Nor the sky high abstention rate. A republican abstention rate like that nationally and the wave coming is devastating.
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LS…as I mentioned earlier; I think that this past Alabama election was a moment in which all the stars aligned to lead to a DEM victory.
I just don’t think that it either told us much…or is a harbinger for the Mid-Terms.
The DEMS just don’t have a message or clearly compelling and motivating “new Blood”. (Heck…their strongest, most vocal members are 75 or older…)
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It told us Republicans are capable of losing ground in what is possibly one of their strongest strongholds in the country.
As a young person, I see people like me being motivated by Dems literally daily. They absolutely have a message that’s been being pushed and it’s continuing to work.
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You could be right, pfury…
(I’m not “old”…but not actually “young” either!)
I said this yesterday. People keep insisting the Dems have no message, yet we’ve just witnessed two elections where they’ve way outperformed the GOP. And if you look at state elections that have not garnered national attention, you’ll see a similar warning signs for the GOP.
There have been four elections in deep-red Iowa districts since Trump took office. While republicans still won the seats, all of them saw 30+ point swings towards the democrats. All of this is writing on the wall for next year.
Trump’s approval rating is down to 32% in two recent polls. He’s backed three losers now and the GOP will start distancing themselves once campaigning for the midterms starts. Net neutrality just got repealed this morning and it looks like a hugely unpopular tax bill is going to pass.
It’s not the Dems who are lacking cohesion and a message right now.
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I keep asking people what they mean by “Dems have no message” and the response tends to be “well I’m not seeing any message.”
It’s usually followed up with “well I’ve put in zero effort to actually pay attention to any Dems to know for sure.”
Funny thing is, in this regard Trump’s still going to motivate young people more than Dems ever could with this. Maybe what people mean is the Dems message isn’t coming anywhere close to being as motivating as Trump is. That one I’d agree with wholeheartedly.
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Tyler, I was thinking about your comment this morning when I read this article by Karl Roove. Moore was such a nutcase on multiple levels.
From the article above, Paywall.
"Mr. Moore is the most recent in a too-long line of cranks and nuts who threw away almost-certain Republican victories in Senate races. It started in 2010 with Nevada’s Sharron Angle and Delaware’s Christine O’Donnell, continued in 2012 with Missouri’s Todd Akin and Indiana’s Richard Mourdock, and reached its low point Tuesday night with the former judge from Gadsden, Ala.
Weirdly, Mr. Moore’s defeat was the most impressive, given Alabama’s affinity for the GOP. Since 2002, Republicans have won 42 out of 50 contested statewide races, by an average of 16 percentage points—and, in contests since 2010, by 20 percentage points. That doesn’t include the 14 races in which Democrats didn’t field a candidate. It takes a very special Republican to lose in Alabama…
Mr. Moore’s campaign was brought down in part by credible allegations that, while in his 30s, he molested a 14-year-old and dated other teenage girls, whom he picked up in a nearby mall or at local diners. He did himself little good by telling Sean Hannity that he didn’t “generally” date teenage girls, while admitting that he recalled two of his accusers.
These sordid revelations were only the latest controversy in a 25-year career jammed with sensational incidents. Mr. Moore was twice ejected from his position as chief justice of Alabama’s Supreme Court. The first time was for defying a federal court order, and the second was for ordering probate judges to ignore the U.S. Supreme Court’s gay-marriage ruling.
Mr. Moore has a penchant for outrageous statements. In September he said America was great in the years before the Civil War because it was a “time when families were united—even though we had slavery.” He suggested in February that the 9/11 attacks occurred because “we’ve distanced ourselves” from God. And when he was asked in August about Ronald Reagan’s description of the Soviet Union as “the focus of evil in the modern world,” he replied that “you could say that very well about America” today.
Then there was Mr. Moore’s Foundation for Moral Law, a classic money grab cloaked in evangelical garb. Most of the funds it raised through telemarketing appeals for support of traditional values were spent on fundraising costs. What remained largely went to salaries for the principals, Mr. Moore and his wife, and his advisers. Then (surprise) it turned out he had grossly misled the public about his compensation from the enterprise.
Even Mr. Moore’s appearance was problematic. Maybe he thought wearing a cowboy hat with a leather vest and riding his pony to his polling place made him look like John Wayne, but “Saturday Night Live” was right: He looked more like Woody from “Toy Story.”
…Democrats have concluded that their victory Tuesday portends a rout for Republicans in 2018. That will surely happen if the GOP nominates other Roy Moores. A normal conservative would have won Alabama easily; the alt-right populist Mr. Moore could not. Therein lies the most important lesson for Republicans.
“If last night’s election proved anything, it proved that we need to put up GREAT Republican candidates,” the president tweeted Wednesday morning. That’s absolutely correct. So don’t put Steve Bannon in charge of recruitment. If his kind of kook can lose in the Heart of Dixie, it won’t do any better in any House or Senate battleground."
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Absolutely no one in Alabama (at least of the people I know) has been talking about Jones or anything he has said or done. The only message that spoke to the people of Alabama was that he wasn’t Moore. He was elected for being not the other guy, not for having any sort of message the voters bought into.
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Alabama Sends A Message
From the WSJ Editorial Board in today’s paper.
"Alabama voters can be forgiven if they preferred to sit out Tuesday’s special Senate election, but those who turned out narrowly elected Democrat Doug Jones to fill the seat vacated by Attorney General Jeff Sessions. The result is a painful lesson for the Alabama Republicans who nominated Roy Moore in the September primary. But it’s also a useful act of political hygiene for the national Republican Party given the accusations of sexual misconduct against the former judge.
The cost of defeat will be high and immediate. Despite his campaign vows to “cross the aisle” to work with Republicans, Mr. Jones will fit right in with Senate Democrats. He will be a reliable vote for Chuck Schumer on any important matter, including judicial nominees. Had he shown even a scintilla of moderation on abortion, for example, he would have won in a rout.
Mr. Moore’s defeat narrows the GOP majority’s margin to 51-49, which will give even more leverage to individual Senators who want to grandstand or satisfy a political constituency. Alabama evangelical Christians who supported Mr. Moore over appointed Sen. Luther Strange in the GOP primary should know that they have now made a conservative Supreme Court nominee less likely if Justice Anthony Kennedy retires in 2018. Senators Lisa Murkowski and Susan Collins will hold the balance of judicial confirmation power, and watch the media lobby them in waves.
The good news is that Mr. Moore’s loss may give the GOP a better chance of holding the Senate majority next year. Democrats were primed to make Mr. Moore a national symbol of sexual harassment to drive turnout among women. GOP incumbents would have been asked about Mr. Moore every day.
Mr. Moore’s loss is also a defeat for former White House aide Steve Bannon, who wants to run challengers to every GOP incumbent next year other than Ted Cruz. Mr. Bannon backed Mr. Moore in the primary, though the judge had been removed twice from the state Supreme Court for refusing to follow a legitimate court order. Mr. Moore was a political self-implosion guaranteed to happen.
The voting in Alabama showed that thousands of Republicans, especially women in the suburbs, either stayed home or crossed over to vote for Mr. Jones. They were rejecting an unacceptable candidate in Mr. Moore, not the national GOP agenda.
Alabama result shows that Mr. Bannon cares less about conservative policy victories than he does personal king-making. He wants to depose Mitch McConnell as Majority Leader even if it costs Republicans Senate control. GOP voters, take note: Mr. Bannon is for losers.
The Moore defeat should also be a lesson to the Republican Party, and President Trump, that many GOP voters are still at heart character voters. They will only accept so much misbehavior in a politician, no matter the policy stakes. Mr. Trump opposed Mr. Moore in the primary but came around to support him even after the accusations emerged about Mr. Moore’s pursuit of teenage girls while he was in his 30s. The GOP voters who ignored Mr. Trump and rejected Mr. Moore also want a President who acts presidential.
As for Alabama Republicans, they’ll get another shot at Mr. Jones in 2020. Maybe they’ll learn from this debacle and nominate a candidate worthy of support."
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Correct me if I’m wrong @Mufasa, but I believe his point has nearly always been the Dem PARTY doesn’t have a message, not the branch of Dems in Alabama.
Re: no message in Alabama specifically, it wouldn’t surprise me. It’s Alabama after all. Bet half the Dems are still blown away that Moore actually lost.
I would also strongly argue that “I’m not the other guy” is 100% an acceptable message in this context.
Maybe I misunderstood, I thought the Alabama election was referenced as evidence they have a message. My read on Alabama, from friends and family, is that most people in Alabama couldn’t have told you the name of the guy running against Moore. That isn’t having a message, that’s being another check box. And that only works if you are running against someone as bad as Moore.
I believe Alabama was referenced re: Republicans shitting the bed with free wins.
Personally my comment about Dem messages was pointed at National message (which if we’re being honest always bleeds into states in some regards).
Jones actually didn’t want the national attention this race ended up receiving. He said he didn’t want to be seen as “the democrat” in an Alabama Senate election. In fact, he didn’t even mention the Moore kiddie-diddlin’ story for weeks after it came out because he didn’t want to run on “I’m not him”. The media drowned out any message he had because they were solely focused on Moore.
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Nationally, I don’t think the Dems have much of a coherent message with the exception of being “against Trump”. Largely I think this is the result of not having a clear leader. Obama is still out there advocating, Hillary is still out there advocating, you have Pelosi who’s always out there saying something insane. Who speaks for the party?
FTR I think the Repubs don’t currently have a clear message either.
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Right, and if no one knows or cares about your message, you’re message certainly isn’t speaking to the voters.
Well, he did win. If you want to believe it’s only because he wasn’t Roy Moore, based on conversations you’ve had with people in AL, go ahead.
No offense meant man. Yes, based on news, discussions, facebook postings. I have family and friends down there including people in the media and heard virtually nothing from any of them about Jones, despite a heavy output of opinions and discussions on the election. About the only think I learned about Jones was he’s pro-abortion. All the people I know only ever talked about whether they should vote for Moore or not vote for Moore.
What’s your take, why do you think Jones won?
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And for the record, I don’t know all republicans. The dems I know just basically argued against voting for Moore.
Eh probably different circles then. I see motivation in leaps and bounds daily.
Hopefully they’re not stupid enough to put up a leader and give Trump 3 years of tweetspam.
I’ll be honest. If the Dems tried to put up a leader right now, I’d probably stay home in 2020 to spite their stupidity.
By something other than being anti-Trump?
That’s fine, but they are sacrificing coherent messaging.