Posted on 06/25/2019 10:02:39 AM PDT by commish
Trump will be on the ballot.
Why was it so easy to sway them in the first place? Was the evidence against Moore that compelling?
"Compelling" would have been the Gloria Allred show, with what was later found to be a forged signature in a yearbook. Until then, it was he said/she said with one woman whose son said she's a liar, another with connections to the state Democrat party, etc... the usual suspect motives.
The yearbook was tangible evidence, and was sufficient until it was proven false after the election. Just like with tainted donations, when the candidate gets the benefit of it before the election, and then vows to return the money after the election is won but it already served its purpose, the forged yearbook put enough doubt in people's minds before the election, and the truth came out after the election when it was too late for people to do anything about it.
Was his support that shallow?
You'd have to say this about BOTH candidates, since Hillary Clinton got more votes than either of them, and Trump got about the same votes as both of them combined. So it wasn't "shallow" support, just very low turnout on both sides.
In either case, what will shore up the base this time?
Natural tendencies. Republicans will be like to vote straight Republican and Democrats will be likely to vote straight Democrat. Ticket splitting is not uncommon, but not likely across the 600k who voted in 2016 but not in 2017.
I ask this sincerely, as you can peruse my posts from two years ago and see that I was a stalwart supporter of Moore last go 'round as the voter's choice to run the general.
As was I. I wanted to see Moore win for several reasons:
The heat is going to be cranked up to the max until the knob gets twisted off, so whoever is the nominee, better have an ironclad solid footing, with no loose ends or weak areas to cultivate by the media/rats.
That's an unattainably high bar. Everyone has flaws, nobody is perfect.
Look at what they did to generally clean Mitt Romney. They turned him into a school bully, a misogynist, and a heartless man who didn't care that his employees families had cancer.
The Brett Kavanaugh hearings changed everything -- I hope.
I hope it showed Republicans that they don't have to fold against the slightest headwind from Democrats, like they did with Todd Akin and Richard Mourdock, who both made slight gaffes that were blown up into existential crises to scare Republican leadership away.
If Moore were to survive the primary, he could run on a platform redemption for Alabama voters, saying that he was "target practice" for what Democrats did to Brett Kavanaugh a year later, and voters should see clearly now how they were manipulated in 2017 to vote against their best interests.
The problem that Moore and Alabama voters will still face is that their interests are not Mitch McConnell's interests.
-PJ
The reason that the level of attack was unprecedented was simple: the MSM was in the middle of a narrative that there was Trump remorse that was going to be proven by the special elections and then the 2018 mid-term.
However, prior to the Alabama special election, there was the Georgia 6th Congressional District special election. That was an unprecedented election for a small House district, with Hollywood pouring millions of dollars into Democrat Jon Ossoff (who didn't even live in the district he was running for). Handel won, but lost in the 2018 mid-term.
The other early 2017 special elections to fill Trump appointment seats went to Republicans in Kansas, Montana, and South Carolina. The Georgia 6th race was supposed to be the tide-turner.
When it didn't happen, the tide moved to Alabama.
-PJ
Cruz would have done much better if he hadn't been so disdainful at the convention. Texas went for Cruz over Trump in the primary, but Cruz lost a lot of that because of his behavior at the convention, and his team's targeting of Trump delegates prior to the convention.
If Cruz hadn't been such a jerk about it, Trump might not have felt the need to hire Paul Manafort to run the delegate phase of his convention.
-PJ
One other factor not mentioned is that Alabama is a "straight-ticket" state. Voters can check a single box to vote the same party in all races.
A lot of votes for the Senate candidate will benefit by default to the party of the Presidential vote. If Moore were to win the primary, voters would have to really not like him to vote straight-party and then still override that on his race.
-PJ
Also, i've noticed you generally have a quite good background understanding of political events, and astute perception as well.
Moore was incidental to the forces in conflict there. They just got lucky in the fact that so many people were willing to believe made up lies by kook women at the time, and it gave Republican establishment types an excuse to ditch someone they would view as a thorn in their side.
Washington DC doesn't want reformers. They want "business as usual" types.
It did rub a lot of Republicans the wrong way though, and they responded by giving Cruz a tougher fight in his home state.
A popular President carries a huge advantage for downballot candidates especially when "straight party ticket" voting is made easier by a single checkbox on the ballot.
A lot of voters are lazy, and just want to get it over with quickly.
Whomever gets the nomination in Alabama is going to win in a landslide, and that is true even if it's Roy Moore.
Once that nomination was in the bag for Moore, I supported and donated $$$ to his campaign. Did you?
The fact the GOPE didn't support him shouldn't have mattered, since Trump backed him. Yet... he lost.
So... how about we get on the winning side this time?
There is a six year senate seat riding on the outcome.
let's hope it reverts back to the R side.
It's worse than that.
McConnell had 23 Democrat seats to target last year, and because of his petty grievances he squandered his best opportunity to grow his majority. He should have won five seats and lost none.
Next year, the situation will be reversed with Republicans defending the majority of Senate seats up for reelection. McConnell's track record is not good at being an effective campaigner for others. He prefers to stay in the background and take out the people he doesn't like, and is ineffective at flipping seats that Democrats hold. He's more comfortable in the minority than in the majority.
He can't be the face of the Senate Republicans the way that Schumer is for Democrats. McConnell speaks like he has marbles in his mouth, he looks and acts meek on camera, and it's only because of the power he holds via seniority that he can push people around the way he does.
In all honesty, it will be a miracle if Republicans hold the Senate in 2020. I don't think they'll take a dive the way that Ryan did in 2018, but I don't think they have what it takes to bare-knuckle brawl the way the Democrats did over Moore and Kavanaugh, and will do again next year wherever they can.
-PJ
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.