I can't count how many times I've heard some raging anti-PC conservative shout, "OWN IT" whenever someone makes a small mistake.

GOP, OWN IT.

Conservacucks BTFO

the only question I have for the Alabama voters is... how many simply put blinders on and didn't believe the claims... and how many didn't even care?

I think the latter is worse... but not by some massive margin

This is such a frustrating conversation. I know y'all don't interact with the GOP grassroots nearly as much as I do, but you insist you know more about it than me anyway. There's no getting through this level of thickheaded condescension.

This election result lies squarely with an establishment that would prefer to lose a Senate seat over having it held by a Republican they didn't like. The establishment tried to force their guy through, Alabama voters ran to the candidate the establishment liked least in response (as people tend to do when you try to force them to do something they don't like), that candidate was later accused of sexual improprieties that would make Satan blush, and that candidate lost an "unloseable" election.
You can navel gaze about the GOP grassroots all you want, but the leadership which has proven itself to be completely incompetent throughout this decade chose the absolute worst path to this election and lost an election they had no business losing.
This is the absolutely most informed answer you are going to get on this site, unless there's an actual Republican Party pollster/insider lurking here I don't know about. You can do whatever you want with it.

"This election result lies squarely with an establishment that would prefer to lose a Senate seat over having it held by a Republican they didn't like."

Dude, this is so much sour grapes bullshit with a dollop of conspiracy.

I don't care man, find whatever excuse you need to ignore the answer you're being given.
I could have possibly been more accurate and said "over having it held by a Republican that wasn't their guy." That's the limit of what I will change about that statement.
The GOP had multiple options besides Strange or Moore. They went heavy on Strange. The people didn't want Strange. If they really cared about the risk of having Moore represent them, they should have gotten their heads out of their asses and backed another reasonable candidate, like my preference, Mo Brooks. Instead they didn't and they lost an unloseable seat.

Lmao at y'all just assuming he's a child molester. Not a shred of evidence has been provided for any of this alleged molestation. Now that this has become a proven strategy, I bet every other Republican candidate is going to be smeared with fake 40-years old sex scandals.

Considering republican politicians are generally old misogynistic rich assholes with problems with sexuality, I wouldn't be surprised that they all exploit women.

There's no way degenerates like Pence treat women with decency.

@condescension

as for Pence specifically, remember his rule about not dining with other women alone? I'm pretty sure you're not going to find anything on him. misogyny? I wouldn't be surprised by a man of his generation it's possible

our incumbent president though... well, 'grab em by the... electoral college' says enough about his character there, and forcefully kissing models at his pageants is the metaphorical cream to top it off.

Degenerates? You must be talking about Democrats. They talk a big game about protecting women, but just take a look at the Democratic haven known as Hollywood.

Hollywood is fucked but they're not the political establishment. The GOP is just 100% sexually repressed former frat douchebags.

If you need to compare your political elite with hollywood in order to make a favorable comparison, you've already given up.

@leon

keeping in mind that every confirmed voter of the accusers I've seen have been Trump supporters (takes away the 'plant' story) one woman's mom corroborates the story of multiple phone calls to her house, multiple witnesses have confirmed him harassing girls at the mall, with one person claiming he was actually banned from the mall - a bit less substantiated, need to look into that one more - there is the signature in the yearbook from that one woman, and no it was not forged, the only thing she ever said she did was right "DA" next to it once she heard he had made that office, to remind her of who he was: the rest of the writing fits suite.


honestly, if you doubt this, there's less evidence for Juanita Broadrick being raped by Bill Clinton than there is here.

meanwhile, why trump voters would do this for any kind of political motive: I haven't the slightest

I try to withhold judgement as long as possible on this stuff, and as for a court of law I don't think this is enough, but from just the behavior around such young women that has been unanimously confirmed by people in and around him of various political backgrounds, that alone disgusts me enough to not want him in office.

it's not about blindly believing victims, it's 100% on the balance of evidence.

I think to call anyone degenerate you have to look the reaction to allegations (and the proof of them).

Hollywood star exposed, career ruined.
Liberal Senator exposed, his own base calls for him to resign.
Republican Senate exposed and allegations corroborated, President stands by him....

Notice a dissonance, leon?

Bizzare. Just bizzare. To think the establisment suit was named Luther Strange. How bizarre. And the primary winner was a retread failed judge who did all of his molesting when he was a registered democrat. Then you have all of the other liberal supporting sex offenders who are all either democrats or liberals or former democrats. Mr 'don't squeeze the charmin' the Minnesota liberal. Harvey sleep with me Weinstein. And all of the others. This just shows that the democrats and the liberals are the source of all of this filth and vile.

And that patsy doug jones will be out of the senate in six years never to be heard from again. Hopefully McConnell will be gone then too that ass.

And how did liberals react to Weinstein? Terrible people exist all across, it all depends on how the base reacts to them. Weinstein has been shunned and alienated, as he should be.

@James

It looks like you've been fed a lot of fake news. I don't blame you considering how bold and prevalent it has become. No, not all of the accusers have been Trump supporters, and at least one has actively volunteered for the DNC, even giving them the services of her company free of charge.

http://www.politifact.com/punditfact/statements/2017/nov/15/activist-mommy/headline-misleads-tying-roy-moore-accuser-democrat/ (Note how the totally biased Politifact gives the rating Mostly False even when confirming most of the story.)

The mall manager at the time has come out and confirmed that the story there is completely bogus just like every one of the other stories (which have, again, 0 evidence behind them).

The yearbook woman never brought up adding anything to the signature until her lies were pointed out. Then she fabricated the story of adding an annotation to cover up her lies. It's clear as day to anyone looking with an objective lense. Do you claim to be a signature expert? If not, how can you tell that it "fits suite"?

You're right that many of these accusations, though probably not the majority, aren't motivated by political goals. These are women who have done nothing with their lives and are now looking for their 5 minutes in the spotlight to ruin the lives of honest men just like the girls in the days of the Crucible. They were of course taken advantage of by the liberal media establishment looking for a story to sink the hated outsider.

As for Clinton, he himself basically admitted having sex with Juanita by the end of the inquiry. Roy Moore, having never committed the crimes he's accused of, has never once backed down from his innocence.

@Vashta

The Hollywood Stars have admitted to their wrongdoing. The liberal senator had photographic evidence of him in the act of molestation. The conservative senator has been barraged with baseless accusations which he has denied all along.

@Brad

He'll actually be gone in 3 years. This was a special election replacing a former senator (Jeff Sessions) who was already 3 years through his term.

Hallelujah!

The whole scheme is about nullifying the election of trump. Too bad we didn't do this to Obama. Of course when we tried against Clinton the senate had no problem voting to keep him in office. Where was the righteous indignation then?

In 1992 and 1996 a rapist was elected.

@leon1122

in order:

1. Beverly Nelson was the trump voter, wrong person

2. the mall thing I was uncertain about

3. she ONLY added D.A. according to her, and the initial segment talking about the yearbook only talked about the signature with a message, which she only showed once she dug up the yearbook. she admitted to writing a note underneath it, so what? if I got raped by someone, and they signed my yearbook a year or so later, I'd make a note of that too, if I heard they made government office. plus, she told her family about this years ago and they stayed silent. it was only after the others came out that she did.

4. I'm not a handwriting expert but this made a pretty convincing argument

https://www.scribd.com/document/366939922/Handwriting-Analyses-Report-Dec-6-2017?secret_password=2Poj4YrvvPpsrLqPklFu#from_embed

5. "they're just looking for a moment in the spotlight" has no evidence. it's your opinion. frankly, I think it's a biased one.

I don't usually like slate because they are biased, but they still pump out raw data, and they have a DELUGE of sources in this article. I'd at least check it out

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/2017/11/the_mountain_of_evidence_against_roy_moore.html




there is as much credibility to this as I've seen in similar cases in a LOOOONG time. if you don't believe in these allegations, then quite frankly you shouldn't be believing most of the stories coming out of Hollywood about sexual harassment there, because many of them have much less evidence.

and addressing this right off of the mark: yes the timing is convenient, because WashPo and other left wing outlets were LOOKING for a story immediately before the election, not the stories only began before the election. many of these girls told their families and friends relatively soon after the events

The problem with your party and electoral system all rolled into one (ok there is also a problem with mostly men abusing mostly women, but i'll leave that aside while you're all bitching about grassroots vs establishment GOP politics).

In any european parliamentary system this wouldn't have happened. First most people aren't part of a political party - you don't register as an independent, how weird is that? - second the much smaller party choose a candidate, and thus grassroots/leadership makes no difference, they make the best call they can - this is like your primary, but a more private intimate affair.

In some countries (UK) thats it, party selection process (often private and undemocratic) then the majority vote on a first passed the post election. Often with more than two options, but the UK system also encourage two parties... So i prefer other systems, like the PR-STV in Ireland, here a second republican candidate could run and not cause the party to guarantee they were losing the seat...

Like imagine three or four candidates in this race. Roy Moore doesn't get enough votes to be elected in the first round, so all 600,000 voters have their votes transferred to their second preference.... If those votes are split between an anti-establishment democrat/independent and a establishment republican then so be it, they have different preferences which would actually be taken into account.

Basically you take the blame out, and give power to the people to have a more nuanced say in who they elect. Electoral reform should be on every state's agenda. (NB this is similar to Lousianna's 'open primary'/'jungle primary' except all elections are held at once (so you can't change your message in the runoff to specifically target your opponent) and it is cheaper than running two votes because everyone just votes their preferences once...) also it works well for multi-seat constituencies, which i suspect the US has potential for.

I think having a US Senator with basically 0 chance to be re-elected is a great plot for a movie. Just imagine if he decided to be super honest and just tell the truth about everything! It could be hilarious and fascinating.

@orathaic

1. you should look into the actual sex scandals in Europe, that's going to be another bubble that gets popped soon I guarantee it (at least I hope)

2. we don't have a party system, just two turds have just so happened to float to the top of the toilet consistently

3. our state's rights make them hold some basic levels of independence and thus they also need representation, creating our electoral college. I'm fine with splitting votes, but only if states choose to. I'll leave it up to them

Orathaic, you forget that Moore was on the ballot because a majority of republicans voted for him. This business that republicans had no other choice is nonsense. We have a long way to go when damn near half of a state prefer someone like Moore. It shows the strength of the Christian extremist movement.