Trump Will Campaign in Alabama Ahead of Messy Republican Runoff That Threatens to Divide GOP
Source: Slate
The race has split the Republican Party along establishment and insurgent lines. National Republican leaders worry a Moore victory could portend a wave of primary challengers in 2018, in what looks to be a challenging cycle for the GOP already. Trump has been supportive of Strange, as has his on-again-off-again nemisis Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, as well as the Republican establishment. Steve Bannon has backed Moore, pushing his candidacy as the latest front in a populist midterm war on the Republican establishment. Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin is also expected to be in Alabama supporting Moore before voters go to the polls.
Polling shows that the vast majority of Republican voters in Alabama remain enamored with President Trump with his approval ratings hovering above 80 percent. The two remaining candidates, however, have divided opinion. Polling has been a bit all over the map, and while the race appears to have tightened, Strange has struggled to keep up with the recalcitrant former judge, who has consistently led in head-to-head polls, sometimes by double digits.
The evangelical Moore has attracted anti-establishment types after he shot to national notoriety for his refusal to remove a statue of the Ten Commandments from the state Supreme Court building and his order not to issue same-sex marriage licenses even after the Supreme Court ruled forbidding gay marriage unconstitutional. Moore handily won the Aug. 15th special election with 39 percent of the vote to Stranges 33 percent, but was unable to reach the 50 percent threshold to avoid a runoff. Alabama congressman Mo Brooks received a significant 20 percent of the vote, but was eliminated from the two-candidate runoff later this month. Brooks, a member of the House Freedom Caucus, endorsed Moore on Saturday.
Read more: http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/2017/09/17/trump_to_campaign_in_alabama_for_strange_ahead_of_messy_gop_runoff.html
Seems risky, considering Trump doesn't like to be seen as supporting "losers"; and quite honestly, Moore seems much more in Trump's style.
Not Ruth
(3,613 posts)House of Roberts
(5,182 posts)Do we help Roy Moore in case Doug Jones could somehow beat him? Or do we play it safe and get Strange Luther nominated, so Moore doesn't end up in the Senate?
lastlib
(23,286 posts)Putting what I suspect about Moore's strength with fundy AL voters with AL's strong R-leaning proclivities, I just wouldn't give Jones very good chances. O'Course, Ah could be wroung...........
Whiskeytide
(4,462 posts)... Jones cannot beat either one of them (alas). Strange is as corrupt as they come. He dropped a state AG investigation into our "Luv Guv" when he was appointed by that Guv to fill Sessions' seat. Moore will hold a grudge against Trump.
In other words, I'm pulling for GOP dysfunction.
House of Roberts
(5,182 posts)If I had to pick Luther to keep Moore out I would. Moore getting elected legitimizes all the wrong he has done. One little quid-pro-quo wasn't going to save Bentley, and it will cloud Luther going forward. You get dysfunction with either in the Senate.
Whiskeytide
(4,462 posts)... but Big L is pretty bad and will fall in line as a reliable republican vote on whatever they want to do. Moore is a loose cannon and somewhat unpredictable. And as a judge he took the Bible very literally. That was not always a good thing, but he believes in helping the less fortunate, and he often dissented from the republican core justices on such matters. He is NOT fundamentally a corporatist. That's why McConnell et.al are supporting Strange.
I've said before many times that the only thing worse than a dysfunctional republican government is a functional one that gets republican shit done. Luther will help them get shit done. Moore will give them sleepless nights.
But I'm voting for Jones. Outta my hands, I suppose.
msongs
(67,441 posts)it end, theoretically speaking
Bernardo de La Paz
(49,036 posts)Inter-party is between Republicons and Democrats.
Intra-party is within the Republican Party over whether the law-and-order guy will beat the gods-law-and-order guy.
"extra" is "outside, beyond".
"intra" is "internal, inside".
"inter" is "between".
My degree is in Math & Computer Science, so why do I have to explain English to New York City writers?