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Politics: Jones Wins Upset in Alabama Senate Race

posted by martyb on Wednesday December 13 2017, @08:06PM   
from the It's-Fake-News-until-the-Fat-Man-Sings dept.

Fluffeh writes:

Democrat Doug Jones won a remarkable upset victory over controversial rival Roy Moore in the diehard Republican state of Alabama on Tuesday to win election to the US Senate.

By a margin of 49.5 to 48.9 with 91% of precincts reporting, Jones dealt a major blow to Donald Trump and his efforts to pass tax reform on Capitol Hill. Jones was able to become the first Democrat in a decade to win any statewide office in Alabama by beating Moore, who had faced multiple allegations of sexual assault during a campaign which exposed Republican party faultlines.

The Democratic victory will reduce the Republican majority in the Senate to 51-49 once Jones takes his seat on Capitol Hill. This significantly reduces the margin for error as Republicans attempt to push through a major corporate tax cut.

takyon: The final count is:

Doug Jones - 671,151 votes (49.9%)
Roy Moore - 650,436 votes (48.4%)
Write-ins (total) - 22,819 votes (1.7%)

The margin for an automatic recount in Alabama is 0.5%. Roy Moore has yet to concede.

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Original Submission

• Pyrrhic Victory Pyrrhic Victory (Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 14 2017, @01:23AM (4 children)

  by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 14 2017, @01:23AM (#609525)

  Yes, a looney bible-thumping ex-judge was narrowly defeated.

  By a globalist corporate puppet.

  The only real victor here is the Establishment.

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• Re:Pyrrhic Victory Re:Pyrrhic Victory (Score: 4, Informative) by mendax on Thursday December 14 2017, @02:14AM (2 children)

  by mendax (2840) on Thursday December 14 2017, @02:14AM (#609551)

  Better the Establishment candidate than the Bible-thumping nut job and bigot.

  --
  It's really quite a simple choice: Life, Death, or Los Angeles.

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  • Re:Pyrrhic Victory Re:Pyrrhic Victory (Score: 3, Interesting) by Pav on Thursday December 14 2017, @03:39AM (1 child)

    by Pav (114) on Thursday December 14 2017, @03:39AM (#609573)

    Really? Right now the "real left" are raging impotently inside the DNC about the ~1 billion dollars in donations has gone to 5 consultants, while state offices are being defunded [youtube.com]. This Dem corporatist will confirm all Alabamas worst fears about corrupt Democrats and "big government". Meanwhile the Dem corporatists can now argue there's no need to reform the status quo.

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    • Re:Pyrrhic Victory (Score: 2) by Pav on Thursday December 14 2017, @03:41AM

      by Pav (114) on Thursday December 14 2017, @03:41AM (#609575)

      Oops, link should have gone to 85s rather than 125s

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• ''narrowly defeated.By a globalist corporate puppe (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 14 2017, @09:52PM

  by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 14 2017, @09:52PM (#609898)

  The World Socialist Web Site had a similar take.

  Corporate Democrat Doug Jones defeats far-right evangelical Roy Moore in Alabama Senate race [wsws.org]

  [In his campaign,] Jones made no class appeal whatsoever in a state that is a byword for crushing poverty and exploitation, and offered no serious proposals to address unemployment, poverty wages or lack of decent education, housing and health care.
  [...]
  In his victory speech, Jones reiterated his campaign themes of "unity" and bipartisan cooperation with the Republicans, declaring, "We tried to make sure this campaign was about finding common ground." He said nothing about the pervasive poverty in Alabama, the fourth poorest state in the country, where household median income is nearly $11,000 less than the national figure. Nor did he mention, let alone criticize, Moore's fascistic politics.
  [...]
  Neither of the right-wing parties of US big business offers any policies to defend the interests of workers in Alabama or any other state. Nor was Tuesday's election an indication of a surge in support for the Democrats. Exit polls showed that the majority of voters disapproved of both parties, and by similar margins.

  The Center for American Progress was a bit more optimistic.

  Alabama's newest senator isn't afraid to take a strong stance on science and clean energy [thinkprogress.org]

  "Jones ran a campaign that highlighted environmental issues. He wasn't at all guarded about talking about the environment," Matthew Gravatt, associate director of federal and administrative advocacy for the Sierra Club, told ThinkProgress. "He said he believes[1] in science. He put that front and center. He talked about his support for the Paris agreement."
  [...]
  On his campaign website, Jones stated "the consequences of our unchecked use of fossil fuels for our planet and our health have been clear for decades. Period." No one would expect a candidate in a heavily Republican region, let alone the Deep South, to make such definitive statements on the dangers of fossil fuels. Jones also emphasized that U.S. policymakers "should be encouraging investment in renewable energy and conservation."
  [...]
  Jones did not dismiss the plight of the working class, especially workers in the state's coal industry. "I have enormous sympathy with the families in our state that have seen their incomes decline or their jobs vanish as coal prices have dropped," his campaign website said. "Rather than promise that miners can return for generations to dangerous, scarcely regulated jobs, I believe America must step up to provide a safety net of health care and job retraining for these workers and prepare all children in Alabama for a 21st century economy."

  Cindy Lowry, executive director of the Alabama Rivers Alliance, emphasized that Jones did not run on the environment. "That's not going to get you elected in Alabama," she told ThinkProgress. "But he cares about people and he cares about justice and equality. That kind of ethic is important on environmental issues because so many of our environmental problems are most held on the backs of people of low income and people of color and communities that can't afford to address the major threats to our waterways."

  [1] Dontcha just hate it when bozos use the word "believe" WRT Science?
  (Later, the author uses "accept", which is much better.)

  .
  This, also from The Center for American Progress, is interesting as well:

  Alabama just gave Democrats a roadmap to electoral success [thinkprogress.org]

  Doug Jones, a progressive Democrat in a ruby red Southern state, did something that few believed possible: he won a statewide election in Alabama. What's more, he's a white man who went out of his way to court black voters and then afterwards, to praise them for his victory.

  That's a major political development, one that upends the mistaken narrative some Democratic leaders foisted on supporters in the wake of the political drubbing suffered in 2016. Remember that "Better Deal" nonsense, the idea that white working-class voters were the hope for progressive success? Nah, I didn't think you did --- certainly not after Jones' victory.

  As my colleague Kira Lerner discovered in her conversation with Birmingham resident Blair Liggins, black[2] voters will turn out and vote in huge numbers if given a reason to do so. "Everyone automatically thinks that with a Democratic candidate that you're just going to get the African American vote, and I really believe that Doug Jones did not just take that for granted," Liggins told her.

  The reason is simple. Voting is an act of hope. Black voters, like all others, will respond to a forward-looking candidate who approaches them with policies that they believe will benefit them and their families.

  [2] I don't even think that the modifier is necessary.
  The Donkeys have been losing based on their unwillingness to acknowledge problems due to economic class--much less to act on that; it's not just race that's been killing the Dems.
  (He pick up this theme later with "like all others".)

  -- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]

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