Tolbert: Cotton Continues Bio Ads, New Spot Features Wife

The ads from the Tom Cotton for Senate campaign have all had a basic theme to them.

At Christmas, he had an ad featuring his mom.  A few weeks ago, he was baling hay on the family farm with his dad.  Today, his new ad features Tom planting flowers at his home in Dardanelle with his newlywed bride.

“Deep roots connect you to values, and values drive decisions. Washington, D.C. is making the wrong decisions today on just about everything, and it’s hurting Arkansas. I’ll stay connected to my roots – Anna will make sure of that. And I’ll always put Arkansas first,” says Cotton in the ad.

The theme of the ads are clearly designed to combat the barrage of negative ads coming at him from Democratic groups such as Harry Reid’s Majority PAC as well as ads directly from the Pryor campaign hitting mainly on the familiar “Mediscare” tactics and attempting to paint Cotton as some sort of Tea Party extremist.

This is not to say ads are not out there hitting Pryor as well, but primarily these are coming from third party conservative groups.  The Club for Growth is out with a new ad showing Pryor “parroting” Obama on the “if you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor line” which turned out to be less than true.  The ad has around $300,000 behind it, so you should be seeing it.  Americans for Prosperity is also out with an ad thanking Cotton for “standing with Arkansas.”

The trend could be a pattern we will see for the next few months – the Cotton campaign sticking with the soft bio ads to try to boost Cotton’s favorability, while outside groups pound away tying Pryor to Obama and his unpopular policies.