1. Molly Ball at the Atlantic profiles Tom Cotton, the Republican candidate -- the party's A+ student -- in the Arkansas U.S. Senate race. Cotton’s campaign strategy seems to consist entirely of tapping this sentiment. His ads and speeches are exercises in putting “Pryor” and “Obama” in the same sentence as many times as possible; his advisers and allies believe there’s just no way Pryor can overcome the fundamental partisan dynamics in a state Mitt Romney won by 23 points.