(Above: Video of Laura Ingraham, Sen. Jeff Sessions and Dave Brat speaking in Virginia)
Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) and nationally syndicated conservative talk radio host Laura Ingraham were the the headline speakers at a recent campaign rally for Virginia congressional candidate Dave Brat, who gained national recognition in June by defeating then-House Majority Leader Eric Cantor in Virginia’s 7th Congressional District Republican Primary.
Brat, an economist and college professor, defeated Cantor based largely on his opposition to so called comprehensive immigration reform, which many conservatives view as amnesty. He is now facing Democratic nominee Jack Trammell in the General Election.
On Sept. 27, the Brat campaign hosted a large rally at the Historic Cool Water home in Beaverdam, Virginia, and invited Sessions and Ingraham — two of the leading anti-amnesty voices in the country — to share the stage.
“This guy is the beginning — along with a few of our friends in the Senate, like Senator Sessions — who are actually going to show a new generation, a new demographic group about what real conservatism is,” Ingraham said. “We can’t leave this generation with a wasteland of debt and despair. It’s not written anywhere on a tablet that America has to put up with this year after year… We can make American the number one economic, cultural, spiritual clearing house for the World that she must always be.”
Brat touted Sessions as one of the few federal elected officials in the country who has shown a willingness to confront entitlement spending head on, rather than just using it in campaign talking points.
Sessions was greeted with a rockstar’s welcome when he took the stage, and wasted no time giving the crowd what they were looking for.
“I was raised to follow the law,” he declared. “I was raised to believe that a sovereign nation controls its borders, decides who comes in, and the policies it enacts can serve the national interest. And the national interest is the people’s interest…
“The middle class needs representation,” he concluded.
Brat echoed Sessions’ comments, saying that he hopes to be “a vote for building the secure border that we’ve been promised for 30 years… a vote to ensure the integrity of the United States Constitution and your liberty.”
The fact that Sessions was invited in to Virginia to boost Brat’s candidacy shows just how much his national profile has risen in recent years.
Sessions emerged as the key opponent of the so-called “Gang of Eight” immigration reform legislation back in the spring of 2013. According to statistics provided by Sessions’ staff, in one month, from May 28, the day the immigration reform bill was passed out of the Senate Judiciary Committee, through the time it passed in the U.S. Senate on June 27, Sessions spoke 30 different times on immigration for a grand total of just under 13 hours to lay out the case. He logged over 33 hours at the Senate mic in 2013, more than any other senator.
Sessions’ consistency and persistence led to him being named one of the “most influential voices shaping the immigration debate,” and the effectiveness of his arguments has resulted in the president’s executive amnesty plan becoming so toxic that he decided to put it off until after the November elections.
If Republicans retake the Senate in November, which looks increasingly likely, Ingraham’s prediction that Sessions will show the country what “real conservatism is” will start with him taking his first shot at crafting the federal budget as chairman of the Senate Budget Committee.
RELATED: Nationally syndicated radio host says Jeff Sessions should run for president
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