Roy Moore accused of sexual contact with 14-year old

[Darth Executor]

Not really "a bunch of stuff", the WaPo, probably at the behest of Establishment Republicans, staged a successful hit job.

[Teallaura]

I have to wonder how much he necessarily cares about his re-election chances. When he first started his campaign, he probably was just planning to serve as the standard sacrificial lamb for the Democrats with basically no chance of actually serving in the Senate, and then a bunch of stuff suddenly happened to make that possible. He might just take the completely unexpected victory he was given and not try to worry too much about the next one.

His party cares - and he will not be popular if he takes that attitude.

[Juvenal]

Moore was keeping his head low during the end of his campaign.

Mr. Moore returned to Alabama for a rally in the rural, southeast corner of the state on Monday with Stephen K. Bannon, Mr. Trump’s former chief strategist.

But the most memorable comments from the event did not come from Mr. Moore. Rather, they emerged from Mr. Bannon, who mocked NBC’s Joe Scarborough, a University of Alabama graduate, for not attending a more prestigious university

I've rarely seen a worse gaffe or a better burn.

Hey Bannon, you only went to Harvard because you couldn't get into Alabama. #RollDamnTide

[carpedm9587]

I am by the Alabama outcome. I fully expected Moore to win.

But I have to admit to a little bit of feeling. This bodes well for the federal government moving back to center in 2018 and 2020! It continues a pattern we've been seeing since Trump's inaugural.

Condolences to those rooting for Moore - but I cannot say I am disappointed he did not succeed.

[Teallaura]

Okay, really, really leaving now...


Probably...

[Terraceth]

His party cares - and he will not be popular if he takes that attitude.

But to maximize chances for re-election and be "popular," he'd have to constantly go against what his party wants.

[Teallaura]

But to maximize chances for re-election and be "popular," he'd have to constantly go against what his party wants.

Pretty much - but they need to hold all the seats they can.

[Raphael]

But to maximize chances for re-election and be "popular," he'd have to constantly go against what his party wants.

Which would be a move to the center.

My honest opinion of American politics? you guys have obliterated your center with people right to hard right and left to hard left with both sides often viciously attacking those who may express a more central opinion.
As long as you have that I believe America suffers as a whole.

[Darth Executor]

Which would be a move to the center.

My honest opinion of American politics? you guys have obliterated your center with people right to hard right and left to hard left with both sides often viciously attacking those who may express a more central opinion.
As long as you have that I believe America suffers as a whole.

lol virtually the entire american political class is center left and rightfully loathed for the widespread destruction they've caused. extremes show up when the existing order is weak and corrupt, like in the Weimar republic.

[Starlight]

My honest opinion of American politics? you guys have obliterated your center with people right to hard right and left to hard left with both sides often viciously attacking those who may express a more central opinion.
As long as you have that I believe America suffers as a whole.

My opinion is quite different to that.

I think, compared to our country or compared to Europe, the US Democratic party aligns loosely with the center through right-wing part of our spectrum. The US is largely missing anything we would view as the center-left through left part of our political spectrum (I mean, they have a Green party but that doesn't win any seats, and they have Bernie Sanders, so 1 senate seat). And then they have the Republican party who doesn't match well to anything in NZ or European politics. I guess Trumpism matches roughly to 'far right' UKIP (UK Independence Party) and Trump got on well with UKIP leader Nigel Farage. But UKIP won... no seats... in the UK parliament.

Overall, the US calls their right wing (the Dems) their "left-wing", doesn't have an actual left wing, and then has this strange thing they call a 'right wing' (the Republicans) that doesn't match to anything much in the rest of the Western world's politics. To some extent US conservatives seem to understand and acknowledge this insofar as they regularly label Western Europe as "socialist". But when they do that kind of "everyone's wrong except us" statement... they don't seem to acknowledge that it is indeed them who is the odd one out and that they are pushing political views that the rest of the developed world would roll their eyes at rather than vote for.

[Terraceth]

Which would be a move to the center.

My point was more that Teallura seemed to be asking for something contradictory. I posited that considering he probably (when signing up for his candidacy) didn't expect to have any real chance of winning, Doug Jones might not be too concerned about re-election prospects and would just do whatever he wanted to without caring about how it'd affect re-election chances. Teallura's statement of his party caring and it not making him popular were therefore asking him to do two things that seemed at odds with each other.

My honest opinion of American politics? you guys have obliterated your center with people right to hard right and left to hard left with both sides often viciously attacking those who may express a more central opinion.
As long as you have that I believe America suffers as a whole.

I think the problem is more the binary nature of things. Give me an elected politician's stance on one particular major issue and I can probably perfectly predict the rest of their major stances 90% of the time because they line up so much.

[Starlight]

Give me an elected politician's stance on one particular major issue and I can probably perfectly predict the rest of their major stances 90% of the time because they line up so much.

Oh, that reminds me, my brother was asking me the other week why Republicans seem to share views with each other on seemingly unrelated issues - he gave being pro-life and pro-gun as examples of what he was thinking of. Maybe you can explain it? What is the logical connection between being anti-abortion-rights and pro-gun-rights?

Bonus points if you can explain the logic of also (generally) supporting: an aggressive foreign policy/liking to start wars; support for the death penalty; transferring as much money from the poor to the rich as possible (e.g. current tax bill giving cuts to the rich and increasing rates on poor and middle class, general welfare cuts to things like medicare, medicaid and social security); and running up the national debt (2/3rd of current US debt was created by the last 3 Republican presidents). In general, these views don't strike me as having much internal logical connectivity, yet tend to often be found together among Republicans.

[Terraceth]

Oh, that reminds me, my brother was asking me the other week why Republicans seem to share views with each other on seemingly unrelated issues - he gave being pro-life and pro-gun as examples of what he was thinking of. Maybe you can explain it? What is the logical connection between being anti-abortion-rights and pro-gun-rights?

I'm not sure what in the world this is supposed to mean. Is there always some logical connection between any positions on two distinct political issues? Someone's reasoning for being for or against abortion doesn't necessarily have anything to do with their reason for being for or against gun rights.

[Starlight]

I'm not sure what in the world this is supposed to mean. Is there always some logical connection between any positions on two distinct political issues? Someone's reasoning for being for or against abortion doesn't necessarily have anything to do with their reason for being for or against gun rights.

If the issues are independent then why can you "probably perfectly predict the rest of their major stances 90% of the time because they line up so much"? That is essentially his question.

Bear in mind, my brother is an outside observer to US politics, and our country largely has and has long had all the things the farthermost left/lib Dems want (e.g. fully government provided healthcare for the last 75 years, strong gun control, strong social safety nets, open access to abortion, huge financial payouts to the native peoples for historic injustices etc). So it's someone who's grown up in a world largely surrounded by what you might regard as 'socialism' or 'liberalism', who looks at the US and says "wow, the Republicans have a lot of really weird positions on issues that are almost totally novel to me, like wanting guns everywhere, and being 'pro-life', and being pro-war... I wonder if logic links those views? Or if Republicans just happened upon a random set of views?"

[Terraceth]

If the issues are independent then why can you "probably perfectly predict the rest of their major stances 90% of the time because they line up so much"? That is essentially his question.

Because the country is utterly dominated by just two parties, creating a binary situation where a politician (at least one that wants to be elected) is going to be in one party or the other. So if you know their stance on one issue, you can tell with near certainty what party they belong to, and by extension their stance on all the other issues, which are going to mostly if not entirely line up with their political party's.