Man accepts reality
By 
Tom Cotton may be a smarmy authoritarian but he’s not dumb:
Arkansas Sen. Tom Cotton has decided that he won’t run for president in 2024 — making him the first big-name Republican to step aside as former President Donald Trump and others make moves toward running.
The senator has been reaching out to donors, supporters and senior Republicans over the last few days to inform them of his plans, according to two people familiar with his deliberations. Cotton has attributed his decision to family concerns, saying that a national campaign would take him away from his two young sons, who are seven and five years old.
The only thing a Republican can do by challenging Trump in 2024 is make their chances of winning in 2028 less likely. In Cotton’s case, though, it’s a moot point. The “family reason” is presumably that his family would laugh at him after he finished in a virtual tie with Josh Hawley and behind Rick Perry, a Herman Cain Godfather’s Pizza standee, and write-in votes for “Bea O’Problem” and “Oliver Clothesoff” in Iowa.