Posted on 12/14/2017 10:16:04 PM PST by Oshkalaboomboom
Scott Brown’s victory in Massachusetts’ special Senate election was hailed as the “Scott heard ‘round the world,” a play on Ralph Waldo Emerson’s poetic description of the first shot fired in the American Revolution.
If Democrats have as clever a phrase describing Doug Jones’ upset in Alabama’s special Senate election Tuesday night, I haven’t heard it. But they do hope Jones will be their Brown as the 2018 midterm elections loom.
The election of Brown, a Republican, to the Senate from Massachusetts in 2010 portended huge GOP gains in the midterms later that year amid a conservative backlash against former President Barack Obama’s spending and healthcare policies.
Democrats would like to see Jones’ narrow defeat of embattled Republican Roy Moore as a harbinger of 2018 success, as voters rise up against President Trump, who is ending his first year in office with historically low approval ratings. Democrats have seen the House as being in play for months and Jones’ election improves their odds in the Senate, despite an electoral map for the upper chamber next year that will be very favorable to Republicans.
The parallels are obvious: The party in power blew what should have been winnable Senate races in states where they were heavily favored. Obama had received nearly 62 percent of the vote in Massachusetts in 2008. Trump did slightly better in Alabama last year.
Brown was elected to take the seat that once belonged to Ted Kennedy, the liberal "Lion of the Senate," filling the remainder of his term. Kennedy died in 2009. Jones is taking the seat vacated by Jeff Sessions, an exponent of Trump-style conservatism with an emphasis on borders, immigration control, national sovereignty, and economic populism before Trump. Sessions resigned to be attorney general.
Both races took place against the backdrop of activist energy against the party in the White House. Brown was buoyed by the Tea Party on the Right, Jones was somewhat more quietly linked to the Resistance on the Left.
There are some important differences, however. Martha Coakley, the Democrat running against Brown, was a flawed candidate. But she was in the mainstream of the Democratic Party and no scandals comparable to those that engulfed the Moore campaign. Moore, who was controversial even within his own party to start with, was accused of making sexual overtures (and worse) to girls as young as 14 while he was in his 30s.
Brown had enjoyed some prior political success running in rare suburban swing districts in Massachusetts. He had never before run statewide, but he sought a variety of state and local offices without ever losing an election, something that could be said of few Bay State Republicans. His mix of mild fiscal conservatism and social centrism was a good fit for the commonwealth politically.
While Jones sounded the right notes about being in the “center of the road” in a press conference Wednesday, he is more liberal than the typical Alabama voter and up until recently made little effort to hide that fact. When he won his primary, he was thought to be a sacrificial lamb who would surely lose to the Republican nominee. It’s possible Moore was the only statewide candidate he could have beaten.
This raises another key difference between the two surprise special election winners. Brown explicitly campaigned on breaking the Democrats’ filibuster-proof Senate majority and becoming the 41st vote against Obamacare. Jones mostly tried to avoid interrupting as Moore unraveled in the national spotlight.
National Democrats who worked on Jones’ behalf quietly spoke to Alabama Democratic voters without trying to leave much of an impression on the rest of the state’s electorate — for good reason, since to do otherwise would have surely backfired. It’s one of several reasons Democrats’ comparisons of the Senate voting on tax reform before Jones is seated with Brown and Obamacare ring hollow.
Of course, Brown ultimately proved helpless to stop Obamacare and disappointed a lot of his most conservative supporters as he tried to remain politically viable in Massachusetts. It remains to be seen whether history repeats itself with Jones, tax reform, and the liberals celebrating his election now.
All this is why Jones is susceptible to becoming like Brown in a way that Democrats will not like: an incumbent who won’t be able to hold on to his seat in a presidential election year and is potentially replaced by an ideological polar opposite. Brown lost to liberal folk hero Elizabeth Warren in 2012, although he was at least competitive against her, meanwhile Jones is going to have to be awfully creative to avoid losing to a more conventional Republican in 2020 while Trump is presumably on the ballot.
He'd be Fosterized in no time.
He could be liberal until his last 2 years then vote for the Trump agenda. It’s what RINO’s do now.
Is he Scott Brown? No. Scott Brown represented opposition to Obamacare by the people of Massachusetts.
Doug Jones does not represent anything in Alabama other than the fact that he’s not the Roy Moore portrayed in liberal media. He only represents not trying to have sex with a 14 year old girl.
So, if legislation in the Senate comes up that promotes sex with teenagers, Jones should oppose it. But we can doubt he’d do that.
On every other issue, Doug Jones should vote the way the people of Alabama would want. He won’t. But he should.
Are you joking? Jones is as moonbat leftist as they come.
Even if he did switch parties, what would it matter? You mentioned Susan Collins; She is a democrat in everything but name.
In the immortal words of Madame Benghazi: “What difference does it make”?
If he starts voting with republicans, we will get more Obamacare funding, no wall, Syrian rapefugees and a great budget deal with chuck n Nancy every 6 months. Since they already voted to raise taxes on middle class folks, like myself and spend, spend, spend on “families” via wealth redistribution.
I would say we just get more chuck n Nancy spending, if he votes with republicans, because this year, that’s what we have gotten.
Hmmm. What magazine published a male model Doug Jones centerfold?
Jones can avoid being a Scott Brown by not trying to walk on both sides of some variable fence, not prematurely posing as future presidential material and not angering the people who originally supported you. When it came time for reelection, Brown had lost a good many of his original supporters, myself included. I vividly remember being yelled at by one of his campaign workers when I complained about forays into the other side of the aisle. That he got taken out by Fauxcahontas was really telling.
100%. I campaigned for Scott Brown, and then felt like I got stabbed in the back.
Is Doug Jones the Rolling Tide?
No. Scott Brown ran on one issue, stopping Obamacare (national health care), which, once elected, he didn’t do. He cast his 60th vote to allow it to continue. He could have stopped it in its tracks. This is why he was not re-elected, and couldn’t even get elected in New Hampshire in a recent election.
If jones is smart, he, goes moderate and stays there and then he’ll have a chance to keep the seat. Alabama isn’t a dem state, no matter how they spin this. Moore was a creepy candidate who had terrible optics and was clueless on how to deal with the accusations.
Fer instance, Chuckie The Clown is already making noise about Miotch McConnell waiting until after Jones is seated before voting on President Trump's tax bill. Why would that be?
To you and I, it would seem "moderate" if Jones were to vote for it, but Chuckie is already letting Jones know that if it does come up for a vote, he will vote against it.
true enough, but they won’t be able to hold that seat.
if mitch agrees to that, then it’s all pointless, the swamp is staying put, at least with Trump we got a slight reprieve.
Consider Arlene Sphincter. He went over to the dark side and proved himself to be a reliable lackey and they still primaried another 'RAT against him.
'RATS are cutthroats. The bigger danger to them is President Trump's tax bill passing.
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