BIRMINGHAM — Vice President Mike Pence declined to criticize Roy Moore for opposing Graham-Cassidy, the latest Republican bill to repeal Obamacare, even as he urged rally goers to support Sen. Luther Strange in Tuesday’s closely watched special election for an Alabama Senate seat.
Pence, addressing about 500 who gathered in an airplane hanger near downtown Birmingham, said he and President Trump would continue to push for passage of the Obamacare repeal package sponsored by Republican Sens. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, despite Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, announcing her opposition to the legislation just hours earlier, likely killing its prospects.
Yet, in citing the urgency to pass Graham-Cassidy as a major reason to elect Strange in the GOP primary runoff here, a line that drew heavy applause, Pence pointedly refused call out Moore, the former chief justice of the Alabama Supreme Court, for his opposition to the package. It was an odd whiff given his complaints about Senate Republicans who oppose Graham-Cassidy and how crucial his vote would be, given his loyalty to the White House, is in any attempt to replace the Affordable Care Act.
“We even have some Republicans in the Senate who refuse to support it,” Pence said. “The Republicans in Congress were not elected to save Obamacare, they were elected to repeal and replace it.”
And yet, with Strange’s status as the underdog in most public opinion polls and the need to boost turnout as high as possible to complete the comeback, Pence was soft on Moore, who Trump has already promised to campaign for in the December special general election if he wins on Tuesday.
“I’m not here because I’m againt anybody; I’m here because Donald Trump and I are for Luther Strange,” Pence said.
Strange was appointed to the Senate in January when popular Republican Jeff Sessions resigned to become U.S. attorney general. He finished second to Moore in round one of the special GOP primary, and spent the runoff climbing his way into contention. The winner will be favored to win the special general election and earn the right to finish the six-year term Sessions won in 2014.
Top Republicans in Washington are concerned that Moore, a renegage supported on the populist Right, would cause the party a host of political problems in 2018 with his sharp rhetoric on social issues, possibly even putting the seat at risk in December. They have done everything they can to boost Strange, bringing Trump to Huntsville, Ala., on Friday for one of his signature rallies and Pence to Birmingham on Monday.
Ron Widner, 50, who showed up to see Pence, said he expects Trump’s endorsement to be the difference maker in the race. “We owe Trump his pick,” he said. “Trump did a big favor for America, almost a year ago, Nov. 9. Hillary Clinton is not president — we owe him.”
