HUNTINGTON, W.Va. — A Republican Congressional candidate gives President Barack Obama a poor grade when it comes to Syria.
“The President put himself in a corner and put our country and the world in the corner when, a year ago, he set the red line statement (about a possible response to Syria’s use of chemical weapons in its civil war),” said state Senator Evan Jenkins (R-Cabell).
“We’re in a box now, we’re in a corner and, unfortunately, that is where we are and we have no really good options at this point.”
Jenkins was a guest on Tuesday’s MetroNews ‘Talkline’ prior to President Obama’s scheduled national address, focused on Syria, on Tuesday night.
Jenkins said, if he was in the U.S. House now, he would vote against a U.S. military strike against Syria.
On the August 28 edition of MetroNews ‘Talkline,’ Third District Congressman Nick Rahall (D-WV) took a different stand. The longtime Congressman said he thought a limited U.S. military strike on Syria was appropriate.
“It has to be a surgical strike. It has to be a penetrating strike at the sites of high value from which this chemical warfare was launched. It has to be very limited in scope with no boots on the ground,” he said.
Jenkins criticized that view. “I think the President put us in this position, Rahall supported that position, but it’s been the call of Congress and the American people to say, ‘Not so fast,'” said Jenkins.
He changed his party affiliation from Democrat to Republican earlier this year and launched his run for the Republican nomination in the Third Congressional District next year.
If Jenkins wins that nomination, he’ll likely face Rahall in the 2014 General Election next November.