How did we end up with Roy Moore?

written by Greg Stone December 14, 2017

I really wonder about our ability to analyze election results. Further, I am amazed at the level for which the architects of Republican disasters get a pass. They are too cute by half and their political engineering blows up in their face and the vast majority of us as rank and file Republicans draw the wrong conclusions setting us on a continued losing course.

Case in point the Senate election in Alabama.

Roy Moore was a flawed candidate. Let me say that again so it sinks in allowing those who are hyper focused on him as the sole reason for the loss, the ability to focus on the real issue.

Easy, Mitch McConnell, Karl Rove and a cadre of political strategists and social engineers decided their candidate Mr. Strange had a better chance of winning the first round of the primary if they destroyed Rep. Mo Brooks. They spent millions going after and destroying Brooks. They knew Brooks was most likely the candidate to beat their guy, so they took him out.

Their plan of course was to run Luther Strange against the weaker Moore and prevail. They didn’t even consider the fact that they might lose. Did I mention how brilliant these guys are?

You got Roy Moore because of Mitch and his gang of political nitwits who thought, in their usual static mindset, that they could engineer the outcome. They were wrong again and you got Roy Moore as your candidate.

Please pay attention to this stuff beyond the casual narratives that pass as insightful political analysis.

Now if your one of those Chicken or the Egg types, the first cause of this disaster was selecting Jeff Sessions as AG. This was the first move, or should I say blunder in this political disaster.

Lesson 01. When you have an elected Republican in the US Senate you keep that seat no matter what happens. The only way you give up that seat is either by losing a legitimate election or getting hit by a bus.

Greg Stone

Greg Stone is a Personal Protection Specialist (PPS) registered with the Commonwealth of Virginia's- Department of Criminal Justice Services(DCJS), Security Consultant, and NRA Certified Firearms Instructor based in Northern Virginia. Greg has provided executive protection, corporate and private security, as well as work place violence mitigation for commercial and corporate clients. Greg specializes in political security having worked for campaigns at the local, state, and national levels. His work includes not only physical security, but protection of a candidate or campaigns political viability. His current work has him working for a Virginia based contractor specializing in the construction of High Security Infrastructure and force protection. As a Certified Firearms Instructor and NRA Chief Range Safety Officer, Greg trains private citizens on the use of firearms as a component of their personal protection plan. Greg can be reached at G3Stone@Gmail.com

Jonathon Moseley

This is correct, except for the fact that Roy Moore was not a flawed candidate. He was only “flawed” in the sense that the geniuses always think that conservatives are weird and easy to beat. Roy Moore had gone through 8 contentious elections, plenty of time for any negative information to be flushed out into the open. No one would imagine that anything could be brought out after 8 prior elections. Nor that any idiotic imbeciles would be so stupid and gullible as to believe any of the absurd allegations brought out 38 years after the fact.

But most of all there is no such thing as a flawed or better candidate because ANY candidate can and will be smeared. It is because of the smear machine, not the candidate.
- MerckxFactor
  
  Spot on. The allegations against Moore are sketchy and the establishment GOPer’s are Potemkin Patriots at best.
- Catherine Stone McNickle
  
  It was far more than being weird and easy to beat. You can’t be a controversial person for 40 year, lose 2 primaries in statewide races, be kicked off the bench and continue to do and say stupid things and expect to get elected in one of the most politically charged environments in our history. It doesn’t work that way, even in Alabama.
  - Warmac9999
    
    It especially doesn’t work that way when you are both abandoned and then attacked by a GOPe leadership that decided they didn’t want you – sort of like Trump. Even with a relentlessly biased media, a group of suddenly harassed women from 40 years ago, the entirety of the Democrat Party attacks concerning sexual harassment on their own part, and God knows what else, Moore came close to winning. There will be more of a price to pay within the Republican Party than just Moore’s loss.
mezurak

So how many other Congress critters gave up their seats to join teump.?
John Jones

Amen to that…good post
Andrew Olson

If you’re wondering “How did we end up with Roy Moore” look no further than the comments here by Jonathon Moseley and the reply by MerckxFactor, the first of which declares “Roy Moore was not a flawed candidate” and the reply that says “The allegations against Moore are sketchy.”

That’s how you get Roy Moore as a candidate and you will reap what you sow so long as this is the attitude: Moore not flawed, allegations sketchy.

He was so flawed and the allegations so accurate that even in Alabama the Democrat won. Virginians: Learn something from these defeats at home and away. Stop putting fake riders atop tiny horses. Find people of substance and go for the jugular, which is the center.
- Warmac9999
  
  Well, of course, you are not flawed. To me, every human on the planet is flawed in some way so the idea that Moore was not flawed fails that test. However, the allegations against Moore are more than sketchy, they are downright nonsensical in some cases and likely criminal (forgery, fraudulent representation, and more) in others. I would hope that Moore pursues the accusers who have committed forgery, fraud, and defamation. That is the least he should do following this election. Let the law decide and, if it is decided, Gloria Allred will be held to account.
  
  By the way, the women who have come forth on national TV to allege sexual abuse by Trump should likewise be challenged in the law. There are at least two women who have concocted what is provably false narratives – the woman who claimed Trump treated her like a piece of meat at a beauty contest was lying. NBC found Trump wasn’t even at that contest. The second women who claimed that Trump went after her on an airplane has been rebutted by an individual who saw the incident on the plane and said it happened the other way around. These are claims that can be addressed in a court because there are facts involved. Most of the other allegation are he said/she said and can’t be addressed by the law.
  - Andrew Olson
    
    Yes, of course, we are all flawed, we are all sinners, agreed. But these were not just flawed people, like the rest of us, they are fatally flawed candidates unlikely to pass the electoral test.
    
    If your response is serious — and I know it is, but hold out hope that inside you know the truth — then let’s be clear: The woman wrote around Moore’s inscription and that was clear from the start. Holding the victim or her attorney to account is the style of behavior that loses elections and explains lots about the title of this piece, which is “How did we end up with Roy Moore?”
    
    We ended up with Roy Moore because have too many Warmacs trying to appease too many Trumps.
    
    We ended up with Roy Moore because we have Warmac on our side. We ended up with Roy Moore because we have right-wing fringe idealogues who wish they belonged to a still more fringe party on our side. We ended up with Roy Moore because we mistake the racist, sexist past the we endure for the better future we owe our children.
    
    Neither is this about you, Warmac. You are simply representative. I feel sure you are a fine person is wonderful ways and so do not intend this as a personal attack, but your way of thinking and manner of expression are precisely the Roy Moore problem in a nutshell.
    - Warmac9999
      
      If it was clear that the inscription was merely added, then there was no reason to withhold the yearbook from scrutiny. Give it to document analysts.
      
      As far a right-wing fringe, the question is who is the fringe – the Tea Party/conservative/ MAGA folks or the GOPe. I submit that the GOPe is the fringe and shrinking as Trump keeps making America great again.
      
      There are lots of folks like you. Don’t rock the boat Republicans or Independents. You simply fail to realize that the Democrats have no problem rocking the boat or even sinking it for ideological purposes. My ideological focus is constitutional America. I have no idea what yours actually is but it seems awfully uninterested in the direction of the country.
      
      Trump put national politics in its rightful place – America first. This was not the case with Obama whose entire focus was to make America into another in a long line of global socialist failures.
      - Andrew Olson
        
        Pure hyperbole. No one gives up anything without a negotiated agreement or court order — it was campaign deflection for what was obviously his inscription in her year book. First time I saw it I said to others that there was handwriting around it, like the date. No big deal either way because the real question is his undeniable conduct, not the inscription in the year book. Making the inscription the proxy issue is a sophistic trick better left to barristers: If it does not fit, you must acquit! Righto!
        
        Results define fringes. The platform upon which the Virginia Republican Party ran its last election lost the center, so it was too fringe for statewide victory. So long as the Virginia GOP can draw a border, it can carve out a winning electoral district, but without the district drawing hand the current GOP simply cannot win a statewide contest. It is drawn like a moth to the flame of fringe ideology, a flame kept hot with rhetoric like yours, Warmac, which accommodates Roy Moore and worse.
        
        There must come an end to the culture wars that cost the GOP the center if the Virginia Republic Party is to grow and prosper. Avoiding Roy Moores is essential to this task, much as is shedding the current GOP leadership. Goodbye to Gillespie and Vogel, you’ve tried and failed and need to get out of the way for a new crop of leaders.
      - Warmac9999
        
        Moore denied the conduct so your claim of undeniable conduct holds no merit. As far as withholding the year book from scrutiny, there was no lawsuit filed so it could have been examined by someone associated with Allred and with a Moore representative present. Allred said she would give it to an ethics committee which is not a civil court so she deliberately withheld the document from scrutiny – I believe because she knew that the yearbook had been compromised.
        
        I have no actual stake in the Moore election other than issues of justice. From what I could see, we had accepted without question injustice. Whether you like Moore or not, he deserved the presumption of innocence which was only give to his accusers. (As the facts unfolded, each of the accusers had a specific axe to grind against Moor.)
        
        As far as the GOP, Virginia has to now be considered a blue state at the federal and gubernatorial levels. NOVA, Richmond and Norfolk are now dominating in the commonwealth. I wish I knew how to turn if back to red but as you accurately state it cannot be done with the current slate of candidates or, for that matter, with the tremendous divide between the GOPe and most of the conservative base.
      - Eric the half a troll
        
        “Trump put national politics in its rightful place – America first.”
        
        Yeah, if by “America” you mean “Russia”.
      - Warmac9999
        
        Uranium One ain’t Trump.
      - Eric the half a troll
        
        Uranium One is nothing compared to Trump’s turning our democracy itself over to Putin.
      - Warmac9999
        
        Most closely guarded national secrets exposed by Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State.
- FrankUnderwoodSr
  
  You’re talking about how to pretend to be a Republican in a blue state and lose elections anyway, not how to win in Alabama. Mo Brooks could have easily won in Alabama. Almost any Republican can win in Alabama.
  
  You’re ignoring the main thrust of the article which is how we ended up with the most flawed Republican candidate in this particular race. The author is right on target. We ended up with that flawed candidate because of the games that Mitch McConnell played to get a candidate who would support him personally, rather than one Alabamans would prefer. It is precisely YOUR kind of thinking that propels that flawed strategy which backfired in Alabama. Trying to rig the game for a squishy moderate, rather than letting the voters decide, was the fundamental strategic failure in Alabama.
  - Eric the half a troll
    
    You ended up with a flawed candidate in Alabama because Alabaman Republicans voted for a flawed candidate. Plain and simple. He was flawed before the allegations came out against him (which is why other Republicans fought against him). The pedophilia bit was just the nail in the coffin.
    - FrankUnderwoodSr
      
      No kidding Captain Obvious. Just like Hillary lost because she was a flawed candidate. When you figure out how and why the Dems elected such a flawed candidate, then maybe you’ll be able to add something interesting to the conversation.
      - Eric the half a troll
        
        I just think it funny that you Republicans can’t figure out how you ended up with a reprehensible candidate. To me it is obvious. He represents the majority of Alabaman Repubicans perfectly….and pretty much a bunch of non- Alabaman Republicans as well judging by the support he garnered from the party faithful.
      - FrankUnderwoodSr
        
        I’m sure you agree that dishonest, obnoxious, crooked Hillary perfectly represents Democrats too. Otherwise, why would the Dems decide to rig the primaries in her favor?
      - Eric the half a troll
        
        I think that the Dems who voted Clinton to the nomination knew what they were getting. They thought she was the candidate that best represented them. As did the Alabaman Republicans who voted Moore in as their candidate. They knew what they were getting as did the Rs who supported them. Why the hand-wringing now is what I want to know. Is this what you are going to be like when Trump get hauled away in shackles? Oh how did we ever find ourselves with Trump as our leader?? Dear oh dear, how could this have happened??
      - FrankUnderwoodSr
        
        Winning! Not tired of it yet though.
      - Eric the half a troll
        
        Moore/Trump? You call that winning? You have a very strange concept of success.
      - FrankUnderwoodSr
        
        Trump? Most definitely Trump is winning. Jones won’t even get to complete a full term before we’ll have that Alabama Senate seat back too.
Warmac9999

I think Moore has an interesting legal opportunity. Numerous claims defamed his character, and if I were Moore I would file a civil suit with the defendants being the Washington Post, Gloria Allred, and his accusers. The primary targets are WAPO and Allred (and the Alabama Democrat Party?). Fear of criminal penalties for perjury would cause some of the accusers to spill info so far hidden by the primary targets. The suit could be for an outrageous sum, say $100M. Additional plaintiffs could be (the Alabama Republican Party).

Just the filing of the suit, whether winnable or not, would cause a lot of interesting things to shake out. If behavior like this is just let go, then the sexual harassment becomes the go to accusations for politics with the Republicans on the receiving end.

Hannity proved that if you go hard against and accuser, they back off. Moore has an opportunity to the same.
- Eric the half a troll
  
  ….and if he does not file suit (which he won’t) what does that say about him. Further if he does file suit and fails, I certainly hope he gets stuck with both side’s legal fees. Otherwise, he would be simply using the court to bully accusers into silence and I am sure you weren’t suggesting he do that now, right?
  - Warmac9999
    
    I am suggesting that justice be pursued. A civil suit is the only feasible way to get it. It appears you don’t understand the process but long before a trial there is discovery. Most suits are settled short of trial. It is common for attorneys to strategize by deposing lesser defendants who are dropped after they cooperate. In any event, an accuser would need tens of thousands of dollars to go through the legal process and it would be instructive to see who foots their bills. If it is the Democrats then they would likely be added to the suit as a defendant. Lots of interesting stuff. By the way, I have seen lawyers take on cases with much less merit than this.
    - Eric the half a troll
      
      Wow- that sure sounds like you would like to use the courts to silencer accusers. But I think it is interesting that Moore and Trump are supposedly wrongly defamed and certainly have the resources to pursue litigation but choose not to. Maybe THEY don’t really want to go through discovery. Perhaps it is their argument that can’t stand up to scrutiny.
      - Warmac9999
        
        Again, the only feasible way to pursue justice is a civil suit. At this point, Moore seems to think vote fraud is substantial. He is not going to win.
- Andrew Olson
  
  Tell us more about your legal assessment of the notion of defamation with regards to political campaigns, where the preference for public debate and its application to admittedly public figures means actual malice must be proven and not mere falsehood.
  
  There can be nothing worse for the Republican Party than would be keeping the Roy Moore matter in the public eye. You can be sure Democrats will be hoping this issue is alive, kicking and screaming, into the next electoral cycle — and beyond.
  
  As I wrote earlier in this thread, the Warmacs are the gift that keeps on giving to the Democrats. Unfortunately, the Warmacs take from me and my family because we benefit from a competition for the middle that Virginia Republics avoid in their haste to race to the Right, crowing about monuments, MS-13, wanding pregnant women and worse.
  
  Steven Tucker here keeps repeating that electoral contests are about governing, not running away from government. I think he’s right. How’re you going to govern in ways that benefit our family? How will you improve the schools (not their bathrooms)? What will you do about the roads?
  
  Calling us names like EuroSocialists or whatever derisive term you are using today doesn’t help any more than did calling one’s opponent’s supporters deplorable. Better you resolve your own preference — which you’ve articulated clearly is anti-Republican — before you go chasing an opponent that now clearly outnumbers your own beleagured, divided troops.
  - Warmac9999
    
    I didn’t say a lawsuit can be won, merely that it can be filed – and I hope it is. You are concerned about me referring to your apparent ideology which you conveniently never expose. Eurosocialist is quite specific – open borders, multiculturalism, welfare state, and generally opposed to anything constituting a nation as a nation. You do not seem to be a Republican.
    - Andrew Olson
      
      Suggesting that I never expose my own ideology is ridiculous. I’ve articulated my interests here repeatedly, but you’ve ignored these expressions in deference to personal attack, which includes defining Republican as you like it while rejecting the party mantle and its leaders. There is very little to distinguish you from a meddlesome Russian or bot/algorithm designed to fragment, fracture, undermine.
Chris k

2 words, cowboy hat. The fringe elements of the GOP love them, but the general electorate despises them. If he didn’t wear that stupid hat, the people with a modicum of fashion sense would not have turned out in droves to keep him and his awful hat out of the senate. A Republican cannot even win in Alabama when they look like a five year old playing pretend with his friends.
mark Jawsz

What charges did the GOPe use to destroy Brooks?

How did we end up with Roy Moore?

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