Huge defeat for Trump. And for that loser Steve Bannon. Republicans basically gave up a seat. A sound rejection of everything Trump stands for
Huge defeat for Trump. And for that loser StEve Bannon. Republicans basically gave up a seat. A sound rejection of everything Trump stands for
I think everyone dodged a bullet, including Moore.
Today I miss our late friend from North Carolina.
So Roy Moore won't be the albatross for the GOP in 2018 and Doug Jones is done after 2 years.
And it's a 51 seat majority with Mike Pence in the bullpen as needed.
I don't, and hope he's gone for good this time.
Lie, cheat, steal and bring up the "race" card is the only way the Communists can win.
I hope they check to see how many of the voters are alive and legally able to vote when they do the recount.
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/th...s-massachusetts-senate-race.html?hpid=topnewsState Sen. Scott Brown won a remarkable upset victory over state Attorney General Martha Coakley (D) tonight in a Massachusetts Senate special election, a victory likely to spawn broad-ranging political and policy consequences heading into the midterm elections.
"Tonight the independent voice of Massachusetts has spoken," Brown said to raucuous cheers at his victory rally.
Brown's victory is the first for Republicans at the Senate level for Republican in Massachusetts since 1972 and he becomes the lone GOPer in the 12-person federal delegation from the Bay State.
White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said President Obama called Brown and "congratulated Senator Brown on his victory and a well-run campaign."
While it is a historic win within Massachusetts, the implications of Brown's victory for the national political scene are even more critical.
Brown will give Republicans a 41st seat in the Senate, robbing Democrats of the filibuster-proof majority the party had used to pass President Obama's health care plan late last year. In the immediate lead-up to tonight's vote, Democrats -- including the White House and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (Calif.) -- insisted that the party would move forward on health care but it is unclear whether that bravado will carry over in the coming days as the party seeks to deal with Coakley's stunning upset.
"I have no interest in sugar coating what happened in Massachusetts," said Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee Chairman Bob Menendez (N.J.). "There is a lot of anxiety in the country right now. Americans are understandably impatient."
Congressional strategists had warned in the closing days of the Massachusetts Senate race that a Coakley defeat had the potential to trigger a series of retirements within the Democratic ranks as members flee a political wave that could wash out dozens in the House and high single digits on the Senate side.
"My message to my clients? Jump ship now," said one Democratic operative who advises a number of targeted Members of Congress. "Obama can't help you."
Democratic leaders spent much of Tuesday reaching out to vulnerable Members to convince them that the circumstances that led to Coakley's demise were unique to her and the state and not indicative of the general political environment in which they will have to run in November.
Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee Chairman Chris Van Hollen (Md.) sought to downplay the Massachusetts result in a statement released after Coakley had conceded the contest. "House Democrats have been preparing since day one last year for what we knew historically would be a very challenging election cycle," said Van Hollen.
It's not clear whether these efforts will pay off as Democratic Members of Congress were already fearful of what is coming in 2010 -- particularly after five retirements and a party switch over the past two months in competitive districts around the country.
The high stakes for Democrats were apparent in the final week of the campaign as the national party poured resources and manpower into Massachusetts in hopes of saving what was clearly a flagging campaign.
The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee spent nearly $1.5 million on ads in support of Brown and President Obama made a hastily-scheduled visit to the state on Sunday -- his wife's birthday -- in hopes of energizing a lethargic party base.
As Tuesday wore on, and it became clear that Coakley was likely to come up short, the finger pointing within the Democratic party began in earnest with the candidate's advisers insisting that they had not received nearly enough support in the past month from national Democrats and DC-based strategists alleging that the blame for the loss lie entirely on Coakley.
"The campaign failed to recognize this threat, failed to keep Coakley on the campaign trail, failed to create a negative narrative about Brown [and] failed to stay on the air in December while he was running a brilliant campaign," said one Democratic party official, adding that it is "wishful thinking" from Coakley to blame the national party for "one of the worst debacle in American political history".
Republicans, meanwhile, were gleeful -- touting the Massachusetts victory on top of wins in gubernatorial races in Virginia and New Jersey in 2009 as evidence that the political pendulum was swinging quickly in their direction.
"Democrats will try to play this race off as an isolated incident, but the recent spate of polling in swing districts across the country proves that Massachusetts isn't the exception of the 2010 election cycle, its the rule," said National Republican Congressional Committee communications director Ken Spain. "Any Democrat who voted for the health care bill now knows how big of an albatross they will have hanging around their necks."
What have Communists got to do with this? :dunno:
Remember when Moore said it was "providence" that he won the primary?
https://www.thenation.com/article/b...nd-millennials-carried-doug-jones-to-victory/Black Voters, Mothers, and Millennials Carried Doug Jones to Victory
Can they make the difference in other red states in 2018?
There was healing justice in the way the vote rolled in from Alabama Tuesday night, as Democrat Doug Jones defeated racist, ultra-right, deposed judge and accused child molester Roy Moore, in an unexpected victory that put an Alabama Senate seat in Democratic hands for the first time in 25 years.
From Selma to Montgomery to Birmingham, those citadels of the civil rights movement, as the hours passed we learned that black voters exceeded their turnout for Barack Obama in 2012, to deliver Jones the victory. Meanwhile, in Shelby County, the majority white, suburban Republican county whose challenge to the Voting Rights Act wound up gutting it in 2013 — you remember Shelby County vs. Eric Holder? — Moore underperformed woefully. Donald Trump got 75 percent there; Moore only 56. As the vote for Jones rolled in, that vivid geographic landscape reminded us of all that we’ve fought to achieve, and all that remains at stake.
Progressives rarely get so much to savor, literally or symbolically. The bottom line is that black voters saved the country once again. And they did it on the first night of Hanukkah — a sad blow to Moore’s “Jew” lawyer, as the Republican’s bigoted wife Kayla Moore put it, at a disastrous Monday night rally that is more likely to have cost Moore votes than won them.
Jones, the man who finally successfully prosecuted the Klansmen who murdered those four little girls at Birmingham’s 16th Street Baptist Church in 1963, managed to defeat a man who preyed on young girls, in ruby red Alabama. No one saw this coming, until maybe a few days ago, but even then: The optimistic among us were still girded for a narrow Jones defeat, a moral victory that nonetheless couldn’t advance a moral agenda. (Yes I predicted a Jones victory on “AMJoy” on Sunday, but only because I had no idea who would win, and I couldn’t bring myself to stomp on the hopes of the folks working so hard for Jones in Alabama this week.)
We will be examining exactly how Jones won in the next few weeks, but we know a few things already. There was an unprecedented voter turnout operation in this red state, with contributions from new groups as well as the Democratic National Committee. But as Jones consultant Joe Trippi told the Washington Post’s Greg Sargent, they had no idea how it would work, since it had never been used before. Apparently, it worked well. A roster of groups devoted to black turnout, from Black PAC to #BlackVotersMatter to the NAACP, plus a web of small Alabama groups, pioneered new approaches that will be studied and possibly replicated in 50 states come November 2018. Once again, though, let’s take a moment to thank black women, who supported Jones 98-2.
The main takeaway is what we learned last month in Virginia: You can’t win if you don’t play. Former GOP Senator Jeff Sessions, for now Donald Trump’s attorney general, ran unopposed in 2014. Let that sink in. Doug Jones had to be cajoled to step up, and in his victory speech he thanked his friends and advisors who demanded he do so. Let’s hope Democrats commit to a 50-state strategy once again. The party ought to take over the infrastructure of Jones’s winning campaign, and try to use it to bolster its support in the state house and senate and Congress too. Congresswoman Terry Sewell, an indefatigable Jones backer on national television, needs some company in Washington.
We may never know how much the Washington Post’s well-reported story on the way Moore preyed on four teenaged girls when he was in his 30s ultimately mattered (another five women came out after that and accused Moore of much the same things). The exit polls offered conflicting results on that question, but they delivered one important data point: Two-thirds of women with children voted for Doug Jones. Frustrated Republicans like Senator Richard Shelby also deserve credit: almost 23,000 people chose a write-in candidate, as Shelby did; Jones only won by 21,000.
Finally, let’s observe that despite the bleating of national pundits who insisted Jones would be doing better if he wasn’t pro-choice, the Alabama Democrat won without backing away from his pro-choice position at all. Even on election night, there were suggestions from cable hosts and crestfallen Republicans that Jones will have to vote with the GOP sometimes, to keep his seat in 2020. Nobody entirely knows how Jones won; why do they think they know how he might lose? African Americans, mothers and millennials made up his base. They’ll be there next time, too — if they’re inspired.
Once it was clear he’d defeated Moore, Jones made a victory speech that was magnanimous, sometimes rambling and often moving, as he periodically choked up over his win. But he closed with a rousing demand for his future fellow Democratic senators: “Go ahead and fund that CHIP program before I get up there!” he yelled, talking about the Child Health Insurance Program that expired two months ago and hasn’t been renewed. Jones noted that 150,000 kids will be uninsured in Birmingham alone.
Let’s hope they listen. But if they don’t, a Democrat is headed to the Senate from Alabama. He’ll be a vote to renew the CHIP program and defend others. Republicans are going to have to learn from what happened December 12. It would be nice if they took away the right lesson – that their days are numbered if they continue on their current white nationalist, corporate-agenda peddling path. If they don’t, progressives will have a lot to celebrate in November 2018.