Posted on 12/19/2017 9:35:09 AM PST by blam
Black Alabamians deserve much of the credit for Democrat Doug Jones' stunning victory in the deep red state's US Senate special election last Tuesday.
Turning out to vote in much higher-than-predicted numbers last week, black voters are being described as the "backbone" of the Democratic Party, but some on the left argue that much more needs to be done to both serve and energize black communities to ensure their engagement in crucial elections in 2018 and 2020.
A multipronged approach to mobilizing black voters
Guy Cecil, the chairman of Priorities USA, a progressive super PAC that invested heavily in the Alabama race, said the effort to reach black voters was multifaceted, with a heavy focus on digital advertising and grassroots mobilization.
Black Alabamians made up 30% of the electorate, slightly more than in 2008 and 2012 when Barack Obama was on the ballot, according to exit polls. And 96% of them voted for Jones, helping him edge Republican Roy Moore by about 1.5 percentage points overall.
Priorities USA poured $1.5 million into a digital ad campaign, nearly $1 million of which was spent targeting 1.4 million black Alabamians on YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, Pandora, Google, and other online platforms.
Some ads were specifically targeted at black communities, showing footage of white supremacist marches and Donald Trump rallies while a woman talked about the importance of education for children of color.
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(Excerpt) Read more at businessinsider.com ...
Voter Fraud
Let’s see what the count will be after the recount.
There was also the problem of Roy Moore doing his best Hillary Clinton imitation and mailing it in over the last few weeks of the campaign.
“That confirms my observations and statements I made on election day.”
That confirms my observations and statements I make everyday.
Jones won by less than 2%. The conservatives didn’t show up. That has more to do with DJ winning than black turnout.
That would be amazing.
Thanks a rot black Alabamans. The gift that keeps on giving.
These “analyses” of Jones’ victory by Democrats and their allies are inevitably cases of wishful thinking bordering on the delusional.
Doug Jones won Alabama (by a slim margin) for one reason and one reason only - Roy Moore’s sex scandals. Had his accusers not come forward at just the “right” political moment (which makes their claims all the less plausible), Jones would have lost by double digits. The Alabamans who gave Trump a big victory in the 2016 election didn’t suddenly become liberal Democrats, they just chose not to vote for Moore because of the teen sex allegations against him.
There is no move to the Left in Southern States, and there’s no political strategy or set of winning issues for Democrats to replicate in other Deep Red States, unless their strategy is going to be the digging up dubious sex scandals on all of their opponents from now on.
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Don’t forget the GOP establishment getting the allegations rolling and torpedoing Moore. They publicly said “Vote against him by writing in a candidate” and even Flake publicly gave money to Jones.
You’re correct though, all the blacks in Alabama couldn’t get Obama to win the state his first time around when it was a chance to make history, I doubt this Moore loss was nothing more than a very well coordinated attack from every direction including his own party, that caught his supporters off guard.
the every thread is about abortion gets so old.
Trump had his own sex scandals which the 650,000 Alabama Trump voters who stayed home last week either chose not to believe or didn't think were a big deal.
It's more than just sex scandals. Alabamans just didn't like Roy Moore. They didn't like him the two times he ran for governor where he was thoroughly trounced and for his sole statewide electoral victory in 2012, he barely squeaked past the finish line with 400,000 fewer votes than Mitt Romney.
I'm sure the black Freepers could tell us more about that. To stand independent under that kind of group think and pressure takes guts.
I agree.
Outside of Free Republic, abortion is pretty much at the bottom of the list of issues that voters care about.
What recount?
Nope. Bannon just chose a particularly crappy candidate to put his money and prestige (HA!) behind, so crappy that Moore could not win even in Alabama. That takes some doing.
There's some truth to that, especially given the fact that Moore assumed that he'd just be a shoe-in and didn't even bother campaigning in the last weeks of the election. And I'm sure there are plenty of Republican voters who are less than thrilled with Moore's Elmer Gantry act.
However, even with these weaknesses, Moore would have easily won against a liberal Democrat like Jones if it weren't for the sex scandals (he did manage to win the Republican primary, after all, before these accusations surfaced). You mention similar accusations against Trump, but those didn't involve minors and so are easier to dismiss and ignore.
Doesn’t surprise me one bit since there was a massive voter intimidation campaign.
There were radio ads on all of the “hip hop” stations demanding that you get all of your friends and family out to vote as if your life depended on it.
In and around Montgomery especially in Chisholm, or west Montgomery. Or drive down Rosa Parks or E.D. Nixon and there were signs on almost every block with “VOTE OR DIE” on them.
And the ad by highway 31 PAC claiming that your vote is public record and everyone will know who you vote for.
And the robo-calls all saying pretty much all of the above.
Lisa Bloom (Gloria Allred's equally loathsome daughter) accused Trump only days before the election of raping a 13-year old back in the 1990s. And while the charges were as bogus as Allred's fake yearbook, Bloom still managed to receive a great deal of mainstream news coverage.
> “...the effort to reach black voters was multifaceted, with a heavy focus on digital advertising and grassroots mobilization.”
“grassroots mobilization” = walking around money.
Show up at the polls to vote, get paid $100 ‘walking around money’.
Estimate black 50,000 voters cost $5 million, a bargain sale for a US Senate seat
Soros people can easily come up with $5M to buy voters.
And Shelby did the bidding of his master McConnell urging his base to write in a name.
Want to know who the real culprit is? McConnell.
Republican Senator McConnell directs his money machine, a network of PACs to spur other US Senators such as Richard Shelby to destroy an outside candidate such as Judge Roy Moore. Shelby instructed his voting base to write in a candidate. The McConnell controlled PACs withheld support from Judge Moore who was outspent 10:1 in advertising and grand-game organizing which included transportation expenses for illegal out of state voters, for ‘walking around money’ for poor blacks to get out to vote; show up to vote at the polls and receive $100. McConnell’s PACs and Soros money easily paid for 50,000 black democrats to get to the polls and vote, 50,000 who otherwise would have stayed home. The cost would be $5 million, a bargain to buy a US Senate seat.
McConnell did the same to Chris McDaniel of Mississippi in 2014. McDaniel won the GOP Senate primary but the fraud was close enough to force a recount. Walking around money brought black democrat crossover voters out to tip the scale to Thad Cochran (a democrat who switched parties for convenience in the Reagan years) and who is owned by the McConnell political machine.
Why does McConnell do this? Power and money. As a sitting US Senator earning an annual salary of $174,000, McConnell is now valued at more than $28 million. He and all his cabal have a ‘cozy arrangement’. He cares not if he is in the majority or the minority. He cares only to preserve his cozy arrangement. His state of Kentucky has lost its job base to offshoring of factories and the stranded population there have lost hope and fallen prey to opioid addiction. McConnell hasn’t done a thing to help his own people other than move his lips.
And yet McConnell is the leader of the US Senate.
McConnell in his reelection run in 2014 beat the GOP Tea Party candidate Matt Bevin through lies, smears, and bribes, and proceeded to assist in harming Matt’s candidacy when Matt ran for Governor of KY in 2015. But Matt won after KY’s voters had finally awoken to McConnell’s duplicity. If McConnell can be forced to resign, Governor Bevin can appoint an interim Senator that will be supportive of the Trump Administration. McConnell’s favorability is now 16% in KY as of August 2017.
Are there more members of Congress like McConnell? Yes. McConnell, however, controls the GOP PACs of many members, WIthout financing they cannot win. If they don’t fall in line to do McConnell’s bidding, they will find their funds cut off and they will face a well-financed opponent. The GOP establishment owns a controlling interest in Congress.
This GOP contingent of the ‘Swamp’.is the real threat to America’s future, not the double agenda Obama Muslim sympathizing democrats. Draining the Swamp on both sides of the aisle is the priority. Draining the Swamp, exposing the real legacy of Obama as a dangerous closet Muslim, and experiencing the growing Trump economic growth and prosperity will zero out the threats posed by hidden agendas that are not in the interests of Americans.
That other Senator from Alabama refused to vote for Roy Moore and was very vocal about it. Blame him.
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