By TODD STACY, Alabama Daily News
MONTGOMERY, Ala. – Bradley Byrne is a fighter.
That’s what Alabama’s 1st District Congressman says differentiates him from the field of other candidates in the race for the Republican nomination for U.S. Senate, and there’s plenty of evidence that his previous experience backs that up. Over a political career that has taken him from the state school board and the State Senate to the Alabama Community College System chancellor’s office and the U.S. House of Representatives, Byrne’s fights have been famous.
Perhaps the most successful was Byrne’s bout with the state’s two-year college system, which had been mired in a patronage scandal until he, a reform-minded governor and federal prosecutors came in to clean it up.
Perhaps the least successful was his run for governor in 2010 that saw him on a quixotic quest to take on the then-all-powerful state teachers’ association, only for that group to marshal untold resources to defeat him in the end.
Now Byrne finds himself in the middle of another high-profile fight as he seeks to win a U.S. Senate seat by first outmatching two better-known Republican rivals in former U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions and former Auburn football coach Tommy Tuberville. The winner of the Republican primary — or runoff, if needed — will face incumbent Democratic Sen. Doug Jones in November.
Most every campaign with this much at stake can turn negative, and sure enough, the final weeks of this race have seen those top three candidates concentrate their fire on each other.
Tuberville, Sessions and some outside political groups are hammering Byrne for the oldest political sin in the book: telling the truth. In 2016, after audio surfaced of then-candidate Donald Trump bragging about being powerful enough to grab women’s private parts, Byrne condemned the comments and called on Trump to step aside as the Republican nominee, saying he was “unfit” to be president.
Weeks later, Byrne affirmed his support for Trump and by all accounts has been a loyal defender of the president ever since. Still, for a party dominated by Trump in which one’s loyalty to him can be the only litmus test voters care about, the episode has had a residual impact.
For his part, Byrne calls his decision at the time “a mistake” and responds to questions by pointing to the president’s embrace of him on different occasions, including a post-impeachment White House event when Trump called Byrne by name and thanked him for his support.
As we meet in his campaign office in downtown Montgomery on a Friday afternoon ahead of the Alabama Republican Party’s winter dinner, Byrne is coming off a full day of campaigning. He’s traversed the state multiple times this week, including a trip across north Alabama earlier in the day. No one would blame him for being worn out, but as we begin the interview he is relaxed and determined to make his case for why he’s the best choice for Republicans to take on Jones in November.
As ably as he answers the political questions with all the requisite poll-tested talking points, Byrne’s real strength is policy. He’s eager to talk about policy, legislation, budgets – anything other than the sometimes silly issues that can dominate campaigns. How do we fix the debt? I have a bill that redefines mandatory spending, actually, he says. What issue isn’t being discussed enough? How about health care, so let’s talk about the Medicare Wage Index, he says.
Such acumen is what has endeared Byrne to the wonks of state and federal government for more than a decade, though it is less endearing to the increasing number of voters who prefer style over substance. Which is why Byrne again finds himself in a fight.
Read and listen to our full interview below.