In every election since Rep. Mo Brooks (R-Huntsville) was first elected to Congress, he has won his general election by a minimum of 15 percentage points. In 2014, as an incumbent, he expanded that winning margin to a whopping 50 points.
Given these massive spreads over various Democratic challengers, one would assume the people of Alabama’s fifth congressional district are satisfied with their representation in the U.S. House of Representatives. Every two years, voters are given an opportunity to judge Brooks’ performance, and the numbers don’t lie: They like the job Brooks is doing.
Leave it to those running two of Alabama’s last-remaining daily newspapers to take exception with the voters that are also their customers. In their Sunday editions, the Shoals’ TimesDaily and the Decatur Daily, both of which are owned by the Tennessee Valley Printing Company, ran an editorial supporting Brooks’ Democratic challenger Peter Joffrion in next month’s midterm election.
In its oddball list of criticisms of the incumbent four-term Republican congressman, the editorial cites its dissatisfaction with Brooks’ town hall availability and being a “favorite of cable news” given his hawkish stance on illegal immigration (one held by the majority of his constituents) as proof he was not advancing “the interests of the Fifth District.”
Therefore according to the Decatur Daily-TimesDaily joint editorial board, Joffrion is a better choice given based on its assessment “promises to bring a more level head and a more responsive ear to the district’s congressional seat.”
“Joffrion, a retired Huntsville attorney, is focusing his campaign on the so-called kitchen table issues that may not motivate partisans, but do matter to the vast majority of north Alabamians: education, health care and jobs,” the editorial said.
The criticism of Brooks for his public availability is bizarre given the handful of Brooks-attended events at which I have been during this campaign cycle lacked the presence of any media, myself excluded.
It is almost as if this editorial board determined it wanted to be against Brooks in Alabama’s fifth congressional district election and sought the justification for doing so after the fact.
As for Joffrion, described as a “socialist” by Brooks, he is a run-of-the-mill left-of-center Democrat that supports abortion, restrictions on gun rights and is against the repeal of ObamaCare. Those aren’t mainstream policy positions in Alabama’s portion of the Tennessee River Valley.
The editorial accuses Brooks of growing “increasingly detached from his constituents,” but it is pretty clear from this editorial that these newspapers have grown increasingly detached from its customers in Morgan, Limestone, Colbert and Lauderdale counties.
@Jeff_Poor is a graduate of Auburn University and is the editor of Breitbart TV.
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