Pence: Trump will rebuild military, destroy ISIS

Wednesday, Oct 19, 2016 7:20 AM Updated Thursday, Oct. 20, 2016 2:35 PM

GOP’s vice presidential nominee rallies crowd in Durango

Vice presidential candidate Mike Pence and his wife, Karen, greet supporters before he spoke Wednesday at a rally at the La Plata County Fairgrounds.

Shaun Stanley/Durango Herald

Vice presidential candidate Mike Pence speaks to supporters Wednesday during a rally at the La Plata County Fairgrounds.

Shaun Stanley/Durango Herald

The crowd listens to vice-presidential candidate Mike Pence Wednesday at a rally at the La Plata County Fairgrounds.

Shaun Stanley/Durango Herald

J. Paul Brown, candidate for Colorado House District 59 speaks to supporters in line to attend a rally Wednesday for vice presidential candidate Mike Pence at the La Plata County Fairgrounds.

Shaun Stanley/Durango Herald

J. Paul Brown, candidate for Colorado House District 59, speaks to supporters in line to attend a rally Wednesday for vice presidential candidate Mike Pence at the La Plata County Fairgrounds. Photo by Shaun Stanley/Durango Herald

Will Ballew, 13, from Cedar Hill, waits in line to hear Republican vice presidential nominee Mike Pence speak on Wednesday at the La Plata County Fairgrounds. Photo by Jerry McBride/Durango Herald

A crowd lines up Wednesday to make their way into the Fred Klatt Arena to hear Republican vice presidential nominee Mike Pence speak at the La Plata County Fairgrounds. Photo by Jerry McBride/Durango Herald

A crowd lines up to make their way in to the Fred Klatt Arena to hear Republican vice president nominee Mike Pence speak at the La Plata County Fairgrounds. Photo by Jerry McBride/Durango Herald

Carrie Griffen, left, Robert Horvath, and Joann McCracken, head into the Fred Klatt Arena to hear Republican vice presidential nominee Mike Pence speak on Wednesday at the La Plata County Fairgrounds. Photo by Jerry McBride/Durango Herald

There was no shortage of Trump-Pence schwag for sale Wednesday during Republican vice presidential nominee Mike Pence’s stop at the La Plata County Fairgrounds. Photo by Jerry McBride/Durango Herald

Vice presidential candidate Mike Pence and his wife Karen Pence greet supporters Wednesday before he spoke at a rally at the La Plata County Fairgrounds. Photo by Shaun Stanley/Durango Herald

Vice presidential candidate Mike Pence and his wife Karen Pence greet supporters Wednesday before a rally at the La Plata County Fairgrounds. Photo by Shaun Stanley/Durango Herald

Crowds cheer the arrival Wednesday of vice presidential candidate Mike Pence at the La Plata County Fairgrounds, where he delivered a campaign speech. Photo by Shaun Stanley/Durango Herald

Vice presidential candidate Mike Pence and his wife Karen Pence greet supporters at a rally at the La Plata County Fairgrounds. Photo by Shaun Stanley/Durango Herald

The crowd cheers the arrival of vice presidential candidate Mike Pence at the La Plata County Fairgrounds. Photo by Shaun Stanley/Durango Herald

Hundreds listen to vice presidential candidate Mike Pence at a rally Wednesday at the La Plata County Fairgrounds. Photo by Shaun Stanley/Durango Herald

Vice presidential candidate Mike Pence speaks to supporters Wednesday during a rally at the La Plata County Fairgrounds. Photo by Shaun Stanley/Durango Herald

Supporters display signs while they listen to vice presidential candidate Mike Pence at a rally Wednesday at the La Plata County Fairgrounds. Photo by Shaun Stanley/Durango Herald

Hundreds listen to vice presidential candidate Mike Pence at a rally Wednesday at the La Plata County Fairgrounds. Photo by Shaun Stanley/Durango Herald

Vice presidential candidate Mike Pence speaks to supporters during a rally Wednesday at the La Plata County Fairgrounds. Photo by Shaun Stanley/Durango Herald

Vice presidential candidate Mike Pence greets supporters after speaking at a rally Wednesday at the La Plata County Fairgrounds. Photo by Shaun Stanley/Durango Herald

There was no shortage of Trump-Pence schwag for sale during Republican vice presidential nominee Mike Pence’s stop Wednesday at the La Plata County Fairgrounds. Photo by Jerry McBride/Durango Herald

Kate Sweetser shows her support for Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton during Republican vice presidential nominee Mike Pence’s stop Wednesday at the La Plata County Fairgrounds. Photo by Jerry McBride/Durango Herald

Democratic supporters of presidential nominee Hillary Clinton showed up during Republican vice presidential nominee Mike Pence’s stop Wednesday at the La Plata County Fairgrounds. Photo by Jerry McBride/Durango Herald

Brandon Walter shows his support for Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton during Republican vice presidential nominee Mike Pence’s stop Wednesday at the La Plata County Fairgrounds. Photo by Jerry McBride/Durango Herald

Chelsea Steck shows her support for Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton during Republican vice presidential nominee Mike Pence’s stop Wednesday at the La Plata County Fairgrounds. Photo by Jerry McBride/Durango Herald

Democratic supporters of presidential nominee Hillary Clinton showed up during Republican vice presidential nominee Mike Pence’s stop Wednesday at the La Plata County Fairgrounds.

Democratic supporters of presidential nominee Hillary Clinton mix during Republican vice presidential nominee Mike Pence’s stop Wednesday at the La Plata County Fairgrounds. Photo by Jerry McBride/Durango Herald

Dalton Hamilton, a supporter of Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump, and other supporters engage Democratic supporters of presidential nominee Hillary Clinton during Republican vice presidential nominee Mike Pence’s stop Wednesday at the La Plata County Fairgrounds. Photo by Jerry McBride/Durango Herald

This election season, the American people are facing not a choice between parties or candidates, but between “two futures,” Republican vice presidential nominee Mike Pence told a throng of hundreds Wednesday at the La Plata County Fairgrounds.

“Donald Trump will rebuild our military, restore our arsenal of democracy and hunt down and destroy ISIS,” the Indiana governor told an audience of locals and visitors.

The presidential nominee, Pence said, “literally embodies” American values as “a rugged individualist, someone who is optimistic, independent and willing to fight every day for what he believes in.”

Often reaping cheers and chants, Pence’s 30-minute speech focused on national security, immigration, American values and bringing jobs back to American people.

“They say ‘this economy is the best we can do,’” Pence said of President Barack Obama’s administration. “It’s not. That’s the best they can do.”

Pence said the Trump administration would “get rid of death taxes once and for all,” and, as Pence did as Indiana’s governor, instate a moratorium on any new measures that would place red tape on businesses, and repeal Obama’s executive orders.

He riled cheers from the crowd when he promised, under Trump’s leadership, conservative Supreme Court justices, an end to Obama’s health care plan and an end to the “war on coal” in lieu of an “all-of-the-above” policy on natural resources.

“When Donald Trump is negotiator-in-chief, we’re going to renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement, get out of the Trans-Pacific Partnership and negotiate trade deals that put American jobs in the American economy first,” he said.

Pence also took shots at Democratic challenger Hillary Clinton, who he said lost the second debate to Trump “hands down,” and would do so again at Wednesday night’s third and final presidential debate before the election.

He condemned her proposals for $1 trillion in tax increases and a “war on American energy” that is stunting the economy.

“It’s not like it’s a fair fight,” Pence said. “The national media does half of Hillary Clinton’s work for her. But Donald Trump is still winning hearts and minds every day. The American people are talking while the mainstream media ignores an avalanche of scandals.”

The crowd interjected chants of “lock her up” as Pence maligned Clinton for her email controversy, her role in Benghazi and her foreign and trade policies.

Under the Obama administration, America’s “allies are less secure and enemies more emboldened,” Pence said, and Clinton’s tenure would mean more of the same.

“History teaches us that weakness arouses evil,” he said. “We know a weak and feckless foreign policy has emboldened our competitors and adversaries. Hillary Clinton has been at the very center of it.”

Pence also touted security on the home front, noting that the Fraternal Order of Police, a 330,000-member law enforcement union, has endorsed the Republican presidential nominee.

“It seems more than ever when tragedy happens in the wake of law enforcement action, too many in the media and too many in politics are willing to use a broad brush to demean those who put their lives on the line every day,” Pence said. “Trump will support law enforcement at every level and provide the resources they need to protect our families and go home safe to theirs.”

Trump-Pence supporters young and old at Wednesday’s rally were impressed with the vice-presidential candidate’s speech. People began lining up about 8:30 a.m. and several hundred were in the line – which stretched to Main Avenue, where protesters held signs – when entry began a little after 10 a.m. Everyone attending passed through metal detectors, and bags were searched.

“Mike Pence has a politician’s sense, Trump doesn’t,” said Durango native Sanlyn Maslak, 20. “He (Pence) knows what he’s doing. Trump has run a business. The two together is a good thing.”

Maslak said as a woman, she takes no offense at Trump’s history of derogatory remarks about women, including remarks he made in a tape that surfaced this month in which Trump says his celebrity enables him to grab and kiss women.

“I’ve heard women and men say way worse,” Maslak said. “I’ve said things I shouldn’t have said. We all have.”

“It’s more about the issues than the individual,” added Perry Hensley, who made a trip from Cortez to attend the event. Hensley said he supports Trump and Pence because the two represent small government and Second Amendment rights.

As the election looms, Pence exited with a call to action for voters in Durango and throughout Colorado to elect Trump president:

“When you do that, we’ll make America great again.”

jpace@durangoherald.com

Herald staff writers Shane Benjamin and Alejandro Alverez contributed to coverage of the rally.

J. Paul Brown’s opponents decry his speech at Pence rally

Colorado House District 59 Rep. J. Paul Brown, R-Ignacio

, came under fire for standing by GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump and giving an introductory speech at Wednesday’s rally for Trump’s running mate, Mike Pence.

The state official, named a “leadership” supporter by the Trump campaign, has been condemned for supporting the Trump/Pence ticket.

On Wednesday, Brown gave a brief but rousing speech denouncing Democratic nominee Sen. Hillary Clinton and proclaiming that the Republican ticket stands for “freedom, liberty, the rule of law and respecting the Constitution.”

“Donald Trump and Mike Pence will bring us back!” he said.

By taking a public stand for Trump and Pence, Brown invited the ire of several groups, including liberal advocacy organization ProgressNow Colorado.

“It’s no surprise that J. Paul Brown is choosing to go down with the SS Trump-Pence, after Brown repeatedly supported Pence’s agenda of trying to ban abortion and legalize discrimination in the Colorado House,” Executive Director Ian Silverii said. “By publicly aligning himself with Trump’s campaign of lies and hate, and espousing his own Trumpian conspiracy theories like denying climate change, Brown is hanging on very tightly to a sinking ship.”

More flak came from NARAL Pro-Choice Colorado, a leader in the pro-choice movement.

“Pence’s actions couldn’t be further from the pro-choice, pro-reproductive justice, pro-equality values of Coloradoans. J. Paul Brown, who has his own terrible anti-choice voting record, is out of step with Colorado voters,” Executive Director Karen Middleton said. “His backing of the Trump-Pence ticket is an insult to the women of Southwest Colorado and anyone who believes in the right to individual liberty and the right to keep government out of our personal decisions.”

The legislator said the criticism comes from Democrats, not Republicans in his district. Brown said he admires Pence and believes the Indiana governor is critical to advancing the Trump ticket.

“I think that he will really help the Trump-Pence ticket, and I still believe that the ticket will appoint Supreme Court justices that won’t legislate from the bench, which many liberal judges do. I think that is probably the most important issue facing the country right now,” Brown said.

“I’ve said it before: I don’t condone anything Mr. Trump said 11 years ago,” Brown continued, referring to a 2005 tape in which Trump is caught saying celebrity status allows him to grab and kiss women. “A lot of times, you have to choose between the best of two evils, you might say. Mr. Trump won the nomination. I didn’t support him in that, but he won fair and square, and I’m not going to vote for Hillary Clinton, who I feel has really let the country down. I would ask the same question of Democrats: how can they continue to support Hillary?”

jpace@durangoherald.com