If U.S. Rep. Martha Roby’s primary challengers censured every Republican who withdrew public support for President Trump following the release of that infamous Access Hollywood tape, they would lose many conservative allies, including U.S. Rep. Bradley Byrne (R-Fairhope).
Rich Hobson, who was the director of the Administrative Office of Courts under former Chief Justice Roy Moore, and State Rep. Barry Moore (R-Enterprise), have based their efforts to unseat Roby partly upon her response to Trump’s comments about grabbing women, which she said made him “unacceptable as a candidate for president.”
“I think it showed where her mindset was and showed she did not support the Republican nominee,” Hobson recently told Mike Cason of AL.com. “And that did open the door for folks to be able to run, and I know it opened the door for me.”
Moore has criticized Roby similarly.
“I was the first in the nation to endorse Trump,” Moore said in a recent interview on WOPP AM 1290 in Opp. “Our current congressman, she threw him under the bus, so the Trump guys called me that night and said would you at least consider.”
Neither candidate grants even the slightest nod to how difficult a position that was for Republicans, or expresses any disgust at what effectually led Roby to rescind her endorsement. Not even a simple response like, “Trump’s comments were appalling, but his agenda is better for America than the alternative.”
The quandary in which Trump’s comments put Republicans was politically dubious at best and morally perilous at worst. It ought to be tough for party members to enthusiastically support a presidential candidate who says things like Trump said in that tape.
Roby, along with more than 20 other Republican Members of Congress, believed it to be too tough.
That doesn’t revoke Roby’s commitment to conservatism.
Moore told Yellowhammer News that he stands by his critique of Roby.
“Martha Roby’s decision to retract support from Donald Trump was about far more than personality,” Moore said. “We had a candidate that was pro-life versus one that was not, pro-gun against a gun grabber, smaller government or a leap toward socialism, a wall or open borders, a strong national defense as opposed to four more years of Obama, and judges like Gorsuch versus more like Sotomayor. When Martha Roby chose to stand against our Party’s duly selected nominee, she chose political correctness and coziness with media elites over the people she represents and the issues they care about.”
To express that withdrawing support for Trump was politically correct and elitist rather than, say, a wrong but morally legitimate reaction, is to demonstrate the lengths to which politics encourages sycophancy.
@jeremywbeaman is a contributing writer for Yellowhammer News
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