Lynda Blanchard, Mo Brooks swap barbs in early stages of 2022 U.S. Senate campaign

The first inter-party skirmish of Alabama’s 2022 U.S. Senate campaign took place on Monday as both of the formally announced GOP candidates, former U.S. Ambassador to Slovenia Lynda Blanchard and U.S. Rep. Mo Brooks (R-Huntsville), traded remarks through statements to the media.

Blanchard issued a release questioning the fundraising of Brooks and cited contributors as such Coca-Cola and Microsoft, who have taken center-left positions on politics in recent months.

“A 40-year career politician like Mo Brooks can easily snap his fingers and make the lobbyists come running with campaign cash, but how committed can you be to the conservative cause if you’re accepting money from companies that support illegal immigration, gun control, and the hoax of transgenderism,” Blanchard said. “Mo Brooks should be ashamed for courting campaign dollars from RINO Republicans and hardcore progressives promoting the woke, cancel culture movement.”

“In order to demonstrate that my principles cannot be purchased and my silence on issues cannot be bought, I pledge to refuse any federal PAC dollars that might be offered to my campaign, and I call upon Mo Brooks to return the liberal loot he has happily accepted,” she continued.

Blanchard also cited donations from NBC Universal and Google, in addition to Coca-Cola and Microsoft.

During an appearance on Huntsville radio’s “WVNN Afternoons with Yaffee,” Brooks responded by denying he had accepted money from corporations and urged listeners to consider his voting record.

“She’s trying to make the argument that I’m a liberal, which is pretty laughable if you think about it,” he said. “Anyone that knows my voting record knows that is not the case. Quite frankly, I’m a little bit surprised she has become so desperate so soon. Normally, people who are in dead last wait until closer to the election. But maybe she is just grasping at straws in hopes of getting some name ID that she otherwise does not have.”

“Under federal law, it is illegal for a corporation to give money or a candidate to receive money from a corporation,” Brooks said. “[I] suspect she is getting it from Jeff Roe, her political consultant, who is paid a lot of money to do these types of things. That would be my guess. Where he is getting it from, I do not know. To the extent she is claiming I am getting contributions from corporations that is certainly not the case. It might be individuals who are employed at those businesses that contributed to my campaign over the past decade or so, that’s a possibility. Keep in mind, I have not received any contributions from any of these entities during this senate race, directly or indirectly. So, you know, that part is clearly just made up. Might there be a political action committee that is funded by employees of some of these businesses? That’s a possibility, too. But I have not received any campaign contributions directly or indirectly from Coca-Cola for the United States Senate that I am aware of. So I don’t know where she is getting that.”

“She’s suggesting deceitfully that somehow or another I have voted — well, I’m not really sure what she is saying other than she is doing what she is doing,” he added. “But it is really sad. We don’t need a Republican candidate who is last in the polls making reckless accusations, trying to intimate there is something untoward when I’ve got a voting record.”

Also among items cited by Blanchard of questionable campaign support, she raised Brooks’ past support of now-U.S. Sen. Mitt Romney (R-UT), who has become a strident critic of former President Donald Trump, and said both Romney and Brooks were fellow members of “the Mormon faith.”

“Note: In addition to accepting money from Romney, the only federal campaign contribution Brooks made prior to 2010 was to Romney, a fellow member of the Mormon faith,” the release stated.

Brooks refuted Blanchard’s contention that he was a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints during his WVNN appearance.

“That’s false,” he said. “That’s totally inaccurate. Again, it has become evident that she doesn’t do her homework very well. She just makes up stuff.”

@Jeff_Poor is a graduate of Auburn University and the University of South Alabama, the editor of Breitbart TV, a columnist for Mobile’s Lagniappe Weekly, and host of Mobile’s “The Jeff Poor Show” from 9 a.m.-12 p.m. on FM Talk 106.5.