Posted on 12/12/2017 10:43:12 PM PST by Oshkalaboomboom
“Republicans really have no way way to win tonight.”
That was Brit Hume’s pithy way of describing yesterday’s special U.S. Senate election in Alabama. In the end, by a razor-thin margin, Republicans lost in the traditional way – at the ballot box.
For the next three years, Democratic nominee Doug Jones will hold a U.S. Senate seat that Republicans had counted on to confirm President Trump’s judicial nominees and pass his agenda. Their margin is one seat smaller – and Democrats are already one seat closer to winning their own majority in 2018.
Moore was sunk by credible allegations that he had fondled a 14-year-old girl in the late 1970s, back at a time when he had a habit of high school girls who happened to be less than half his age at the time. And during the campaign, Moore offered inconsistent and contradictory defenses for his conduct, and otherwise strove to confuse the situation rather than protest his innocence forthrightly. In short, he was caughy lying. And that is a rather telling indicator about whether those old charges were true or false.
Even so, the Democrats had no margin for error. Their brand is so toxic in Alabama that they very nearly blew it anyway. Hundreds of thousands of loyal Republicans voted for Moore reluctantly, and that was almost enough to propel him to the Senate anyway.
This race was clearly all about Moore. And so, the only question to ask in its aftermath is, who is to blame for this terrible candidate’s nomination?
We can certainly blame former White House advisor Steve Bannon and his legion of brick-throwers, who got behind Moore without doing the basic research that would have illuminated his weaknesses. When Bannon says he intends to destroy both political parties, it seems he’s only half right. He is destroying the GOP and elevating a moribund Democratic Party with his sloppy, shoddy efforts to build up his own national political machine.
But it would be a mistake to lay the blame solely with the conservative movement’s new ultramontanists. The blame falls equally, if not more, on the arrogance of the Senate Republican leadership.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and his team made a fateful decision to interfere in the primary. They went all in for recently-appointed Sen. Luther Strange, R-Ala., the way they would for any other incumbent Republican senator. Never mind that Strange had never won an election. Never mind that his appointment was badly tainted. Never mind even that the man who appointed Strange was, partly as a result, forced to resign as governor.
The GOP establishment got behind the deeply unpopular Strange and even convinced President Trump to support him. McConnell’s SuperPAC spent more than $10 million to get him to the runoff, which he lost to Roy Moore.
If not for this interference, it is very likely that Mo Brooks, R-Ala., a conservative congressman from northern Alabama, would have beaten Moore in the primary runoff. One can thus attribute Moore’s nomination and his defeat as a result of the D.C. establishment trying to pick Alabama’s next senator instead of letting Alabamians do it themselves.
And the Republican establishment’s culpability goes even beyond that. Even before the sexual misconduct allegations surfaced against him, Moore was an unpopular and highly controversial figure in Alabama. If even he was able to win a primary by default simply by running against the Washington GOP, that suggests the Washington GOP is doing something wrong.
One less vote for Mitch is a kind of win.
For Mitch, he wants to be the Minority.
Now watch the women accusing Moore strangely just fade back into the woodwork, their job done.
Moore was sunk by credible allegations that he had fondled a 14-year-old girl in the late 1970s
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Not credible if you ask me..........
no, Wapo bull crap and Soros $$$$$ made that huge wuss a senator.
nominating such a defective candidate didn’t help. and DJT tried to warn us about him. but ultimately, it was forces from outside AL that manipulated the citizens of AL.
It’s was just bad juju all around. But especially the numbnuts who decided to stay home.
The katholyk pro-aborts (Bergoglio, Cupich, McElroy, Gomez, O’Malley, Wuerl) will be rejoicing.
They blame Bannon. If Mo Brooks had won, who is to say Allred wouldn’t have smeared him too?
Moore was an unpopular and highly controversial figure in Alabama
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Why was he controversial and unpopular before the election?
>> Moore was sunk by credible allegations
All I recall were references to forged documents.
You’re right, they should’ve pushed Strange harder. He probably could’ve won.
Republicans did have a way to win!
It is true there was sabotage.
It would also be foolish for any conservative to say otherwise, or to back down to the coming fight with the RINO-UNI-Party!
There are many factors in this Alabama loss however!
At the end of the day, *Trump had twice as many votes as Roy Moore.
From this FACT, we can also conclude “so called” RNC/Conservative Alabama voters decided it was OKAY if a pro-abortion, pro-lgbt, anti-American, global socialist, Trump impeaching, anti-Trump, anti-conservative, and ultimately anti-God candidate be elected!
Either half of the Alabama voters were LAZY, or half of the Alabama voters were Complicit!
What God fearing conservative can come FACE TO FACE with THE EXACT EVIL which desires to corrupt and destroy his children and wife, which seeks to subjugate he and his family, simply give the hand of his wife, little girl, or little boy over to the same EVIL ENEMY!!
This person or VOTER CANNOT CLAIM HE LOVES GOD, LIBERTY, AND HIS COUNTRY!
AND HE CANNOT CLAIM HE LOVES AMERICA!
SHAME ON THOSE WHO DECIDED TO LET EVIL REIGN IN ALABAMA AND AMERICA!
I wonder had Moore won, even with an easy, hands down one by 9:00pm over Jones, that that would have been the beginning of cries of how sexism, racism, homophobia, Islamophobia, transphobia, etc won the day in Alabama. I recall reading recent reports that Moore was going to be investigated by the Senate before he was allowed to take his seat there.
With all of this, whether or not it would have been fair or unfair, it could have been easily made into good campaign ad material for next year for the Dems and even for presidential candidate Kamala or Kirsten later on. I wonder if it might be easier to just let Jones be part of the Dem/RINO establishment that sooner or later will defeat itself with it’s own corruption and self contradictions.
That’s wussy thinking.
Yep. Still waiting to hear from the Herman Cain accusers...
Fine. Run Brooks in 2 years. The GO-pee will pee it away again
Yep.
There was enough smoke to warrant a fire. And Moore’s denials were so half hearted and contradictory that the “victims” were given even more credibility. Right here on FreeRepublic I heard everything from “it never happened”, to “so what, it was 30 years ago”, to “whats the big deal; he didn’t do anything illegal”.
Sorry, but if you’re going to come off as beacon of morality, its best not to have a background of perving over teenage girls.
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