Monday, November 25 U.S. Senate candidates addressed the Butler County Republican Party at a candidate’s forum in Greenville. The GOP Senate candidates are running for the place currently held by Doug Jones (D).
“Doug Jones has got to go,” businessman Stanley Adair said. “He has an embarrassment to Alabama.”
“We want to keep America great and keep it moving forward,” Adair said. “If you want a job you can find work. That is because a businessman named Donald Trump went to Washington
I am a businessman like that.”
“Sometimes in life you have to stand and fight,” Congressman Bradley Byrne, R-Montrose, said.
Byrne said that he faced such a fight when Governor Bob Riley appointed him to head the state Two Year College System. He did not want that fight; but the system was corrupt and the state would not progress without cleaning up that corruption. Byrne said that he also had to fight when he and Mo Brooks, R-Huntsville, demanded inside the impeachment proceedings.
“I am of Alabama I am from Alabama,” Byrne said.
“No candidate in this race travels the state of Alabama as much as I do,” stated Secretary of State John H. Merrill (R). “This is the eight time I have visited Butler County this year. Cindy, my wife of 34 years, is with me tonight.”
“What do you want out of the person who will represent you in this position? A proven conservative reformer,” Secretary of State John H. Merrill (R) said. “The Sunlight Foundation looked at the Alabama Legislature when I was there from 2010 to 2014 for effectiveness. They said I was the most effective legislator in the house during that quadrennium. I wasn’t the most conservative and certainly was not the most liberal. I was the most effective.”
“We are faced with a radical socialist left that is attacking everything that we hold dear,” State Representative Arnold Mooney, R-Indian Springs, said.
Mooney said that he would vote to confirm judges who ruled based on the Constitution, he would support the Second Amendment, and that we have, “Got to defend life from conception to natural death. We need to protect our seniors.”
Adair said that Congress only has a thirteen percent approval rate.
“We need to be making good strong trade deals not NAFTA deals,” Adair said. “We need to bring common sense back to Washington.”
“You have got people hear tonight that say they vote 97 percent of the time with Trump, well you need to vote 100 percent with him when he is right,” Adair said.
Byrne said that liberals also come up with, “Crazy ideas like Medicare for All. Elizabeth Warren says she is just going to tax the rich people to pay for it. Well I will break it to you that all of you are rich because Elizabeth Warren will tax all of you.”
“They don’t believe like we do, they don’t think like we do,” Byrne said of Washington liberals. Many of them don’t believe in God. “If government is the center of your life, God is not.”
“I will support the president in order to build a border wall,” Merrill said.
As your Secretary of State, we have broken every record in the history of the state in both voter registration and participation,” Merrill said. “We have removed over 800,000 people from the voter rolls.”
“We have been sued by the ACLU and NAACP legal defense fund and we have beaten them,” Merrill stated.
Mooney said that he “Grew up in Montgomery, went to public schools, and graduated from Lanier high school.” “It was a great experience to grow up in Montgomery.”
Mooney met his wife Kelley at a Bible Study dessert table. “Kelley and I have been blessed to have 3 children and 8 grandchildren.”
Mooney worked for 43 years in commercial real estate.
“It is time to change the old guard and bring some new people to town,” Adair said.
Adair said that it is ridiculous to spend $20 million for “A job that pays $174,000 a year.”
Byrne said that if we passed the Green New Deal we would be cold in the winter, hot in the summer, and there would be “no more cows because they produce methane gas.”
Byrne said that Doug Jones voted against the Pain Capable Life Act banning abortion after 20 weeks.
“I believe life begins at conception,” Byrne said. Only four countries in the world allow abortions after 20 weeks: us, China, and North Korea.
“He voted against it, He voted against Judge Kavanaugh, one of the finest judicial appointees ever,” Byrne said. Judge Kavanaugh just needed someone to stand up there with him’against the most egregious slander ever and Doug Jones voted against him.
“Doug Jones is against building the wall,” Byrne said.
“We need judges who will interpret the law as it is written and not legislative from the bench,” Merrill said.
Mooney warned that the deal to fund the government will put $2 trillion on the national debt.
Mooney said that dealing with the chaos on the Southern border is costing $250 billion a year.
“What are we going to leave to our children and grandchildren?” Mooney said. “Unless we stand up and fight we are not going to be able to leave them the same freedom that we have
We have got to deal with the debt.”
“We have the best people in the world,” Adair said of the people of Alabama.
“The President loves the state of Alabama,” Byrne said.
“Yes, I vote with him 97 percent of the time and I am proud that I vote with him 97 percent of the time. He and I fight for Alabama. With your help we will take back this Senate and I promise you: we will make America great again.”
Merrill promised that if he is elected he would, “Fight against the socialist agenda of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.”
“Eighty percent of Americans want a vote on term limits,” Mooney said. “I have signed term limits legislation and I intend to honor them. Serve and then let somebody else serve. There are people in this room who could serve.”
“Send Doug Jones to a new zip code,” Mooney said. “He doesn’t represent us, he doesn’t think like us.”
Butler County Republican Party Chairman Cleve Poole said that the party is selling bumper stickers as a fundraiser: “All aboard the Trump Train” and “Trump 2020 Make Liberals Cry….Again.”
“We aim to take that Senate seat and we are going to do that,” Poole stated.
Former Chief Justice Roy Moore, former Dothan mayoral candidate Ruth Page Nelson, former Auburn football Coach Tommy Tuberville, and former Attorney General Jeff Sessions are also running for the Republican nomination for Senate.
The Republican primary will be March 3.
