GOP Insurgent Enlists ‘Duck Dynasty’ Star, Brexit Champion, and Steve Bannon

Barnwell, Alabama — If there is any place that should be a “Big Luther” stronghold, it is Baldwin County, home to affluent and well-educated suburbanites on the eastern shore of Mobile Bay.

Luther Strange, Alabama’s appointed Republican senator who is in the fight of his life, won just five of the state’s 67 counties in the first round of voting in the Republican primary on August 16, and Baldwin was one of them.

[lz_ndn video=33020944]

Most political experts in the state believe that for Strange to have a chance in Tuesday’s runoff, he must roll up large victory margins in Baldwin, Jefferson and Shelby counties — and also win Madison and Limestone counties, which Rep. Mo Brooks (R-Ala.) carried in the first round.

But on Monday, firebrand conservative challenger Roy Moore chose a 19th-century farm in Baldwin County to make his closing argument in the race to succeed Jeff Sessions, who vacated the seat to become attorney general. Moore had a boisterous crowd and a roster of speakers that included “Duck Dynasty” patriarch Phil Robertson, former White House counselor Stephen Bannon, “Brexit” architect Nigel Farage, and the area’s state senator, Trip Pittman.

Robertson defended Moore for his most famous act of defiance — his refusal to comply with a federal judge’s order to remove a granite monument of the Ten Commandments that he had erected in the Alabama Judicial Building. That act provoked a judicial ethics charge that cost Moore his position on the Supreme Court in 2003.

Robertson recited all of the individual commandments that could lead a person to the courthouse for failure to obey them — murder, refusing to honor mother and father, even adultery.

“If you’re going to end up at the courthouse for violating the Ten Commandments, that might be a good place to put them,” he said.

The race has scrambled the normal dynamics in Alabama and across the country. Bannon, former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, and several national conservative radio talk-show hosts have endorsed Moore, the former Alabama Supreme Court chief justice.

Complicated Proxy War
It would be the perfect proxy war against the GOP Establishment, personified by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.). The only problem is that President Donald Trump has lined up with the Establishment and McConnell on this one. And he has expended real political capital, campaigning with Strange in Huntsville, Alabama, on Friday and dispatching his vice president to campaign as well.

Trump remains popular among the large crowd gathered on Monday, and the mention of his name drew an enormous cheer. At the same time, pro-Moore speakers made it clear they believe the president made a mistake by backing Strange.

That goes for members of the audience as well. William Richardson, who lives in nearby Robertsdale, said he wants to send McConnell a message. He was more willing to cut the president slack, though.

“I still support Trump,” he told LifeZette. “But I don’t need him telling me who my senator should be.”

The next time an Establishment lawmaker faces a challenger from the Right, Alabama businessman Tim James thundered to the crowd, he will think twice before endorsing the incumbent. More forthrightly, he said, the election is about sending a message to the Washington consultants and pundits.

“We’re going to give them an Alabama attitude adjustment,” said James, a former gubernatorial candidate.

Indeed, populist conservatives hope next year to take down incumbent Republican incumbent Sens. Dean Heller in Nevada and Jeff Flake in Arizona, at minimum. Heading into those midterm elections with a win under their belts in the Alabama special election would be a nice way to kick off that campaign.

“We’ll send them a message very clear — Alabama can’t be bought.”

Things look good for them. Moore has led almost every poll taken since the first round, including a survey by the consulting firm Cygnal taken after Trump’s visit. It showed 52 percent of likely runoff voters supporting Moore and 41 percent favoring Strange. But with low-turnout runoffs particularly difficult to forecast, Moore is taking nothing for granted.

“We’ll send them a message very clear — Alabama can’t be bought,” he said.

Trump’s agenda, Moore said, has stalled in the Senate while riots, demonstrations and protests consume the nation.

“This election is critical to the future of this nation,” he said. “For whatever reason, God has put me in this race at this time.”

Part Speech, Part Revival
Moore’s address on Monday was reminiscent of an old-time revival, helped by the setting — a wooden barn with a dirt floor. Standing in front of giant American flag, a cowboy hat atop his head, Moore spoke as much like a preacher as a politician. In Alabama, those roles sometimes converge.

“We’ve got to go back to God,” he said. “We’ve got to go back to a moral base.”

The speakers and many of the media who covered them came from far away from Alabama, an indication of how much the race has been nationalized.

Bannon — now back at Breitbart News after a rocky tenure in the White House — came out firing bombs, calling the Republican Establishment “corrupt and incompetent” and blasting the media. But he saved his harshest rhetoric for McConnell, Republican strategist Karl Rove, high-dollar donors and other figures he sees as Trump’s obstacles.

“Your day of reckoning is coming,” he warned.

Bannon cast Moore as underdog hero, struggling against an estimated $30 million avalanche of campaign spending by Strange and his allies. And it was not to have a conversation about immigration or other issues, he said.

“What they did is spend $30 million to destroy a man,” he said. “Now, is that going to work?”

[lz_related_box id=”845303″]

Most of that massive sum, Bannon said, went to the crudest, bluntest instrument in American politics — the 30-second attack ad. Why?

“They think you’re a pack of morons,” he said.

Farage, who led the successful referendum campaign for Britain to exit the European Union, said populist conservatives on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean face the same scorn from media and business elites. But he said the movement faces something more dangerous than the media — theoretically like-minded politicians who are not true allies.

This is true of Conservative Party members who want to water down and delay Brexit in Britain and Republican members of Congress who seek to undermine Trump, Farage said.

“That is why I have absolutely no hesitation putting my support, and my backing, behind a man like Judge Roy Moore,” he said.

(photo credit, homepage and article images: YouTube / Gage Skidmore, Flickr)