Say it loud and proud: Senator-elect Doug Jones. Courtesy his digital campaign management.
Texas Congressman Blake Farenthold is alleged to have harassed his former communications director, Lauren Greene, in part by talking to her about a female lobbyist who had propositioned him for a threesome.
Have you seen Farenthold? It’s hard to believe any woman would proposition him at all, let alone for a threesome. But if she did, she wouldn’t have to look far for a third party. There’s enough of Farenthold to make two guys.
That might seem a low blow, but you know what, it’s a new day. And one of those signs of that new day is that Senate hopeful and mall exile Roy Moore lost to Doug Jones in Alabama’s special election Tuesday.
Let’s stop to reflect on this: In retrograde Alabama – a state whose motto could be “At Least We’re Not Mississippi” – a man who prosecuted the Ku Klux Klan beat out a guy accused of trolling teenage girls as an adult, a guy backed by a president who stands accused of sexual harassment by 19 women.
This is an extraordinary moment, not just for the #MeToo movement but for democracy itself (although Moore is not conceding. Apparently, God has told him to hold out. Multiply this a gazillion times and this is what it would’ve been like had Hillary Clinton beat Donald Trump.)
Moore notwithstanding, his loss is a continuation of the backlash against all things Republican that began with the November election. And it’s just the beginning. If you’re a Republican, tonight you’ve got to be looking at the midterms now with real dread. (Although not every Repub is unhappy. Somewhere Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell – who had backed Moore rival Luther Strange for the Repub nomination for the seat vacated by now Attorney General Jeff Sessions – is smiling his crinkly smile.)
But let’s not kid ourselves. Doug Jones won in part because he explained to voters that Alabama had become a financially untenable laughingstock that would not be able to compete with other states for new business.
It’s still the economy, stupid.