Discussion: GOP Establishment Has Uphill Battle To Keep Firebrand Roy Moore From Senate

Sure, Alabama voters, send this religious nut to the Senate and cement your reputation as the most backward, ignorant state in the nation.

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In terms of votes or Senate business, does it really matter what the name of the junior senator from Alabama is? From ā€œAlabamaā€ you get ā€œsolid R vote on everythingā€ and from ā€œjuniorā€ you get ā€œno leadership position whatsoever.ā€

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Oh for fuckā€™s sake.

Yes, because clearly, red states are 100% uniform in opinion, demographic makeup and politics as are blue states such that division is logical and reasonable. And clearly the continued existence of people who disagree with us on things is a reason why we should just give up on trying to live together and Balkanize a nuclear-armed superpower. What could possibly go wrong?

Red states and blue states are red and blue rather than purple because theyā€™re 60-40 rather than 50-50. And that division is not a function of geography or religion, ethnicity or culture. With a few, relatively small, exceptions, like Hawaii, whether a state is red, blue or purple is basically just a function of how heavily urbanized the state is and thus a function of the rural-urban divide in attitudes and beliefs that has existed since we started building cities seven thousand years ago. How do you propose to form new nations on that basis? Do you think cities can exist without food? Do you think rural areas can exist without manufactured goods and the services made possible by urban market concentration?

Regardless, weā€™re all mixed up together and weā€™re harder to separate than India and Pakistan, on bases far less substantial than those upon which the division of India and Pakistan were based, and if we tried the results would be the same tragedy as overtook India and Pakistan, including the continuing war and hostility, except cubed and with catastrophic consequences for the world.

Jesus fucking christ, people just need to stop it with this nonsense, already and get down to the business of dealing with reality as it is. Even in jest, itā€™s just one more toxic meme doing nothing but harm.

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Oh good just when were were looking for someone more ignorant than the rest of the stars of the GOP freedom caucus.
Go for it heā€™ll certainly unify the party

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Well, Iā€™m from Alabama, and I donā€™t know a single Republican (everyone where I work) who supports Moore. He is not popular here at all. Doesnā€™t mean he canā€™t win, but when Republicans start asking me about the Democratic candidate, and saying they wonā€™t support Moore, itā€™s meaningful. (One says he canā€™t vote for Strange, either.)

Itā€™s time for every Democrat/liberal/progressive to at least donate $5 to the Jones campaign. Heā€™ll need the money, but I think he may have a shot with Moore as the GOP nominee, and maybe even if Strange gets the nom (more unlikely).

http://dougjonesforsenate.com/

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Who cares?
Would Strange and Moore really differ all that much in terms of voting record?
Now if Jones could somehow pull off the upset, thatā€™s a different story, but that doesnā€™t seem likely.

Jones is a good candidate. Weā€™re putting our best foot forward with him. If AL is to make a switch and break tradition, heā€™s a very appealing choice for many there. GOP still favored in that race, but we could steal it if Moore wins the GOP nomination.

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Kinda silly when you considering a lot of states outside the South are solid red (ID, WY, KS, NE, ND, SD, AK, UT, not to mention states like OH, WI, and MI who have elected crazy Republicans, too). This is just meaningless chatter.

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I have been thinking for some time that those of you in reliably red districts and states need to be registering Republican and voting to bring back some sanity to that party. I donā€™t think it serves any good purposes to have crazy politicians in Washingtonā€“even if it ā€˜helpsā€™ the democratic party. A healthy two party system requires two sides that can agree on facts and debate policies on the merits, not one where one of the parties is represented by a bunch of lunatics.

To which I say if the GOP hadnā€™t pandered to radicals they wouldnā€™t have morons like Moore in the first place

Of course, the hard part would be keeping the seat in subsequent elections were Jones to win.

Who has Nick Saban endorsed? He is more popular than all of them.

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TBH, I havenā€™t read anything. If Saban is smart (and Iā€™m an Auburn fan), heā€™ll keep quiet. University of Alabama has a lot of AA students, employees, and fans. If he aligned himself with the GOP and the racist right too strongly, it could backfire.

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Just secede already! This time we wonā€™t Give. A. Shit.

Sick and tired of the backasswards South.

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ā€œWeā€™re a state full of folks who like to fight, who are defiant, we donā€™t like following rules, and thatā€™s why the Union army had to come south and kick our dumb racist redneck asses.ā€

FIFY.

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I really do not think what is going on in Alabama is due to the so called rural nature of the state. On the red side, Alabama (and some other red states as well) is very close to Hawaii. I lived in Alabama, and if you are white, the whites you interact with assume you are with them and gladly and freely say awful things. Only 10% of the whites in the state vote for the Democratic Party. Fox News is on everywhere so it is very hard to break through the lies. While I am always hopeful that things will improve there, things have not changed much (if anything things are worse since 2007) in the 50 years that I have had ties to Alabama.

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yeah, and weā€™ll take your Federal dollars, too!

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On the red side, Alabama (and some other red states as well) is very close to Hawaii.

Wut.

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What about the red states in the Plains, Mountain West, and Midwest? Brownback from Kansas certainly is a whackadoodle.

Iā€™m certainly not blind to the backwardness of the South and the state where I live. But itā€™s not just here. This is a national problem with the GOP. Look at LePage in Maine. Itā€™s not the South, itā€™s the GOP period. Our white population is more susceptible to the racist dogwhistles perhaps than in other states, but the GOP is strong in various states throughout this nation.

When good Democrats/liberals/progressives say things like ā€œLet the South secede already,ā€ theyā€™re forgetting our large AA, Native American, and Latinx populations here. Letā€™s work on mobilizing them and progessive whites and doing something about these problems of GOP hegemony. My personal experience is that most whites here who are Republican/conservative simply do not know what Democrats stand for. They have a lot of misconceptions that need to be corrected. Itā€™s difficult, sure. But we must not give up.

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From the standpoint of successfully fighting the Republican agenda in the Senate, I think it would be better to have a nutjob like Moore in office as opposed to Strange. Moore is a lot like Trump in that heā€™s really intractable and uncontrollable, and if heā€™s elected heā€™s likely to assume office with a great deal of animosity towards McConnell. Strange is likely to be nothing more than an obedient lap dog for Mitch, which makes his job of corralling necessary votes incrementally easier.

Iā€™m not naiveā€”I know that ideologically Moore is in agreement a great deal more with McConnell on general legislative policy than he disagrees, but the possibility of discord is much greater because of the personalities at play. Any dissension and discord in the GOP ranks helps Democrats.

And you gotta love Mooreā€™s language: ā€œsilk-stocking Washington eliteā€ simply screams that McConnell is an effete poncy and not a real manā€™s man. Nudge nudge wink wink.

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