Congratulations! You beat a child molester. Barely.
The silver lining for the anti-gun among them is that this will probably destroy any prospect of National Reciprocity, unfortunately. But I can’t tell you I’m sorry Moore lost. If he had run for President, he would have topped Hillary in terms of “Worst. Presidential Candidate. Ever.” He would have written the DSCC’s 2018 campaign ads for them.
He joins such luminaries as Christine “I am not a witch!” O’Donnell, Sharron Angle, and Todd Akin. That is why the first thing I look at when I look at a candidate isn’t “Does he agree with me?” but “Can he win?” Because if the answer to the latter question is no, what’s the point? If you’re backing candidates that can’t win, the race is just an exercise in selfish delusions.
Also, I’m starting to think Steve Bannon was just a lucky bastard with Trump, rather than some kind of evil genius. He was also lucky to be going up against the “Worst. Presidential Candidate. Ever.” in terms of Hillary.
Was Luther Strange an establishment choice? Sure he was. But if he had been the nominee that race wouldn’t have even been close, and we’d only be looking at having to flip one vote for National Reciprocity instead of two.
2 flips, plus keeping the 7 Dems.
Here in NV, I think this flip will happen. Heller has serially offended the Republican base and provoked a primary challenge with high name recognition. Unfortunately, the high name recognition comes from running for every office imaginable and losing every time. (His father was the long-time basketball coach at the University so some residual recognition comes from that too.) Polls show Heller behind in both primary and general. They will be unreliable at this stage but it is not a good sign. Probably a better chance to win if Heller is not on the ticket but I wouldn’t bet on it. The Turtle hasn’t started money bombing the challenger yet which will probably increase his negatives without helping Heller.
Democrat is naturally an anti-selfdefense fanatic.
I’ll take someone who agrees with me 70-80 percent of the time and can win over over any ideologically pure candidate with inept political skills. In fact the most ‘ideologically pure person’ I know is myself and I would be a disaster as a candidate (maybe not as bad as Moore or the witch lady).. I am quite charisma-challenged too.
Well, now we know the formula for success. About a month before the early voting starts, we need to find someone that will claim to have been molested by the candidate 30-40 years ago, photoshop a few pictures and VOILA! The dims will throw them out. s/ off.
I’m honestly just waiting for the rash of accusations to come out after primaries are over next year.
Don’t forget to produce an obviously forged yearbook.
What made the smear work was the intense media coverage of an off-cycle election. Not sure it will work in the normal cycle next year.
Sadly, it will also only work against Republicans. Democrats seem to manage to weasel out of of the accusations 9 out of 10.
It may also work against Libertarians, but it’s hard to say: none of them have been able to be successful enough to justify getting whacked in this way….
Can’t destroy prospects that weren’t there in the first place.
I have a lot of problems with Moore. If I were to pick the republican that I disagree with about the most things he would be near the top of the list. That said, they didn’t defeat the child molester. He didn’t molest children! There is zero credible evidence behind either (there were only two, not nine) charge against him. The whole thing was a transparent pack of lies from the mainstream media and endorsed by the GOP.
The weaponization of false sexual assault accusations is the GREATEST THREAT to the republic today. We must find a way to deal with it I don’t know how to counter it. I really don’t.
Whether the accusations were true or not, polls show Alabamans believed they were.
If Mitch McConnell hadn’t kneecapped Mo Brooks to protect the swamp this fiasco would have NEVER happened in the first place.
I’m not saying McConnell is an unblemished saint. He is a swamp thing.
Glad to see you were able to unearth the evidence proving Roy Moore committed a crime. Please share the evidence with us.
Or was your blog post intro just sensationalizing?
McConnell was probably in on the accusations, helped fund them or was at least given the heads up, given the whiplash like speed with which he announced Moore should pull out.
If accusations are enough not to tank a candidacy, Republicans better wise up and hire their democrat accusers now before the Dems hire them first. Because that’s where this is going, and this runaway train has already left the station.
Like I said, it doesn’t matter whether it was true or not. What matters is that 49% of Alabamans thought they were true and it arguably cost him the race.
Personally, the timing of the story makes me suspicious of the claim. But I can’t say the WaPo reporting on it wasn’t thorough. If it is false, Moore would have a viable libel suit.
You seem to be laboring under the misconception that people are somehow obligated to employ the evidentiary standards that obtain in a criminal trial when they form opinions about a political candidate’s conduct and character.
Free clue: they’re not.
You know, you’re right. Now, when a Democrat Senate takes away your gun rights, you can thank your support for their tactics.
Best evidence indicates that it was Bush minions that brought the stories to the WaPo.
Based on the people involved, if it was an “October Surprise,” the smart money is on a hit by the GOPe.
This right here. They were determined to have their compliant lapdog strange and firebombed the whole thing to try to get him.
And I’m an AL resident so I’m a little more tuned in to things than most.
One Dem vote that may flip is our Montana Senator Jon “Scourge of Golden Corral” Tester. He has to shore up his Red State Democrat image ahead of reelection in 2018. Senator Chuck “I run Jon like a sock puppet” Schumer may just this once let him vote for the bill. If he does, great- still not voting for him.
Tester voted Aye in 2013 – he’s one of the 7 Democratic Aye votes we need to retain for passage, and I think I rated him the most likely of those 7 to stay the course.
“I’m starting to think Steve Bannon was just a lucky bastard with Trump, rather than some kind of evil genius.”
That assumes that Bannon’s goal is to get certain people elected.
On the other hand, if Bannon’s goal is to attack BOTH parties then Moore was probably the right candidate in this race: The specter of an accused sexual deviant being elected as a Republican was enough (combined with the post-Weinstein climate) to force the democrats to start seriously confronting the skeletons in the closets of their federal legislators, while at the same time the defense of Moore has (at least for some, especially when combined with the forced resignations of democrats) cast doubt on the assertion that the Republican party is the party of unimpeachable morality.
Frankly, if that theory is true, then the fact that Moore lost by a margin of ~1% may well be the most hoped-for outcome: It got democrats to resign, and it got Republicans to damage their public image without receiving any tangible benefit.
I think that to believe this is to credit Bannon with a degree of Machiavellian intelligence that he has never previously demonstrated.
When you hear hoofbeats, think horses, not zebras.
I’m not the first one to say it, but it is true: if The GOPe actually -kept- any of their promises to voters over the last 30 years they wouldn’t be getting ‘primaried’.
They control the house, the senate, and the Oval Office. National Reciprocity, tax reform, welfare reform, a balanced budget, Obamacare repeal and a host of other legislation SHOULD have been ready to go on January 21st. But they were too busy being pissy about their milquetoast candidates getting slaughtered by the ONE candidate actually willing to go on record as saying he’d put America and its citizens first. And a year later-the morons still haven’t clued in. They can kiss my starfish.
The GOP deserves to go the way of the Whigs.
Um, you do know that Bannon was backing Brooks before McConnell spent millions deep-sixing him. Brooks would have won the general easily and probably the primary runoff too. Plus he would have been better aligned with the base than anyone else on offer. The problem isn’t Bannon, it is McConnell.
“the one thing you can take to the bank is the Stupid Party’s unerring knack to out-stupid themselves.”
– Mark Steyn
Todd “legitimate rape” Akin gave us Claire McCaskill, who could be – but isn’t – the 60th vote for reciprocity. Now Bannon foisted Moore who gave us Doug Jones, and we will be down to 58.
Bannon suffers McConnell derangement syndrome – willing to support anyone McConnell hates. Nevermind that McConnell gave us Gorsuch. I am no McConnell fan, but I think his main priority is winning. The writing was on the wall with Moore, he barely won his last election. Strange may have been “establishment” – whatever that means, but he would have voted the same as Moore 100% of the time.
The moral of the story: Sometimes winning IS everything.
“You beat a child molester. Barely.”
Hey you guys, all your loud whistling bast the graveyard may wake the dead!
You hitched your stars to a losing team, and now you refuse to accept the consequences.
Short sighted. Sad.
Well… it’d be /nice/ if the DNC as a national party didn’t advocate banning the most popular types of firearms in the country.
And working to change that is good.
But until that can happen “hitching our stars” to /their/ team doesn’t seem like a wise idea.
Somehow I doubt the Dems as a national organization would accept the trade of “Gun owners will support you if you stop trying to ban guns”.
Exactly. I mean, I have no particular loyalty to the GOP. But as long as the Democratic Party is actively attacking my rights, the GOP kind of earns my vote by default, even when they nominate assclowns.
Is it worth noting that Trump supported Strange in the primaries, barely moved himself to support Moore in the general, and has been distancing himself from Moore since the election?
Bannon != Trump.
Anyone else notice that the margin of victory was smaller than the total number of write-in ballots? I think it’s important that “none of the above” tipped the balance (I also think it is foolish to assume that these voters would have all gone to anyone in particular if that weren’t an option).
I agree that the write-in factor is actually a bigger issue than most are acknowledging. 22,800+ people turned out for no reason other than to say, “I hate you both.” There wasn’t another race turning them out to vote. They turned out to specifically tell the two major candidates that they both sucked. If 22,000 people marched down the streets of Mobile with signs that all said “Both parties are awful and none of your candidates represent me,” then it would have been front page news.