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| -Land of the Free |
| 'Black Hawk Down' pilot Mike Durant aims for Alabama Senate seat, lauds American principles over liberal media |
| 2022-01-19 |
| [FoxNews] Durant, who has never held elected office, says people are ready for a fresh face and an outsider, rather than a career politician Former U.S. Army Special Operations aviator Mike Durant is making a splash as the newest candidate in the Republican race to become Alabama's next U.S. senator, joining an already heated contest to replace retiring Republican Sen. Richard Shelby at the end of his term. Durant, who was famously shot down during the 1993 Battle of Mogadishu in Somalia and portrayed in the 2001 film "Black Hawk Down," told Fox News in an exclusive interview that his experience in the military, and as a small business owner working with the Department of Defense, had prepared him to take a stand for average Alabamians against the Biden administration's "mismanagement" of the country. Durant expressed his desire for America to hold on to the founding principles that made it great, rather than cave to pressure from the liberal media seeking to tear them all apart in their efforts to appease Big Tech companies. "There's a frustration level that is arguably at its highest point now with the current administration, the kind of decisions that are being made. And if I had to point to a single event that just put me over the top, it's probably the way the withdrawal from Afghanistan was handled," Durant said when asked why he decided to jump into the race after his now-opponents, Rep. Mo Brooks, R-Ala., and businesswoman Katie Britt, had already been campaigning for months. "I just couldn't believe it understanding the decades of sacrifice, thousands of lives lost, and just to see complete mismanagement because you have people in positions of authority who are career politicians – they don't understand the implications of their decisions," he said, seemingly referencing President Biden who has spent over 50 years of his life in public office. Durant said when compared to most career politicians, he has lived two lives. He pointed to his time in the U.S. Army as well as his subsequent career as a business owner. He added that because of those experiences he had a much better understanding of the issues facing Americans and couldn't see himself being angry on the sidelines any longer. When asked how his experiences would help him stand out from Britt and Brooks, Durant argued that the longer one stayed in politics, the further they distanced themselves from the real world. "You don't understand what's really going on out there with average Americans, average Alabamians in this case, what impacts them, what their values are. You get sucked into the Washington machine," he said. "The founding fathers, their vision of this was not that. Their vision of this was citizens serve, they represent their constituents, they get something done, and they go back home." Britt and Brooks each have extensive experience working in politics. The former served as Shelby's chief of staff before becoming president of the Business Council of Alabama, while the latter was first elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 2010 after serving a number of years in the Alabama state legislature and as a member of the Madison County Commission. While discussing his experience as a small business owner, Durant, who served as president and CEO of Pinnacle Solutions Inc. until reportedly turning control of the company over to his employees this month, said he knew what it was like to worry about the well-being of employees and their families, especially when working with the federal government and the accompanying uncertainty of whether a contract would be paid or not. According to AL.com, the most recent polling in the race shows Brooks with a slight lead at 31.4% with Britt close behind at 26.2%. Durant, who joined the race months after Brooks and Britt, quickly jumped to 16.6%. Those undecided stand at 21.8%. Alabama's Republican primary will be held on May 24. If no candidate receives at least 50% of the vote, the two candidates with the most votes will advance to a runoff. Related: Mo Brooks: 2022-01-10 Mo Brooks: COVID a ‘Bioweapon' Created in the ‘Wuhan Bioweapons Lab of the Communist Chinese Party' Mo Brooks: 2021-10-05 Raging Lunatic Who Filmed Kyrsten Sinema in the Bathroom Speaks out Mo Brooks: 2021-07-29 DOJ won't back GOP rep's defense in Capitol riot suit from Swalwell |
| Posted by:Skidmark |
| #3 Key paragraphs from the article added to the post. There are more quotes from Mr. Durant at the link. |
| Posted by: trailing wife 2022-01-19 14:28 |
| #2 He was the pilot of the second blackhawk that got shot down and the special forces snipers volunteered to help protect and died doing it. Durant was the only one that survived. I knew the crewchief SSt. Fields that went down with him. While I don't know Durant's politics, he has got to be better than any commiefacist that is in the demoncrat party. |
| Posted by: DarthVader 2022-01-19 13:06 |
| #1 Shot down like McCain? Special Forces like Crenshaw? Not really sure what you're going to get with some of these vets. |
| Posted by: Vespasian Ebboting9735 2022-01-19 10:21 |