Roy Moore-Part II

Alabama Senate candidate Roy Moore lost a special election to a nondescript Democrat yesterday. It's a good thing. As I noted in yesterday's post:

His [Roy Moore] views are extreme and often unhinged, a throwback to political caricatures of the South of the 1950s. His [Roy Moore's] positions draw far too heavily of his personal religious beliefs; his reasoning on important issues is muddled and mean-spirited; he refuses to recognize that our culture as a nation has changed, and has decided that he is the arbiter of morality and justice. He's a bad guy. And all of that has nothing to do with the sexual allegations that have surfaced.

Predictably, Democrats are ecstatic after the victory, suggesting that the election is a repudiation of the hated Donald Trump and that despite all evidence to the contrary, a rejection of GOP policies. All of a sudden, the "deplorables" in Alabama who voted for Trump by a wide, wide margin in 2016, are now not so deplorable. They have, apparently had an epiphany. It's never occurred to progressives that given the choices of candidates in 2016 and again in 2017, the deplorables in Alabama may have been right both times.

Caitlin Huey-Burns and James Arkin summarize the politics of all this:

Doug Jones’ victory over scandal-plagued Republican Roy Moore in Alabama’s Senate special election delivered a gut punch to Donald Trump, putting the president’s legislative agenda -- and the GOP’s already tenuous grip on the upper chamber -- in jeopardy. Once Jones is seated early next year, Republicans will hold just a perilous 51-49 majority. And while Democrats’ path is narrow, their upset victory in Alabama gives them a shot at gaining control in 2018.

But Republicans who opposed Moore have characterized the loss as a longer-term gain for the party. In a sign of the cockeyed dynamics of the race, some are breathing sighs of relief as they no longer face the liabilities that were sure to come if the alleged sexual predator became their colleague. Some GOPers are also pointing fingers at former Trump adviser Steve Bannon, who championed Moore through the election.

“Tonight’s results are clear – the people of Alabama deemed Roy Moore unfit to serve in the U.S. Senate,” said National Republican Senatorial Committee Chairman Cory Gardner, who withdrew support from the candidate amid the scandal.

The "deplorables" of Alabama did the right thing and refused to give a bad guy a victory only because he was a Republican. I'm waiting for at least a few Democrats to demonstrate that they can do the right thing by crossing party lines to vote for legislation that will help the people they purport to care so much about. Waiting ... Waiting ... Waiting ...