Former Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy, left, and U.S. Senate candidate Bernie Moreno, center, applauded as Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis took the podium at the Allen County Republican Party BBQ Rally Friday at the UNOH Event Center.
Craig Kelly | The Lima News
LIMA — In the final days leading up to the election, Republican senatorial candidate Bernie Moreno is making his final push to unseat four-term U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio. On Friday evening, Moreno continued that push in Lima at the Allen County Republican Party BBQ Rally at the UNOH Event Center.
Moreno had some help at Friday’s rally with appearances and remarks by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and former Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy and an introduction by Ohio Lt. Gov. Jon Husted.
“There’s no place Bernie hasn’t been in this state,” Husted said in his introduction. “He’s worked tirelessly from the time he gets up in the morning until well into the night. He has earned our support because he has demonstrated tenacity.”
That tenacity is needed, Friday’s keynote speakers said, in order to not just unseat someone with a long track record in Washington, D.C., but also to bring conservative priorities and governance back to the nation’s capital.
As an example, DeSantis touted what he described as advances in conservatism in the Sunshine State, including opposing what he described as an emphasis on sexual ideology in education, opposition to COVID-19 restrictions and mandates and his current fight against a proposed constitutional amendment in Florida that would increase access to abortion.
“If you are willing to stand up, fight the left, defeat the left, show some courage, take the heat and deliver results for people, you will be rewarded politically,” he said. “Case in point: when I got elected in 2018, the state of Florida had 300,000 more registered Democrats than Republicans. Never in our state’s history did we ever have more Republicans than Democrats. I think most of you know Florida was usually the swing state in every election, including 2020. Donald Trump must have done 10 rallies in the fall just in the state of Florida. Today, we now have 1.1 million more Republicans than Democrats.”
While advocating for Moreno’s election, Ramaswamy emphasized that his election to the Senate would help bring the Senate back under Republican control, which would open up the pathway for Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump to enact his policy proposals, including closing the southern border and deporting those in the country illegally.
“I say this as the kid of legal immigrants to this country, to Cincinnati, Ohio, 40 years ago: your first act of entering this country cannot break the law,” he said. “That is why, if we had the largest influx of illegal aliens to this country in American history, we will have the largest mass deportation in American history, and that is not racist or xenophobic. That is what it means to stand for the rule of law.”
Ramaswamy also spoke against State Issue 1, which would alter the process of how political districts are mapped out in the state. Currently, the format is for a panel of seven: the governor, the state auditor, the secretary of state and four others appointed by the House speaker, the Senate president and the House and Senate minority leaders. Ramaswamy said this process still gives voters a say in the process, as each member is determined either by elected representatives or by the voters themselves in a statewide election.
“(Issue 1 proponents) don’t want the people to decide,” he said. “They want it to be a committee of unelected bureaucrats like (former NIAID director) Anthony Fauci deciding how we draw our own districts. Not only do they not want you or us as the voters to be able to vote them out, but they don’t even want us the voters to be able to talk to them.”
The ballot language does include a measure to “limit the right of Ohio citizens to freely express their opinions to members of the commission or to commission staff regarding the redistricting process or proposed redistricting plans, other than through designated meetings, hearings and an online public portal, and would forbid communication with the commission members and staff outside of those contexts.”
Wrapping up the evening, Moreno expressed gratitude for all his supporters statewide, including in Allen County. He pointed to his lack of political experience as an advantage, saying that those in the halls of political power have demonstrated contempt for the American people.
“What I see in D.C. is a common thread of leaders who actually don’t like us very much, and they have actually treated us like garbage over the last three and a half years,” he said. “We feel it every day when we turn on the TV, when we pay our bills, when we go to the grocery store, when we go out to eat, when we see what’s going on in our southern border. We feel like we should expect more.”
