There can be a pendulum effect in politics. It means that for every aberration noted in one election there is often an equal and opposite reaction in the next election. We just might be seeing this in Alabama leading up to the special election for a U.S. senator next week. We can see why the vote is too close to call.
Roy Moore, a hard-right Republican is being challenged by Democrat candidate Doug Jones. The very fact of the race being so close in Republican Alabama is being cheered by Democrats across the United States. The Democrats need to win here to give them confidence of a mid-term swing to a Democrat-controlled Senate if not the House. A Democrat-controlled Senate could put a serious crimp in the Trump program being pushed through Congress.
And while a Democrat victory cannot be a prediction, it is certainly possible.
Roy Moore who is confident of holding the seat is, to say the least, a controversial candidate. Moore was the Alabama Supreme Court Justice who was ejected from office for refusing to remove a statue depicting the ten commandments from the courthouse and then tossed again for telling probate judges to ignore the Supreme Court ruling on same-sex marriage.
A large part of Moore’s problems recently are the repeated charges that the 70-year old judge had a fondness for under-age girls when he was younger. They are certainly coming forward today to challenge his trustworthiness. Trump supporters are inclined to disregard these charges as false news and the Republican National Committee is sending him more money even this late in the race.
And political polling in this instance is not proving helpful. Statistically, the figures are considered even. The difference between the two candidates is well within the margin of error.
One factor that nobody can read in this race is that 250,000 prisoners in state prisons are being allowed to vote for the first time. If they vote, their choice is between a controversial Republican judge and a Democrat state’s attorney. Who would you vote for if you were behind bars? And pollsters have no effective way to ask these prisoners their questions. And why would they expect straight answers?
All us observers can say at this point is that we hope Mr. Trump has an unpleasant surprise next Wednesday morning. We will probably hear about it in the twits, he tweets on Twitter.
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Copyright 2017 © Peter Lowry
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