Thursday, the Greater Birmingham Young Republicans group was able to grab national headlines by releasing a resolution to “revoke” their support of GOP U.S. Senate hopeful Roy Moore.
As Moore is facing allegations of sexual misconduct from the 1970s and 1980s, Collier Tynes, a member of the Young Republicans group with a membership based in Alabama’s largest metropolitan area, made that announcement via Twitter, adding the organization was going to “choose character before politics.”
The @GBYRs have passed the attached resolution to revoke support of Roy Moore.
We are the first Alabama GOP group to revoke our endorsement and choose character before politics.
This is the best birthday present ever. #alsen pic.twitter.com/85dw2Ygrpa
— Collier Tynes (@colliertynes) November 17, 2017
However, at least one of member the group is not going along with that decision and wanted to be known.
Caleb Parker, a member of the GBYRs, is still planning to vote for Moore in the U.S. Senate special election against Democrat Doug Jones on December 12.
“I am going to vote for the Republican on December 12,” he said emphatically in an interview Friday with Breitbart News. “To say anything otherwise, I don’t think is a smart thing.”
Parker emphasized that he was not speaking on behalf of the organization and that he had only decided to support Moore upon the former Alabama Supreme Court chief justice securing his party’s nod.
“I voted for Mo Brooks in the primary. I voted for Luther Strange in the runoff. I was very conflicted over that whole situation,” Parker said. “President Trump coming down here to ask me to vote for Luther Strange is what put me over the top for him, and it was a smart play to vote for Luther Strange as an Alabamian because he had supported everything the president had asked him to.”
Parker said he was concerned about Alabama losing two long-term senators, as Jeff Sessions is now U.S. Attorney General and Richard Shelby could be nearing the end of his almost-four decade tenure on Capitol Hill, which also weighed in his decision in choosing Strange over the Moore in the last month’s GOP primary runoff.
Parker questioned his group’s resolution rescinding a nomination, adding that the group never formally endorsed Moore or any candidate that he can recall.
“The YRs never endorsed Roy Moore,” he said. “How can you pull your endorsement from someone you never extended it to? I can’t recall ever endorsing a candidate as a group. I didn’t agree with that part of the resolution that was put out. I thought the best thing to do was not say anything.”
Parker maintained the group handled the passage of the resolution democratically, but he said he lacked the support he needed to stop it and that the organization passed the resolution overwhelmingly.
“There was only a few that voted ‘no,'” he said. “And we did do a show of hands. It wasn’t by acclamation or by voice vote or anything like that.”
Follow Jeff Poor on Twitter @jeff_poor
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