Charles Barkley :" At some point we've (Alabamians) got to stop looking like idiots to the rest of the nation"

He's right. I'll be damn surprised if Alabama can do it, though. I love the South for a lot of reasons, but its population isn't one of them. For the most part, our states absolutely deserve their reputation for hateful idiocy. We're like some primitive nest of superstition that somehow survived in the cell-phone era. There are some smart, good-hearted Southerners, but there are a lot more hateful IQ-32 pieces of shit.

Tonight will tell the tale if I ever respect anyone from Alabama again.

When never Democrat becomes more important than integrity...
The planet is flucked!

Alabama is going to vote for Moore. My commentary for 13 years on the reality of the southern culture, is not popular, but there would be no discussion about who is going to win this election after you were in Birmingham after those four little girls were killed in the church bombing, and their deaths were blamed on outside agitators. It is SEC football, guns, and wed church, and the four hundred pound gorilla in the room is race.......they simply believe in white supremacy because that is what they grew up believing, and today it is silent compliance with fighting equality. It is ironic that the man who prosecuted the little girls killers is now a candidate, and so little has changed in fifty years.

2seaoat wrote:Alabama is going to vote for Moore.  My commentary for 13 years on the reality of the southern culture, is not popular, but there would be no discussion about who is going to win this election after you were in Birmingham after those four little girls were killed in the church bombing, and their deaths were blamed on outside agitators.   It is SEC football, guns, and wed church, and the four hundred pound gorilla in the room is race.......they simply believe in white supremacy because that is what they grew up believing, and today it is silent compliance with fighting equality.  It is ironic that the man who prosecuted the little girls killers is now a candidate, and so little has changed in fifty years.

LOL, missed the swing partner......guess you underestimated Alabamians again.

I'm happy to have underestimated Alabama. It was a low bar to hurdle, but I still didn't think they could do it. They just barely did (thank you, black voters, especially), but, still, defeating a hateful theocrat in 'Bama is more than I thought possible. I'm proud of 'em for proving me wrong.

I am shocked, and happy that morality ruled the day.

zsomething wrote:I'm happy to have underestimated Alabama.    It was a low bar to hurdle, but I still didn't think they could do it.  They just barely did (thank you, black voters, especially), but, still, defeating a hateful theocrat in 'Bama is more than I thought possible.  I'm proud of 'em for proving me wrong.

zsomething wrote:I'm happy to have underestimated Alabama.    It was a low bar to hurdle, but I still didn't think they could do it.  They just barely did (thank you, black voters, especially), but, still, defeating a hateful theocrat in 'Bama is more than I thought possible.  I'm proud of 'em for proving me wrong.

"Blacks", "African-Americans", or whatever one is supposed to call "people of color" nowadays are almost always gonna vote 90%+ for any Democrat over any Republican.  So that's no real trick for a Democrat candidate to get their support.  It's getting them to actually come out to the polls that's the problem.

I haven't studied the county by county results, but I'm guessing if Doug Jones has anybody to "thank" it would be middle-class white moderate Republicans in the Birmingham and other city suburbs who turned their backs on Moore by either voting Jones or not voting at all ... and the national funding and mobilization of the Democrat Party "get out the vote" machine.  And himself, of course.

EmeraldGhost wrote:

zsomething wrote:I'm happy to have underestimated Alabama.    It was a low bar to hurdle, but I still didn't think they could do it.  They just barely did (thank you, black voters, especially), but, still, defeating a hateful theocrat in 'Bama is more than I thought possible.  I'm proud of 'em for proving me wrong.

"Blacks", "African-Americans", or whatever one is supposed to call "people of color" nowadays are almost always gonna vote 90%+ for any Democrat over any Republican.  So that's no real trick for a Democrat candidate to get their support.  It's getting them to actually come out to the polls that's the problem.

I haven't studied the county by county results, but I'm guessing if Doug Jones has anybody to "thank" it would be middle-class white moderate Republicans in the Birmingham and other city suburbs who turned their backs on Moore by either voting Jones or not voting at all ... and the national funding and mobilization of the Democrat Party "get out the vote" machine.  And himself, of course.

Yup blacks sure do vote for Dems if you can get then out to vote. Maybe this time blacks decided to vote for the Dem that put away the murderer of 4 innocent girls in church and not the racist cracker who stalked innocent girls in malls. Maybe its a black thing.

Telstar wrote:

Yup blacks sure do vote for Dems if you can get then out to vote. Maybe this time blacks decided to vote for the Dem that put away the murderer of 4 innocent girls in church and not the racist cracker who stalked innocent girls in malls. Maybe its a black thing.

Don't try & kid us.  Blacks would have voted 90%+ for any Democrat.  

If there was a larger than usual black turnout (and I don't know if there was or wasn't, there probably was ... or if it was the major factor in this election) ... it had more to do with Roy Moore .... and the millions of dollars the Demo Party poured into their get-out-the-vote machine for this particular election .... than it did with Doug Jones record. Doug Jones could have been any decent moderate Demo candidate and s/he would have won. Albeit narrowly.

EmeraldGhost wrote:

Telstar wrote:

Yup blacks sure do vote for Dems if you can get then out to vote. Maybe this time blacks decided to vote for the Dem that put away the murderer of 4 innocent girls in church and not the racist cracker who stalked innocent girls in malls. Maybe its a black thing.

Don't try & kid us.  Blacks would have voted 90%+ for any Democrat.  

If there was a larger than usual black turnout (and I don't know if there was or wasn't, there probably was ... or if it was the major factor in this election) ... it had more to do with Roy Moore .... and the millions of dollars the Demo Party poured into their get-out-the-vote machine for this particular election .... than it did with Doug Jones record.  Doug Jones could have been any decent moderate Demo candidate and s/he would have won.   Albeit narrowly.

Us?

EmeraldGhost wrote:

zsomething wrote:I'm happy to have underestimated Alabama.    It was a low bar to hurdle, but I still didn't think they could do it.  They just barely did (thank you, black voters, especially), but, still, defeating a hateful theocrat in 'Bama is more than I thought possible.  I'm proud of 'em for proving me wrong.

"Blacks", "African-Americans", or whatever one is supposed to call "people of color" nowadays are almost always gonna vote 90%+ for any Democrat over any Republican.  So that's no real trick for a Democrat candidate to get their support.  It's getting them to actually come out to the polls that's the problem.

I haven't studied the county by county results, but I'm guessing if Doug Jones has anybody to "thank" it would be middle-class white moderate Republicans in the Birmingham and other city suburbs who turned their backs on Moore by either voting Jones or not voting at all ... and the national funding and mobilization of the Democrat Party "get out the vote" machine.  And himself, of course.

The reason is that black people vote for Democrats more often is that they aren't fooling themselves that conservatives are doing them any favors. Poor and middle-class Southern whites are still falling for the bullshit... despite the massive evidence that conservatism gets bad results. Our states keep voting them in, and keep coming in last in the nation, decade after decade. Black voters have seen through that. White voters still get tricked by tribalism and fears of "the other." That's the same reason that a lot of bigots-who-don't-even-realize-they're-bigots on this very forum think that Black Lives Matter is a "hate group."

Black voters showed up in Obama-election numbers yesterday (higher, even), partially because Roy Moore is such a bigot. He said things were better during slavery, said that not having any amendments after the 10th (which included the right of women and blacks to vote) would "solve a lot of problems," etc. They were motivated to not see this jag-off get into office.

And, so were a lot of whites who are getting fed up with the overreach of theocracy down here. Religion in the South has become so radicalized, hateful, and flat-out stupid that it's starting to scare a lot of traditionally-Christian people off from it. I've seen a huge surge in anti-Southern-Baptist sentiment in Mississippi. Now, black voters also tend to be religious, but their approach to religion is a world away from what most white Southern Baptists are practicing. Roy Moore comes across as more crazed-religious-cleric than political figure. He scared even a lot of Republicans.

Another factor is... there are a hell of a lot more Democrats in the South than people think. I mean, around 30-40% of Mississippi voted for Hillary. We're outnumbered, but we're here. A lot of us get dispirited and feel there's no use in voting because we're outnumbered so we're gonna lose most of the time... but, if there's an election where we feel like we have a chance, even a slim one, we'll show up. Me, I show up every damn time for every election from dogcatcher on up... but, I'm stubborn. A lot of Dems I know will show up more if they feel like their vote's really going to count. And, last night showed a lot of them that it can. I don't expect the South to go blue anytime soon, but it's going to go a deeper purple every year. And as the younger people take over and the old conservatives die off, that purple will get darker, and darker...

My Alabama cousins were all celebrating on facebook. One is a retired bell south supervisor who is a die hard republican, but they had a party to celebrate Moore's defeat. I think there is a lot more animosity toward moore from Alabamians than had been reported. Good day for America.