Pence to Republicans: ‘It’s time to come home’

Republican VP nominee campaigns in Ashland, Ohio.

Directly addressing the deep divisions among Republicans in Ohio, GOP vice presidential nominee Mike Pence said in Ohio Tuesday, “It’s time for Republican voters to come home” and elect Donald Trump president.

Campaigning in a county that overwhelmingly voted in 2012 for Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney, Pence told a crowd of nearly 1,000 supporters, “This is not the time to make a statement. It’s the time to make a difference.”

“It’s time for Republican voters to come home; come home to elect the Trump-Pence team, come home to re-elect Sen. Rob Portman, Republican majorities in the House and Senate, and come home to make sure Hillary Clinton is never elected president of the United States.”

Although Pence delivered similar pleas for GOP unity in North Carolina Monday, his appeal in Ohio was even more crucial because Gov. John Kasich has said he will not vote for Trump while Portman, in a re-election battle with Senate Democratic nominee, announced this month he would write in Pence’s name for president.

Ohio’s 18 electoral votes are vital for Trump to have any chance of winning the 270 electoral votes he needs to become president. Polls show the race is close in Ohio, but hampering Trump is a marked reluctance among some Ohio Republicans to support Trump.

Rep. Bob Gibbs, R-Lakeville, introduced Pence to the crowd, but Portman did not attend. Gathered in an auditorium on the campus of Ashland University, the crowd was enthusiastic, cheering loudly when Pence urged them to re-elect Portman.

Declaring that the issues that would decide the race in Ohio were national security, economic prosperity and U.S. Supreme Court nominees, Pence assailed Clinton’s performance as secretary of state during President Barack Obama’s first term, saying “the world is a more dangerous today than the day” they “took over America’s foreign policy.”

Denouncing what he called their “weak and apologetic foreign policy,” Pence blamed Obama and Clinton for withdrawing all American forces from Iraq, which he charged “created a vacuum in which” Islamic State militants were able to route the Iraqi Army and seize “vast areas which had been won by the American soldier.”

Referring to the Iraqi offensive to take back the key city of Mosul, Pence said “at this very hour, with our prayers, there are American special forces in harm’s way trying to win back what Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama squandered in Mosul.”

Although former President George W. Bush signed an agreement with Iraqi leaders to establish Dec. 31, 2011, as the date to remove American forces from Iraq, national security officials urged Obama to keep some U.S. troops in Iraq to stabilize the country.

Instead, Obama rejected their advice and pulled all U.S. forces out of Iraq.

As if to anticipate Pence’s speech, Clinton’s campaign released a TV commercial in which retired U.S. Marine General John Allen assails Trump for what he calls his “complete ignorance” in what it would take for America to defeat Islamic State militants, known as ISIS.

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