One of the best choices for a running mate for Donald Trump has refused to rule out a vice presidential bid. In an interview with Poltico, Senator Tom Cotton (R-AR) was modest but not coy. Burgess Everett writes:

In the interview, Cotton wouldn’t rule out serving in a Trump White House, or even as his vice president.

“I don't have any reason to think that I would” be asked, Cotton says, before allowing that he would entertain "any request for assistance" from a Republican nominee.

But the straight-faced senator mostly deflects questions about his political future with flashes of humor, even though it’s clear he devotes serious thought to the matter.

Richard Baehr emails: “If he is willing, Trump would be nuts not to pick him.”

Cotton can be as blunt as Trump:

…he’s known for his no-nonsense mien and unabashed salesmanship of traditional conservatism. He’s a tough-on-crime Southerner — he made waves this month when he declared the country has an “under-incarceration” problem — and an unwavering hawk. Just two months after he arrived in the Senate, he penned a missive to Iranian leaders that was widely seen by Democrats as an over-the-top breach of protocol: Asserting that the nuclear agreement that President Barack Obama was furiously trying to clinch could easily be scuttled by the next president.

Cotton has an understated sense of humor, parsing out biting sarcasm and little digs between lots of seriousness. Though he’s just a freshman, Cotton carries himself in the Senate like an upperclassman. He walks a little faster than everyone else, and is almost always by himself, in the Senate and on his morning runs. (snip)

Cotton called Reid’s leadership “cancerous,” especially harsh language in the (usually) well-mannered Senate.

Cotton pumped his fist after the speech, said one source who saw him come off the Senate floor.

Reid, in response, could barely contain his contempt for the “very junior” senator from Arkansas. Asked a day later about the speech, Reid ripped Cotton’s interventionist foreign policy beliefs, which he said represent the kind of thinking that's left the entire Middle East “destabilized.”

“So if he thinks the war was won, let him give a speech on that,” Reid said of Cotton, who served as an infantryman.

Cotton responded to Reid in an email, calling him a “confused, bitter man, as impervious to facts as he is to decency.”

Senator Cotton is a veteran of Iraq and Afghanistan, and also is the youngest member of the Senate. He is already the subject of presidential talk post-Trump.