Rep. Mo Brooks, R-Ala., running as one of 10 Republican candidates for the U.S. Senate, released a campaign video on Monday pledging unbridled support for the construction of a border wall. “If I have to filibuster on the Senate floor, I’ll even read the King James Bible until the wall is funded, and you know what, Washington could benefit from that,” he said, laughing.
Brooks’ appeal will undoubtedly resonate with many voters in Alabama, which Pew last year named the most religious state in the union.
But at least one other Republican candidate saw Brooks’ promise to proselytize as pretentious.
In a press release, Randy Brinson responded to the video, “Threatening to filibuster the Senate by reading the King James Bible is a blatant attempt to manipulate Christian voters, and it won’t work.”
His words are strong, but the critique shouldn’t be read as a wholesale writing-off of the religious appeal.
Three paragraphs later, Brinson makes his own: “I fully support President Trump’s agenda, and I’ll work with President Trump to close the deal on the wall. I’ll also fight for better visa monitoring, better cybersecurity, and giving priority to Christian refugees fleeing radical Islamic terrorism.”
Although both Democratic and Republican candidates for the Senate have made faith central to their campaigns, Republicans tend to do so competitively and among them, efforts to prove who is the most Christian seem to be rivaled only by efforts to prove who is most loyal to Trump’s agenda.
