>> I still shake my head at Denton's loss. A genuine war hero and a solid moral conservative <<
You guys comparing Shelby to his predecessor Admiral Denton remind me of why I never warmed to Zig Zag Zell Miller, when most FReepers were fawning over him at the time.
What happened in Georgia is very similar to what happened in Alabama, IMO. Sure, Shelby turned out to be "much more conservative" than anyone could have guessed when he got the job in 1986, but it was irrelevant since he took the seat of a beloved and iconic GOP senator, so anyone would have been a downgrade from that.
In Georgia, the only difference was Coverdell died rather than being defeated for re-election, and Zig Zag Zell insisted he would remain a RAT to his dying day (which he did) rather than join the GOP to be on the "winning side" like opportunist Richard Shelby did. Otherwise, you had the same example: some longtime RAT politician in the state took over the job from the solid true believer conservative Republican, "evolved" to sound much more conservative than he had been in the past, and threw conservatives a bone now and then because he realized he "had to" be a good conservative boy on television to continue getting elected in the deep south.
Of course, given the commie scum representing Georgia NOW, Zig Zag Zell looks like Ronald Reagan in comparison. But by the same token, so does Shelby!
IMO, it's always about the cards we are dealt.
Howell Heflin was actually slightly more Conservative than Shelby when the latter arrived in the Senate in 1987. They both scored a 46 and a 43 Conservative rating from the ACU, respectively. Of course, by 1996, Heflin was still at 40, but his overall lifetime had declined to 30%. Shelby was over twice as high, then a 90%. He has since deteriorated to a 68%. The leftist Jones that Shelby supported over Moore got an 18% in 2019.
With a lot of these establishment cretins, they peak and start moving leftward in time, as Shelby has done. Since after 2011, he has only scored above 90% once, in 2015.
Cards
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E2RlFfFnhUI&ab_channel=ThingsICantFindOtherwise
1986 Senate elections were sickening, so many close loses.