Posted on 12/18/2017 9:20:07 PM PST by Oshkalaboomboom
In the entire ruby-red state of Alabama there was only one reliably conservative Republican candidate who could have lost the race for the U.S. Senate to a Democrat portrayed as a Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer liberal. And Roy Moore was the guy.
Moore was a disaster even before allegations came out that as a grown man he was running around with teenage girls. He had been bounced twice from the Alabama Supreme Court for refusing to follow orders from federal courts, one of those courts being the Supreme Court of the United States.
Moore thought homosexuality should be illegal. He thought Barack Obama was not born in the United States. He said that Ronald Reagan's description of the Soviet Union as "the focus of evil in the modern world" could be applied to the United States today, because "we promote a lot of bad things," such as "same-sex marriage." And he suggested that 9/11 might be the result of what he believes is America's shift away from God.
And when the allegations about his relationships with young girls came out, that was the last straw for a lot of Alabama voters, shattering a stereotype held by many snobby liberal elites: that just about everyone who lives in that part of America is a hayseed who walks around without shoes. The voters of Alabama showed them and anyone else who was paying attention that character still counts -- a point ridiculed by those same liberal elites back when they circled the wagons around Bill Clinton despite a long list of credible sexual misconduct allegations against him.
Maybe Roy Moore will now just go away. But given his long record of bad judgment, don't count on it.
And it's no secret that Judge Moore wasn't the only loser in the Alabama election. So were Steve Bannon and Donald Trump.
For Bannon, Roy Moore was to be his shining Exhibit A, his victorious candidate who was going to be the first of many other Bannon-molded candidates who would deliver one deathblow after another to the GOP establishment. After Moore's big win in Alabama, Bannon was going to lead the charge against every other Republican candidate he didn't think was pure enough. Now that it didn't work out the way he planned, let's see where Steve Bannon goes from here. Far, far away would be a good start.
As for Donald Trump, a man who worships at the altar of "winning," this is the third time in the last few months that he's backed a Republican candidate for statewide office... who lost. First it was in the Virginia governor's race. Then it was in the Alabama primary. Then the president went all in for Roy Moore. Though in fairness, had the sainted Bear Bryant come back from the great beyond, even he might have had a hard time getting Roy Moore across the goal line with all the baggage Moore was lugging around.
So what comes next for the Republican Party, with the 2018 midterm elections less than a year off? A hard look at how Doug Jones, the Democrat, won won't provide a lot of comfort for the GOP.
According to exit polls, women went for Jones 58 percent, compared with Moore's 41 percent. Nonwhite voters, mostly African-Americans, voted 88 percent to 11 percent for Jones over Moore. And 60 percent of voters under the age of 30 went for Jones, while just 38 percent went for Moore.
Democrats will try to ride that trifecta -- of women, minorities and young voters -- to victory in congressional races all over the country next year. That doesn't mean they'll take control of either the House or the Senate; to do that, they'll need a lot more than a victory in Alabama on an Election Day when more than a few Republican voters stayed home. But if a Democrat can win in a state as conservative and Republican as Alabama, if a Democrat could convince so many suburban Republicans to abandon their party, anything is possible.
Of course, if Roy Moore had won, Democrats would be hanging him around every Republican's neck in the coming elections. So the Republican Party wasn't really going to be celebrating even if he had won in Alabama. But then, if the GOP had nominated a county dogcatcher with conservative credentials instead of the political equivalent of a toxic waste dump, we wouldn't be discussing any of this today, would we?
Roy Moore defying federal courts is a resume enhancement.
Yes, he could have been a better candidate. If I lived in Alabama, I would have certainly voted for him.
All More had to do is say, “I’m innocent, I will stand by the ruling of the senate ethics committee in a fair hearing, and if guilty will resign at once. Then another Republican will be selected by the Gov. in my place.”
This would have held the 20K write-ins in his corner and he would have one.
Why didn’t he do this????
Because he was a terrible candidate and lives in a fantasy world.
These candidates have GOT to be vetted better. Not just Moore but all of them, if we expect to win. State parties have to step up, Bannon ain’t gonna come out and do it for them. And if they’ve got skeletons in the closet someone need to shut them down and stop this circular firing squad crap.
Remember Barack Obama became President because an idiot Republican from IL named Jack Ryan got caught trying to get his wife at the time, the delectable Jeri Ryan, to perform public sex acts with him.
Idiocy and scumbaggery do not obey party line boundaries.
Terrible candidate - but would make a great senator - what a shame!
I grew up in the state, and still vote there. I will make this observation.
First, all of this whole mess leads back to Governor Bentley, and his lusty affair. Because of the high-paying job situation with his gal ($200k a year), the state senate decided on a impeachment path but needed the state attorney general to investigate (Luther Strange). Luther dragged this out for months. Then Trump wins....Sessions gets offered his job, and oddly enough (big surprise)....Bentley appoints Luther Strange to the Sessions seat.
Most everyone in the state suspected some corrupt deal between Bentley and Strange.
Then Bentley retires...Lt Gov steps up, and she says that the whole Strange appointment deal is a question mark. She says....lets have an election.
At this point, Moore jumps into the picture.
If you go and chat with most Alabama folks, Moore is regarded as a bit of a nut. We are a forgiving crowd though and can accept having one in some public office (we’ve done this countless times in the state).
The primary? Roughly seven GOP folks, and roughly 70-percent of the voters vote against Moore. It’s clear that it’s not a great deal of support, but Luther gets even lesser votes than Moore, so there is a run-off between the two. Moore wins the run-off with a 9-point edge. Not great, but enough.
You can ask folks prior to all the tramp episode coming up, and most would say that they really wished there was some other GOP guy out there (besides either Strange or Moore) but no one had name-recognition. So you were stuck...either vote for Moore or Jones.
in the aftermath? No one thinks Jones will win in two years the next election. He won’t get the big money like he did this time, and there will be real competition....of course, unless there is another Moore-like character that comes out to reset the whole process.
IF only the GOP wasn’t the same party as the DNC!
I would agree that Roy is a bit of a nut. he is certainly more conservative than I am, no doubt.
I do admire his fighting spirit though.
I love conservatives who stand up for what they believe in without backing down. That’s rare.
Unfortunately, it seems like a Moore victory was not meant to be.
Just have to roll with it, learn from it, and implement a better game plan for the next fight.
You seem to have left a key piece of the story regarding Barry vs Ryan. Dirt bag Barry got sealed documents exposed, funny how the lil turd was able to walk through walls...I hope I live to see the day this traitor is fully exposed and the jerk offs who put him there.
I wouldn’t have known about Ryan nor cared. Typical dirty Barry.
Its three 3 years. Not two.
Stop hoping for it, and prepare for an increasing climate rejecting true Constitutional values.
if there was voter fraud, then it need to be investigated, exposed, charged, tried, and if it altered the election outcome, then the election needs to be reversed.
To Hell with voter fraud and everyone who engages in it.
Don’t listen to the hen house. Moore very nearly won. Trump won. Hillary lost. Conservatism is working. Continue to pull the plug on their funding.
He squeaked by in 2012 in the race for Chief Justice of AL. He won by less than 4 points. Romney won AL by 22. That's how marginal a politician he is on a statewide basis. He garnered a smaller margin than a lackluster Mormon prez candidate. A Mormon, who isn't even considered a Christian by large segments of the GOP electorate in AL.
Moore was outspent by Jones 5 to 1. But the truth is - that 1.5% margin meant he could have won it. He was just a lousy candidate. James Kirkpatrick at VDARE pretty much concedes this point. It's a given that the establishment would be against him. Moore's own unforced errors doomed his candidacy.
And it’s no secret that Bernard Goldberg isn’t the only Never-Trump loser churning out tired, warmed over Never-Trump crap about Alabama election.
You never heard of George Soros?
Soros engineered both the Obama-Ryan and the Jones-Moore elections.
Try to get a clue.
1. Moore had a well-deserved reputation in Alabama GOP circles as a disloyal sore loser from two previous primary campaigns for governor.
2. He refused to debate his opponent in the closing weeks of this campaign.
3. He traveled to Philadelphia three days before the biggest election of his political career in Alabama to watch a stupid football game.
Put these three together, and I see a profile of an arrogant loser who isn't terribly bright. If Hillary Clinton was a Republican from Alabama, she'd be Roy Moore.
If only Yertle and the Barbour boys had kept to themselves
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