Alabama Disses the Establishment

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/27/opinion/alabama-roy-moore-establishment.html

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MOBILE, Ala. — Senator Mitch McConnell and his minions wasted some $10 million — and President Trump squandered more of his shrinking political capital — trying to tell Alabama Republicans whom to choose as their nominee for the Senate.

When their placeman, the temporary incumbent Luther Strange, lost by more than nine percentage points on Tuesday to Roy Moore, a former chief justice of the Alabama Supreme Court, their ham-handed interventions were exposed as flagrant political malpractice.

It’s a familiar pattern. When Republican Party committees or groups backed by Mitch McConnell tried to dictate choices to Republican voters in Florida in 2010, they got Marco Rubio instead; in Texas in 2012, it was Ted Cruz; in Nebraska in 2014, it was Ben Sasse. Voters in Alabama, like their predecessors, told the Washington bully-boys to stuff it. State parties can choose their own nominees, thank you very much, without orders from a Republican politburo.

Mr. Strange was never the front-runner. Smart Alabama analysts had rated Mr. Moore the likely winner from the day qualifying for this special election closed. Local considerations and reputations, not Washington’s feuds, set the parameters.

But the McConnell gang’s activities, especially their mendacious and noxious substance and character, made it more likely rather than less that Mr. Moore would emerge as the nominee. The more they polluted the airwaves and local mailboxes with nasty, ludicrous attacks on Mr. Moore (my house received nearly 20 glossy, redundant and tone-deaf mailers in a single week), the more Alabamians were both disgusted by their vile tenor and reminded that Mr. Strange was the choice of the Washington insiders they despise.

Alabamians found it insulting to be told by Washingtonians that they should vote for Mr. Strange over Mr. Moore because the latter was “a career politician.” Note to Washington: Southerners don’t see judges as politicians, especially when the judge in question twice relinquished his seat not for money but for what many cultural conservatives call principle. Further note: Voters damn sure think that the “career politician” gibe is hypocritical when it is employed on behalf of a longtime Washington lobbyist who was running his fourth political race since 2006.

Granted, the Washington gang was particularly worried that the controversial Mr. Moore was more likely than any other Republican to lose to Doug Jones, the Democratic nominee (he is more likely, but not by much), and terrified that he might embarrass them if elected (right again). The last thing they want is a senator who says that the First Amendment doesn’t apply to Muslims because Islam isn’t a real religion, or that homosexuality itself (not just gay marriage) should be “illegal.”

But if they wanted a nominee other than Mr. Moore, they should have stayed out entirely. Instead, they threatened severe political reprisals to any candidate who would dare challenge Mr. Strange (thus keeping out others more likely to defeat Mr. Moore) and to any consultant who dared work for such challengers. When Representative Mo Brooks, a hard-liner who might have been a formidable opponent for Mr. Moore in a primary runoff, ran anyway, they smeared him by running ads suggesting that Mr. Brooks was soft on the Islamic State. Soft on the Islamic State!

No wonder Mr. Brooks provided a key endorsement for Mr. Moore.

Mr. Moore always was overwhelmingly likely to beat Mr. Strange head-to-head, for three reasons.

First, he was seen as uniquely noble, having twice forfeited his power as chief justice in stands against what was seen (rightly or wrongly) as federal judicial overreach.

Second, Mr. Strange was seen as bearing an ineradicable ethical stain, having secured his Senate appointment from the very governor, the disgraced Robert Bentley, who was supposed to be under criminal investigation by Mr. Strange’s office when he was the state’s attorney general. The conflict of interest was blatant, but somehow most national analysts still don’t understand how huge a political factor this was. I know people who have been friendly with Mr. Strange for decades, and who were decidedly unenamored of Mr. Moore, who nonetheless told me they would vote for Mr. Moore out of sheer disgust at Mr. Strange’s machinations.

Third, it is axiomatic that in a low-turnout election (such as an off-year, September special election), the candidate with the most enthusiastic followers and best existing organization has an edge over a candidate with appeal that, even if it is theoretically broader, is less intense or personal. Operating through local churches and social media, Mr. Moore’s network of dedicated volunteers and supporters was more formidable than anything Mr. McConnell’s money could buy.

Mr. McConnell’s team piled onto Mr. Strange’s back the fourth disadvantage — the obnoxiously counterproductive campaign tactics I’ve already mentioned — with the result that Mr. Strange never had a chance.

Despite all that, national commentators seemed surprised that even though Mr. McConnell was a detriment to Mr. Strange, Mr. Trump’s repeated expressions of enthusiastic support for the incumbent did not carry the day in this wildly pro-Trump state. The truth is that Mr. Trump was irrelevant. As much as it might appall the political class to admit it, this race was about Alabama, not about Washington.

Still, Mr. Trump’s very irrelevance here is instructive. It continues a string of instances in which his endorsement was either useless or even harmful. Last year he endorsed incumbent Representative Renee Ellmers in an intraparty match in North Carolina; she lost. Earlier this year, Republicans just managed to survive scares in supposedly safe Republican seats in Montana, Kansas, South Carolina and Georgia.

The lesson here is that when it comes to political clout outside of himself, President Trump is an impotent loser.