The GOP is hopping mad today about the result of the Alabama election, thought mere days ago to be a sure fire thing. One thing the pundits all have in common is that they know who is to blame — Steve Bannon.
Steven Law, the head of the McConnell backed Senate Leadership Fund, said: “This is a brutal reminder that candidate quality matters regardless of where you are running. Not only did Steve Bannon cost us a critical Senate seat in one of the most Republican states in the country, but he also dragged the president of the United States into his fiasco.”
QUOTE OF THE DAY, from Josh Holmes in Mike DeBonis’s story in the Post: “If I had the top five Republican minds in politics and we spent three months attempting to conceive of a way to lose an Alabama Senate race, I’m not sure that we could come up with it. You could literally take any name out of a phone book except Roy Moore’s and win by double digits. And we managed to get the only guy in Alabama that could lose to a Democrat.” http://wapo.st/2z7DH4b
After Alabama disaster GOP must do right thing and DUMP Steve Bannon. His act is tired, inane and morally vacuous. If we are to Make America Great Again for all Americans, Bannon must go! And go NOW!!
— Rep. Pete King (@RepPeteKing) December 13, 2017
And if Congressman King didn’t get his point across firmly enough, he was further quoted on CNN,
“It’s not a political issue but a moral issue. This guy does not belong on the national stage. He looks like some drunk that wandered on to the national stage.”
“He parades himself out there with his weird alt-right views that he has, and to me, it’s demeaning the whole political process.”
“Whether he was involved in the White House, trying to undercut the president on his foreign policy, whether he makes — he encourages racial division. It’s not the type of person we need in American politics. And last night’s election was a manifestation of the revulsion by the America people.”
“There is one other obvious loser in this debacle: Former White House aide Steve Bannon,” the [Wall Street Journal] editors wrote. [mid-November, urging Moore to step down]
“Some have argued that the Bannon insurgency against the Republican ‘establishment’ is in the mode of earlier party challenges led by Ronald Reagan or Newt Gingrich. This one isn’t close,” they continued.
“The populism of Reagan and Mr. Gingrich was always about building the conservative movement into a majority that could govern and change the country.”
The editorial said “Bannonites” want to defeat the existing majority to “show that they can depose” Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.).
“They have no discernible governing agenda beyond trade protectionism and slashing immigration, and those often appear to be convictions of convenience,” the editorial said.
“It is hardly a surprise therefore that instead of recruiting talented candidates, Mr. Bannon is collecting cranks and outliers like Roy Moore who, demonstrably, will take the GOP into the minority.”
The Journal said Republicans should learn that they need to nominate candidates who want to “achieve substantive policy goals” instead of “pouring their emotions into a political fringe that will always find a way to lose.”
Before we get the results, I’d just like to thank Steve Bannon for showing us how to lose the reddest state in the union and Governor Ivey for the opportunity to make this national embarrassment a reality
— Josh Holmes (@HolmesJosh) December 13, 2017
@SenateMajLdr
Mitch McConnell -Regressive, Repugnant, Replaceable pic.twitter.com/MVVZtg465b— Mid-Western Finn ð«ð® (@Penchant4Facts) December 13, 2017
Will Democrats stage a wipe out in 2018? Sure nice to think about, isn’t it?
