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Open thread for results of Alabama special election — 45 Comments

  1. losing doesn’t feel as bad as I expected. We men will just have to learn to live like Mike Pence then…

  2. Appears the numbers that have yet to come in will be from the Dem metro areas so the margin for Jones might increase. Short of a recount it is time to move on and the Republicans will have to do a better job in the future supporting viable winning candidates. I think Judge Roy had too much baggage coming in to this race without the sex stuff and that was enough add on to throw a safe seat to the wind.

    At least it was an expensive win for the democrats and a windfall for the media in Alabama as they spread their money around. Now on to the next interesting political mess.

  3. Bannon’s populist movement is over. Trump will have to crave in to the establishment just to survive. If the allegations are hoaxes Trump needs to go after the false allegations firm but elegantly as well (it will be tricky) to have those problems resolved before the 2018 mid term. However, most likely republicans will lose at least the house in 2018, turnouts for democrats will top 80% everywhere next year. The stock market is probably in a bubble right now, the market is climbing based on the anticipation of the tax reform, once it is passed, most likely we will see some sort of correction next year. Oh well, at least I don’t have to worry about losing my insurance in case when i got lay off since obamacare is here to stay.

  4. KLSmith:

    You think McConnell is to blame? How? Did he cause the people of Alabama to choose Moore as nominee rather than Strange?

    I’m with OldTexan: “I think Judge Roy had too much baggage coming in to this race without the sex stuff and that was enough add on to throw a safe seat to the wind.” I was concerned from the moment I heard Moore had won the primary.

    I am so heartily sick of the fight within the GOP between the two sides, what you might call the Tea Party side and the GOPe side. All it leads to is Democratic victories. It got really bad in 2008 when McCain was the nominee, and it got even worse in 2012 with Romney. I saw it on this blog over and over, and I see it now.

  5. I demand that Doug Jones resign. Because.

    Seriously, the loser Moore is out for 2020. Mo Brooks wins the seat or Jeff Sessions.

  6. I agree, even before the allegations Roy Moore was only ahead only by a few points. Trump needs to wake up, the polls and his approval ratings are real, he can’t continues to deny reality that he is not doing a good job and he is wildly unpopular just because the polls were wrong last year. The pollsters had made adjustments and they have been pretty much spot on from the french election to the Britain snap election. conservatives have been locking ourselves into an echo chamber since Trump’s victory just like liberals were in 2016. Liberals are still winning everywhere by a large margin, Trump just got lucky because Hillary was terrible. Obama is still highly popular, Biden would have beaten Trump easily. However, don’t believe that other republicans would have done a better job than Trump, Republican is a very unpopular party regardless of Trump. most people around the world still see republicans as oil stealing, nation building and blood sucking greedy vampires oppressing working class people with evil evangelicals oppressing minorities, that is what people believed about the republicans before Trump and people will still believe that after Trump.

  7. I hope Roy Moore continues to fight to clear his name like Herman Cain did, that would help the president

  8. Edwhy:

    You think they’re going to clone Moore and run him in every state?

    Or do you mean that every GOP candidate will be hit with sex abuse allegations?

    I predict there will be a great many of the latter, but (a) the candidates won’t all start with Moore’s handicaps; and (b) the technique will start getting a bit old, and perhaps people will start getting bored with it or suspicious of it. This was very well-timed, but I think if that keeps happening, it may lose its power.

    Also, perhaps the GOP will begin to retaliate in kind with their own charges against Democrats, although I actually don’t think that will happen.

  9. Its actually a good thing that the democrats have shown their hand of weaponizing sexual allegations in this special election than next year. The sexual allegations might not have worked, it could be that fact that liberals just hate Trump so much that they come out to vote against him or Moore’s hardcore evangelical policies just ain’t that popular that costed him the election. At this point Trump is republicans’ Hillary, he alone could unify the democratic party and maximize their turnouts.

  10. Neo: I think we are all heartily sick of GOP infighting. If the GOP wasn’t the stupid party, they would have co-opted the Tea Party. That is what the Democrats would have done. But the Republicans wanted them destroyed.
    It is my understanding that McConnell put his weight and fundraising behind Strange (to eliminate Mo Brooks) before the primary because he figured it would easier for Strange to knock off Moore than Brooks. Oops.
    Any interest I have at this point is akin to rubber-necking an accident on the side of the highway.

  11. I like Neo’s optimism that perhaps the abuse allegation tactic will eventually lose its power as people start to get numb by it or simply grew a brain and start seeing through it.

  12. We have been on a progressive slope ever since the constitution died at the twilight fringe a.k.a. penumbra, where civil and human rights are denied, selectively.

    Due process, implying a presumption of innocence, a layer separating civilization and progression, was not denied today. Only it’s corpse, a victim of social progress several decades earlier, was beaten in a necrophilic orgy.

    Lynchings. Bullhorn prosecutions (e.g. trial by press). Elective abortion. Denial of due process. Presumption of guilt. Pro-Choice. Forward!

  13. I drove up to the civic center to vote around 4 this afternoon. There was a big crowd, bigger than average. I had decided to vote for Moore after all. Showed my ID, got my ballot, and was no longer sure. Sat there for several minutes and just could not bring myself to vote for Moore. Wrote in former AG Bill Pryor.

    I knew I was going to be angry and depressed no matter how this turned out, and I am. More than I might have been because I didn’t turn off the tv before I’d heard some obnoxious old bitch at Jones hq ranting about taking the country back.

    One lesson of this which I’m sure all politicos are taking to heart is that digging up dirt really works. Well, I guess they knew that.

  14. Then again, how can we be confident of vote integrity.

    In California, a single transgender judge overrode the democratic majority to force political congruence.

    I wonder how many Americans actually have a twilight faith and Pro-Choice religious/moral/legal philosophy.

    A single FBI agent enabled Clinton to escape charges for criminal conduct.

    The New York Times, Washington Post, and other mainstream and “independent” oulets colluded to project Obama, Clinton, DNC, post-coup Kiev’s collusion to influence the American election.

    Oh, well. Perhaps sacrificing one baby while exposing the means and methods of domestic and foreign Planning and collusion will be worth it.

  15. I personally think Trump is doing well as far a policies go (I do disagree with some), but the Dems refuse to work with him. They hope to sabotage his presidency and win by default.

    I predict no one will remember Jones by Christmas.

  16. perhaps now Moore is out of the way republicans can seize this opportunity to become the party of due process and law and order. They could actually start to gain the moral high ground on this subject by defending the due process of someone from the opposing party or even debunking some false allegations. The only people that can truly benefit from abuse allegations are single women, most women with a loving husband and sons do not want to see their loved being crucified from false allegations, and even many male liberals are starting to be afraid of this beast they created. 80% of the nation would push back this tide of weaponizing abuse allegations. Of course to do that the prerequisite is that Trump is clean. I do not doubt that Trump is clean, this man has had presidential inspirations since the 80s, I think he probably has been very careful and have a eye witness body guards around him 24/7.

  17. Moore was a problematic candidate, but Jones was a around the bend leftist for a win in AL. He a democrat that would do well in SF and yet he won in ‘bama. Does not compute. No conspiracy, just (pun intended) strange.

  18. Moore should continue to sue the women and Allred, could become a martyr of hoax sexual allegations.

  19. Mccain, McConnell and the Bushes are pretty old right? what happens to the establishment when they retire?

  20. The great irony of this entire story is that it’s hard to put much of it on Trump. He didn’t endorse Moore in the primary in fact he endorsed the establishment guy. And he was rather tepid in his support for Moore after the primary. This really comes down to the Alabama Republicans. They could have picked Strange or Brooks and they would have won easily but nope. So blame Bannon or McConnell or whoever but they weren’t voting in Alabama.

  21. neo says I am so heartily sick of the fight within the GOP between the two sides, what you might call the Tea Party side and the GOPe side. All it leads to is Democratic victories. It got really bad in 2008 when McCain was the nominee, and it got even worse in 2012 with Romney. I saw it on this blog over and over, and I see it now.

    Whether an enemy divides and conquers you or you do it to yourself, it works just as well.

    A nice faction of like minded warriors is a great thing. But you need numbers, and if you don’t have the numbers you need a lot of talent to overcome the more numerous enemy, and if you don’t have enough of that, you need to make allies with someone.

  22. Why do people keep saying the Alabama voters should have picked Strange over Moore? Strange was revealed to have bargained away his integrity for his Senate seat.
    Funny how that charge surfaced just days before the run-off, and was never adjudicated: the allegation was accepted at face-value (Moore led Strange in the first primary by a large margin anyway, but this guaranteed he wouldn’t pick up many of the votes from the eliminated candidates.)
    I wonder — if Brooks had somehow come out ahead of Strange in the first primary and been in the run-off, would something “surprising” have been discovered to make him the “obvious” loser?

    How long did the Democrats have their “completely unsolicited sex abuse allegations” waiting in a file until needed?
    This is so very similar to the Obama Playbook from Chicago. And remember the article I posted a few days ago on the “authentic sock-puppet” they set up to “answer voters’ concerns” about how much Republicans hate women?
    This just looks much too pat.

    http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/disgraced-gov-robert-bentleys-sex-scandal-threatens-to-ruin-sen-luther-stranges-career/article/2635418

    “Maybe that reality is not fair. Strange wasn’t the governor’s wingman, after all. He was only the attorney general. And Strange didn’t convince Bentley to bully aides into silence, to joyride with his mistress on the governor’s helicopter, or to leave his wife of more than 50 years. He just accepted a special appointment to the Senate from the governor he was supposed to be investigating.

    Three days ahead of the runoff, most of D.C. has forgotten about the quid-pro-quo rumors.
    …”

    Did he keep investigating? Was that really a conflict of interest? Does it begin to approach the conflicts with Mueller’s team that the Democrats appear to be perfectly happy with?
    I don’t know about the first two, but I have some thoughts about the third.

  23. https://libertyunyielding.com/2017/12/12/alabama-election-moore-takes-early-lead-nyt-projects-win/

    “Relatively big write-in vote definitely having an impact.

    *10:30 PM Eastern* At the bottom of the hour, with 91% of the vote in, Fox calls it for Jones. Jones has taken his first lead of the night, 49.5% to 48.9% for Moore.

    Jones’ narrow lead holding as the tally edges to 95%. It may widen a bit since the remaining votes are coming from the blue urban counties. It was about 49.6% Jones, 48.9% Moore a few minutes ago. It’s been shifting all night; the actual difference in raw votes is about 12,000 now, up from about 9,000 at 10:30. All the media majors have called it for Jones now.

    In terms of the partisan outcome, I’m not all that worried about it. Our mechanism of national politics is creaking along on fumes now, as it is. People who think this predicts anything about the 2018 midterms, or the larger future of America, are fooling themselves. Too much is changing. That goes for the expectations of both the conventional-thinking Republicans and the conventional-thinking Democrats.

    I do have concern that what we’ve just witnessed is a stampede caused by scare tactics. Frankly, I was never sure Moore would win the 12 December face-off anyway, and I think we could have gotten this very electoral result without all the sudden allegations made against Moore.

    But they were made, and what the left learned is that they worked, to galvanize the GOP against itself. You think the political left isn’t going to use that one again? Remember, they don’t have to be able to prove anything, to use such allegations for political purposes.

    That’s a tough standard to beat. It has made me sick to see so many people calling shame on anyone who thought Moore should have due process and a day in court. I think Al Franken should have due process and a day in court too, and John Conyers and Blake Farenthold – none of which means I like or think very highly of any of them. But I hope all the shame-callers out there are prepared to live without fairness or the benefit of the doubt in the days ahead. Because by their own standard, that’s what they’re going to have to do.”

    * * *
    The Left knew going in that the scare tactics would work.
    That’s why they used them.
    The only real surprise to them was that they didn’t work against Trump: it’s much harder to scare an entire nation than just one state, perhaps, and there was too much else at stake, IMO.

  24. Aesopfan,

    Well I don’t know about ‘should’ but considering Moore lost by 15,000 or whatever it ends up being I think it’s safe to say that both Strange and Brooks would have easily one a general as neither had the baggage that Moore had even before the sex stuff. He was weak to start with. Yeah maybe they would have unearthed some shocking thing from 1976 on Strange also but he would have been starting from a stronger point. All just speculation of course.

  25. Now that this is over with, maybe we can go back to the trivial things, like war with North Korea and in the Middle East, maybe some major legislation and judicial appointments, although that’s nowhere near as important as a Senate seat.

    Or maybe the substitution of a hard-left Democrat for a hard-right Republican will make a difference somewhere down the line.

    We’ll see.

  26. that is why it is very important that Moore continues to fight to clear the allegations if he is truly innocent. When they use this tactic again, an exonerated Moore can come out and tell the world “Don’t fall for that again, they are liars, I am a living proof of it”

  27. The Democrats will repeat this strategy against every male Republican running in the Senate and every potential swing district in the House, now. And the Republicans will, too late, try to defend themselves against “baseless and unsupported allegations”, but the example of what was done to Roy Moore by the leadership will undercut those defenses at every turn. Count on it.

  28. Dave, there is no way for Moore to clear his name- that is the point of 40 year-old allegations- all the potential evidence is long gone or dead. That is why you didn’t get allegations from the last 20 years- timelines and locations can be established too easily because of the electronic databases that have sprouted up since the mid 90s- you run the risk of accusing someone of something when can demonstrate he wasn’t there at that time.

    The only piece of physical evidence that was presented by anyone came under such withering forensic study that the accuser was forced to basically admit she forged part of it. I had hoped that would be enough to save Moore, but it wasn’t.

  29. Aesop:

    I agree with you that this tactic will be used again by the left since it was so effective. As to the remedy for false accusations there is little one can accomplish in the short run without resorting to extra legal means.

    Many years ago I was in a dispute with a neighbor woman over a boundary line with a misplaced fence between us. We had been good friends. When she was away from home for any time I would take care of her animals and water her garden. One time when her grandchildren were up visiting, she asked us to take them with us on a camping trip up in the Sierra that we had planned. They were city children, two boys maybe 10 and 12, and a sweet little girl about 7. It was a fun outing for the kids and for us.

    After the boundary dispute got heated and she was facing the loss of almost a half acre of property, she became irrational. She enlisted the sympathy of other neighbors and resorted to worse than name calling. She was telling anyone who would listen that I had molested her grandchildren on the camping trip! I immediately confronted her. It ended in a shouting match as she threatened me with criminal charges and I threatened her with a slander suit. Finally, I ended it with this:

    If you dare bring false criminal charges against me, you may get some momentary satisfaction, but that’s all it will be, since you won’t wake up the next morning.

    She knew that I meant it and backed down. The point is, that in cases like this The Godfather approach is all that works. Capisce?

  30. Well, looks like the Democrats got their new “race card” after all. Expect a lot more pedophilia accusations against Republicans next year.

  31. Moore can somewhat clear his name by going after Allred and that woman with the fake yearbook HARD. There is no way that yearbook is real, absolutely no way. You can’t defeat a 40 year old he says she says testimony but you can defeat a piece of physical evidence that is obviously forged. Demand that piece of evidence to be exterminated by a third party

  32. Just happy to get Moore off the front page. A giant distraction and a gift to the Dems.

    Move on.

  33. however, we are going to see a lot of former beauty pageant contestants who sign up to wear a bathing suit on stage showcasing her body for thousands of people to see complaining about being uncomfortable around a man while being completely covered up in a bathrobe.

  34. It’s disappointing, but given the hysterical climate in the country, not completely surprising.
    Roy Moore was a unique candidate along the lines of of Todd Akin– very provincial candidates that don’t stand up well to the pummelling that is national politics. They are outspoken in their beliefs and don’t reflect on how their message will be perceived. In this case, Moore’s outspoken and unwavering dismissal of the legitimacy of homosexual “marriage”.
    That, probably, was the undercurrent of discontent amont the GOPe. Going against the gay lobby is a daunting task.
    But Moore’s situation, along with Franken’s should be alarming for everyone– Democrat or Republican. Unless we can get a handle on what constitutes sexual harrassment or assault and better define what is acceptable and what is not, this will work to the advantage of those interested in damaging what’s left of our fragile national political system. The left is intent on leveraging what happened to these two men to go after Trump.
    He will be impeached if the left takes back the House in 2018. While it’s unlikely he would be convicted, it will certainly be payback in the eyes of many liberals.

  35. I completely agree with KLSmith at 11:19. McConnell was the one who picked (squishy and compliant) Strange instead of Mo Brooks. It is WAY past time for McConnell to leave the leadership.

    Sorry Neo, I love your recent stuff, but the Allred style tactics will accelerate. It doesn’t have to be sex allegations either. Whatever pushes the embarrassment/hatred button will work. Real issues will be secondary. To borrow from Billy Crystal: It is better to feel good than to think good.

    Another thing to remember is that anytime an election results in a sub 1% win, we need to consider the possible impact of pervasive vote fraud in our current honor based system.

  36. Has anyone looked at Doug Jones’ closet to see if any skeletons there? He has the most archetypal face of a pervert, someone should look into it.

  37. Neo writes:
    “You think McConnell is to blame? How? Did he cause the people of Alabama to choose Moore as nominee rather than Strange?”

    Jordan Gehrke at TheFederalist makes a very cogent case for McConnell doing exactly that:
    http://thefederalist.com/2017/12/12/mitch-mcconnell-is-the-reason-doug-jones-is-a-senator/

    Item: I did not realize that McConnell’s Senate Leadership Fund (SLF) PAC spent $4 million trashing Mo Brooks, the tea party congressman who would have trounced Jones.

  38. TommyJay:

    I agree—and I believe I have stated—that the Allred tactics will accelerate. I just think at a certain point, if they don’t mix it up much, the public may tire of it and there may be a backlash. But I have no doubt that Allred is doing a victory dance and will feel empowered. But it was already happening long ago (for example, Herman Cain—or in the non-sexual sphere, things like the macaca guy).

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