President Bush Mobile bound
President George Bush will visit Mobile next month to highlight a fundraiser for U.S Sen. Jeff Sessions, Sessions’ supporters confirmed.
A reception is scheduled Thursday, June 21 at the Arthur R. Outlaw Convention Center “probably in the early evening or late afternoon,” said Sandy Stimpson, Sessions’ state finance chairman.
The Sessions’ camp hopes to raise $750,000 from the event to fuel his 2008 re-election campaign. Tickets will be $1,000 per person.
With Vice President Dick Cheney having visited Birmingham in Sessions’ behalf and the president now scheduled to assist the one-time U.S. attorney here, it is further “indication that Jeff is held in high regard by the White House,” said Stimpson.
Then the Alabama attorney general, Sessions was first elected to the U.S. Senate in 1996, defeating Roger Bedford. He won re-election in 2002 over Democratic nominee Susan Parker, now a member of the state Public Service Commission.
He has no announced Democratic opposition as yet, but state Agriculture Commissioner Ron Sparks is reportedly taking a hard look at running. State Sen. Vivian Figures of Mobile may also be mulling the race.
Sessions was ranked by National Journal as the fifth-most conservative U.S. senator in its March, 2007 conservative/liberal rankings. He backs conservative Republican stances on foreign affairs, taxes and social policy. He opposes abortion and illegal immigration.
Sessions serves on the Senate Judiciary Committee, and is its only member to have unsuccessfully faced the Committee before becoming a senator.
