A crowd of Cullman area residents listen to candidates for U.S. Senate at Cullman Civic Center.

For a man absent from an event he’d all but pledged to attend, no one was more present at Friday evening’s GOP forum for the U.S. Senate race than appointed incumbent U.S. Sen. Luther Strange.

Two of the three Republican candidates who spoke at the event — hosted by the Cullman County Republican Party — went straight after Strange, a signifier of his position among a crowded field of candidates ahead of the Aug. 15 primary election.

A third — Trip Pittman — stayed closer to to his own message, but closed his remarks with a caveat that voters should pay special attention to where Strange’s base of moneyed support lies.

Contrasting his own Alabama-based fundraising efforts with those of Strange’s, Pittman cautioned voters that “it’s important to look at where the money does come from,” suggesting that Strange represents the same special interests that have entrenched the Washington, D.C. establishment, regardless of party affiliation, into a single moneyed political class.

Outside of that remark, Pittman kept the focus on his own qualifications as a pro-business, anti-regulation Alabamian with a background in business and the military.

The other two candidates — former Alabama Supreme Court Chief Justice Roy Moore and current 5th Congressional District Rep. Mo Brooks — spent much of their time behind the podium in attack mode.

“They’re trying to buy the people of Alabama, and buy their vote, out of Washington, D.C.,” said Moore. “I think many of the [other Senate] candidates would agree: they’re trying to tell you who should be senator; who they want to keep there. It’s this establishment that’s preventing things from moving, and we’ve got to wake up to that fact.”

When he wasn’t going after Strange, Moore spent time in the past, refighting his old battles against the federal judiciary with all the assiduousness of a legal student baffled at the rift that so often separates abstract principles from their application in reality.

“I think we’re in a crisis today,” he said, summoning a famous line from Thomas Paine’s The American Crisis. “These are the times that try men’s souls.”

“The greatest threat to [the] Constitution is federal judges who have put themselves above the law,” he later remarked. “And we the people have fallen into the trap to think that what they say is the supreme law of the land.”

Brooks, who was last to speak, wasted little time comparing his conservative bona fides against Strange’s.

“I’ve never had someone try to portray me as a [Democratic U.S. Sen.] Nancy Pelosi fan before, but that seems to be the bent that Luther Strange’s campaign has taken,” Brooks said.

Despite owning a political career dating back to the early 1980s, Brooks sounded less like an establishment candidate than a conscientious career politician; one whose voting record — as well as his numerous victory laps with constituents who continually reelected him — affirmed the conservative principles he espouses.

Name-checking a laundry list of conservative scorekeepers like The Heritage Foundation and the Club for Growth, Brooks contrasted his record as a congressman with Strange’s short tenure as an installed senator — one whose appointment came amid a cloud of ethical accusations relating to the investigation of disgraced former Alabama Gov. Robert Bentley.

“Not one time have I had an ethics complaint filed against me with the Alabama Ethics Commission, nor with any federal government oversight agency,” he said, evidently alluding to complaints filed against Strange not only during the current Senate campaign season, but also during Strange’s time as Alabama’s Attorney General.

“Luther Strange does not want this election be about ethics….about honesty….about whether you support Donald Trump right now in 2017,” Brooks added later.

 Benjamin Bullard can be reached by phone at 256-734-2131 ext. 145.