protest surrounding police brutality in June. The same month, he published an essay in The New York Times that advocated the use of military force to shut them down.
Cotton lived in Dardanelle, then graduated from Harvard before serving in the military for five years. He was on President Trump’s shortlist of potential Supreme Court nominees that ultimately went to Amy Coney Barrett. Cotton and Harrington both supported Barrett’s nomination.
Cotton sits on the Senate Committee on Foreign Affairs and the Senate Committee on Financial Services. If reelected, he will serve his second term. When he ran for the first time in 2014, he faced a Democrat and candidates from both the Libertarian and Green Parties. He previously served in the Arkansas house.
“This a David and Goliath fight,” Harrington said of his odds of beating Cotton, “I just want to assure all Arkansans that I’m not about party politics. I’m about doing the right thing, I’m about helping people, because I’ve done it all my life.” The annual Arkansas Poll reports Tom Cotton with 75 percent support and Ricky Dale Harrington, Jr. with 20% support.
Tom Cotton was not available for comment.