“We can’t afford to have a liberal Democrat who is completely controlled by Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer. His name is Jones and he’s a total puppet,” President Donald Trump told a Friday night rally in Pensacola, Florida. Although Trump was physically in neighboring Florida, Pensacola is in the Florida Panhandle, just a few short miles from Alabama, and the Trump rally was big news on TV stations in Alabama.
Trump was attempting to call attention to the massive injections of money being dropped into Alabama in an attempt to help Democrat Doug Jones (shown, left) defeat Republican nominee Roy Moore.
A super PAC, Highway 31, may be named for a major highway in Alabama, but very little of the money Highway 31 is spending to support Democrat Jones is coming from actual residents of Alabama. Birmingham lawyer Edward Still is the group’s treasurer, but the PAC was formed by the Senate Majority PAC (identified with the Democratic leadership in the U.S. Senate), and has received funding from Priorities USA Action, the same Democratic super PAC that supported President Obama’s reelection bid in 2012 and the unsuccessful effort of Hillary Clinton in 2016, according to Politico.
Under federal law, such PACs do not have to reveal the names of their donors until after the election; however, George Soros is among those who have bankrolled the Priorities USA PAC in the past. Priorities expended almost $200 million in an unsuccessful effort in 2016. Other wealthy Democrat donors to Priorities have included Fred Eychaner, Haim Saban, and Jim Simmons.
Highway 31 has spent more than $2 million in just the first few days of December, as national Democrats are hoping to win a Senate seat in deep-red Alabama, capitalizing on the multiple allegations made against Republican candidate Roy Moore. Moore is also receiving outside money, such as more than $1 million from a Trump-connected group, America First Action, but his campaign donations are being dwarfed by national Democrat efforts. Establishment Republicans have never liked Moore — supporting Luther Strange, Moore’s primary opponent — and with 40-year-old sexual misconduct allegations against Moore (even though they are unraveling), outside money from the national Republican establishment is predictably lacking.
Doug Jones, fully aware that the Democratic Party brand is extremely unpopular in Alabama (Trump carried the state by almost 30 points in last year’s presidential election), has claimed he will be an independent voice if elected. But the large amount of money pouring in from the national Democratic Party establishment makes that claim questionable.
Further evidence that Jones can be expected to fall in line with the liberal politics of national Democrats, rather than the conservative philosophy of Alabama, has been provided with two northern liberal Democrat politicians (New Jersey Senator Corey Booker (shown, right) and former Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick) joining Jones in campaigning in the state this past weekend. Both Booker and Patrick are African-Americans, and with former President Obama making robo-calls for Jones, the campaign strategy appears to be to motivate the black vote. Last-minute charges that a vote for Moore is a vote for slavery and segregation, although ludicrous, are in line with this strategy.
This pattern of ignoring actual issues and launching personal attacks upon the Republican candidate, and supposedly distancing oneself from national Democrats, has been a staple of Democrat candidates’ strategy in recent years — at least in strongly Republican states such as Alabama. Under normal circumstances, without the personal character attacks upon Moore, this would have been an easy victory for the Republicans.
Illustrating that the Democrats have hopes of winning what a few months ago appeared to be an unwinnable race, former Vice President Joe Biden made his own appearance with Jones in October. Trump has made his own robocalls, pleading with voters to back Moore.
If Republican voters show up at the polls and vote for Moore, no amount of outside Democrat money will matter.
Photo: AP Images
