Kirsten Gillibrand saw the big picture and it paid big dividends.

[Doodley]

In a race this close, she made the difference by making it clear that Democrats stand with women who are subjected to men who abuse them. We don't tolerate it, and we cannot be accused of double standards. She played Trump for a fool, and helped to remind voters that he is a misogynist pig who disrespects women, and his disgusting Tweet only served to reinforce that to Alabama voters.

[msongs]

1. most likely few people in alabama paid any attention to her nt

[Doodley]

2. Trump's Tweet and his accusers have been the number one trending story.

[herding cats]

12. Yet still most voters exit polled didnt even know about the recent yearbook revelations.

The reality is, most people aren’t that plugged in. We are, but we’re an anomaly. That’s just facts.

[Willie Pep]

62. I think this is right.

Most people are not political junkies like us. From what I have read the big factor in Alabama was the GOTV campaign and the high African-American turnout which was likely driven by disgust with Moore, Trump and Republican policies. I don't think Franken resigning was much of a factor at all.

[yallerdawg]

51. Still rubes, are we?

[MikeydaDog]

3. I think it helped, too. I think there was more than one reason, also. Nt

[AlexSFCA]

4. it must have helped

As I said before, I forgive all dem senators who bullied franked to resignation should jones win. So they are fully redeemed in my eyes, dem win in alabama is monumental.

[suegeo]

59. They are FAR from redeemed

Sure. I will just have to put on my big girl pants and get to work in Minnesota. I’m a little tired, sure, Coup 2016 and all the nonsense that followed has left me a bit winded. As I’m sure it has many people.

We’re gonna need all the resources the DNC can provide to our state to pull this off.

Except, as a gal who still has some of her wits left, I now find myself wondering that the DNC might add to the load I must carry, not lighten it. Will it be like baby sitting barely potty trained toddlers?

Chuck, don’t run with the scissors!

Amy, as a 5th grader, can you go and take the paste away from Kamala, she’s eating it again.

Oh no! Kristen just pooped again, better clean that up before she starts smearing the poop on the walls.

Now that that’s cleaned up, I can get back to what I was discussing about healthcare with my friend in Worthington whose husband, a farmer, just got a bad diagnosis. How can we pay for this? Bake sale?

Oh no! I smell natural gas. Amy help me rouse the younger ones up and usher them out of the building. They don’t know what that odd smell means, the building could blow at any minute.

And I am only partially kidding, like maybe 20 percent kidding.

[flamingdem]

5. I'm not buying. Voters had made up their minds without the resignation of Al Franken

Nice to try to make it alright, but it's not alright and still hasn't been properly addressed.

[herding cats]

16. Youre right. The majority of voters didnt even know about the recent year book revelations.

That was per exit polling. Gillibrand didn’t figure in on this vote in any significant way. The reality is, most folks aren’t as into politics as you and I. When politicians do stuff like that is long game, and much deeper than the average voter.

Usually, it’s about pandering to their local base. Frankly, I don’t see this working out for her beyond her local base, but we shall see. If beyond that’s even her goal here. Honestly, we don’t know other than internet chatter. But, I’m digressing...

Still, this had nothing to do with influencing the Alabama race.

[Doodley]

74. Who cares about the yearbook?

[standingtall]

6. Wrong interpretation of what just happened

remember the blowout in Virginia was before she called for Franken or Trump to resign. Roy Moore wasn't even accused of sexual harassment , but of being a pedophile. Something below the moral standards of most prison convicts. Roy Moore gave the opposition in Alabama a reason to believe they could win so they got energized. However if Trump's economic and healthcare policies were not so toxic to minorities and poor people there would not have been enough opposition to energize against Moore and Trump

[Doodley]

75. Good points.

[Skittles]

7. um, no

she stabbed a great senator in the back for self-promotion

[cwydro]

11. Yep.

Spot on.

[Pachamama]

29. +1000

Yes, she did

[Owl]

41. Yep.

[suegeo]

49. And she stabbed me and my fellow

Minnesota neighbors too. We fought for the seat, never got the chance to defend Al against the dirty trick. She shit in our nest, we gotta clean up her mess.

And we must now stock up on cleaning supplies because total sociopaths like Russian mobsters and their republican side kicks are gonna go steal the seat back. F.U. Kirsten

[MrsMatt]

70. 100% agreed.

[dflprincess]

88. Agree!

[workinclasszero]

50. Yes!

And no amount of revisionist history is going to change the way Franken was railroaded out of the Senate unjustly without a hearing!

[110liberal]

8. um, too

great post.

[L. Coyote]

9. Now let's stop Trump from giving himself a BILLION $$$$$ bonus (tax break).

No way playing golf for 100 days is worth him stealing that much from OUR treasury!

[JI7]

10. So Black Voters came out because of something Gillibrand/Al Franken ? it had nothing to do with an

openly bigoted perve candidate running on bringing back slavery ?

[LiberalBrooke]

36. Yes, black voters made a difference.

If it was up to white voters only Moore would have won. That is a sad fact for white people.

[Thor_MN]

43. Tone deaf. Deliberately missing the point.

The Franken debacle likely had nothing to to with Jones's win. What Moore was accused of wasn't comparable to what Franken was accused of except in a GOP disruptor's dream.

[Doodley]

76. It was comparable to the Roy Moore campaign that said Franken was worse because there

was photographic evidence. When Franken announced he was resigning, their argument was destroyed, because Franken had taken responsibility and their man hadn't.

[LiberalBrooke]

55. As a white woman

I am totally appalled by the votes for ugly racist perverts.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

39. Mary McLeod Bethune

"The true worth of a race must be measured by the character of its womanhood. "

[octoberlib]

61. +1 Black folks won this election. It had nothing to do with Gillibrand.

[InAbLuEsTaTe]

85. No question.

[ucrdem]

13. One problem: she didn't go after Moore. She went after Al.

And then when she was through with Al she moved on to . . . Trump, who basically lives for this kind of snappy Twitter colloquy, and true to form grabbed the headlines away from Alabama. Meanwhile Jones won without any help from Gillibrand. But he gets to share his headlines with her anyway.

[enough]

44. Right. NT

[Denzil_DC]

14. Utterly predictable stretch

Link to tweet

David Axelrod
✔
@davidaxelrod

The late campaigning of prominent AA politicians like @DevalPatrick, @CoryBooker and robo call from @BarackObama and lots and lots of feet on the street helped translate into a historic win.

Link to tweet

…

Give credit where it's due.

[Turn CO Blue]

17. This. Alabama black voters punching above their weight. Lots of doors/calls/ feet in the street.

[workinclasszero]

52. Thank God for these wonderful democrats!!

This is the way we rescue America from the fascist republican party!

[FakeNoose]

87. Yes the black turnout in combo with the Repubs who gave the write-in votes

The write-in votes are a big part of this story on Tuesday's election. Something like 22,000 voters (presumably Republicans) couldn't flip the lever for Moore, so instead they gave a write-in. It's the same as giving their vote to Doug Jones. They had to know it would help him win, but they didn't care. That's how much they hated Moore.

If those write-in votes had been votes for Moore instead, then the black turnout would not have mattered because Moore would have won. On Tuesday there were 2 things happening at the same time: Republican write-in votes (not for Moore) and the black voter turnout (for Jones). Both of those things happening together made the win for Doug Jones.

[peequod]

18. Hell yes!

[JHB]

25. Yup. This is not Gillibrands parade.

The OP does her no favors by trying to jump her into the front of it.

[Tipperary]

42. Agree.

[workinclasszero]

60. This democratic blue wave is lead by Black females!

Link to tweet

No one can claim different without kicking the truth to the curb!

[Turn CO Blue]

15. NOPE. Let's look at the data. Women went for Moore by huge margin.

63% of white women voted for the assaulter/pederast/hebephile Moore.

Further proof contrary to your point -- undecideds broke for Moore this last week by 10% during the height of the dustup and discussion about sexual harassment.


The black vote did it. Period. Don't - just don't -- try to take away from that fact by trying to puff up Gillibrand for 75 cents from some public relations firm or for the influence campaign by the party heavies.

Link to tweet

[peequod]

19. Hell yes, again. Sen. Gillibrand my keister.

[Skittles]

20. YOU NAIL IT

let's give credit where credit is due

[JHB]

23. +1000

[Pachamama]

28. +1000

Completely agree....

Thank you for posting

[LisaL]

38. I presume Moore claiming that America was great during slavery didn't go over very well.

[enough]

45. Thanks. NT

[uponit7771]

56. +1

[jalan48]

21. Yeah, that's it.

[JHB]

22. Nope. It was a focus on turnout that was the big picture and paid dividends...

People making calls, knocking on doors, paid canvassers, organized efforts to make sure everyone who needed a ride to the polls had one. Y'know, the nuts and bolts of driving turnout. And that was in motion long before TweetleDon started punching buttons again.

That is the takeaway from yesterday.

[OnDoutside]

24. Wow, now a moral gymnast, amazing.

[DFW]

26. Tip O'Neill got it right

All politics is local. If anyone thinks the majority of the Alabama electorate gives a rat's ass about (or even knows the names of) Senators from New York or Minnesota, then they are listening to the 1% of voters in Alabama who think Senators from Minnesota or New York will have an impact in Alabama (or they read DU, and I promise you most of them do not).

The rest of them care about who will be representing Alabama as their face to the nation in the US Senate. This time, those voters won who cared about what the headlines would say when "Senator (Jones or Moore), (D or R)-Alabama" spoke up in a heavily quoted national forum. This time, they decided, if only barely, that the voice should be that of Doug Jones and not Roy Moore. Kirsten Gillibrand had exactly zero to do with this (as did Al Franken, for that matter).

[Doodley]

77. It was a vote against Roy Moore, but also a vote against Trump (rightly tarred with the same brush

by Gillibrand) and I even think that is showing up in national polls.

[LBM20]

27. NOPE! People in Alabama did not care what a Dem senator from New York did.

[suegeo]

48. People in Minnesota don't particularly care either

In fact, go pound sand, chuck and kirsten

[Raster]

30. Oh please. This wasn't St. Kirsten's night...

...First and foremost, it was the AFRICAN-AMERICAN COMMUNITY that turned out in almost record numbers to hand defeat to a known racist bigot. Quite frankly, the vast majority of the citizens of Alabama couldn't give a rodent's rectum for what a Senator from New York had to say. SHE WAS IRRELEVANT. This was about Alabama. This was about Roy Moore... and this was about tRump*.

[demmiblue]

31. Nope, wrong. n/t

[Freelancer]

33. She did political day trading. Short term success, but at long term cost.

Al Franken is on the way out -- unfairly heaped in with serial gropers and chasers of 14-year-olds. Everything he might have done is gone. What a loss. But even worse, everyone who worked closely with him, or even had their photo taken with him and posted online, now will have that used against them in negative ads if they ever run for office -- a gift to Repug opposition research for a generation. The seat that was won in Alabama is going to be almost impossible to keep after Sessions' truncated term is up. It's a Pyrrhic victory, IMO.

[dembotoz]

34. She is dead to me. No

[kcr]

35. So, is this like decluttering? Who do we have to give up for the next one?

It reminds me of advice I read to declutter and keep your closet clean. Every time you buy a new pair of shoes, get rid of an old pair. GOP really have some people played. This will really work out for them.

[Doodley]

65. We give up on anyone who can't keep their hands off women.

[kcr]

67. It seems to me it's more about "paying off big dividends"

That was your focus. It's no accident, IMO. If the gov of MN had been GOP, I'm not sure this would have happened.

[LisaL]

37. This had nothing to do with her.

[Ghost Owl]

40. Wow, way to give a white woman credit for something black folks did.

Doug Jones won because black folks got out and voted their butts off, voted for the man who put the KKK members responsible for the Birmingham church bombings that killed four little black girls.

Some 60% of white women voted for Moore, and even more white men did the same. Jones didn't win because of women or the white vote, he didn't win because a white female Senator from New York led the charge to kick a white Jewish male Senator from Minnesota out of office based on accusations of sexual misconduct, he won because black folks vote Democratic and black folks got out and voted last night in large numbers. They made sure Alabama didn't send a pedophile to the Senate, but rather a champion of justice, the man who put child-killing KKK members in jail.

Do not give credit for their victory to white people.

[Doodley]

79. You don't seem to give any of the white folk who voted for Doug Jones credit. Okay, their

numbers may not be as intense as the black vote, but if they had stayed with Moore in the same numbers as supported Trump last year, Moore would have won. A white vote for Doug Jones deserves as much credit as a black vote for Doug Jones.

[Ghost Owl]

90. Why is it so hard

to just thank black folks for saving America from Roy Moore?

If black folks hadn't gotten out there and voted, in larger numbers than expected, Moore would have won.

[Doodley]

91. Of course I thank black people for voting Democrat, but you said don't give credit to white folk.

I think the white folk who supported Doug Jones should have credit.

[Ghost Owl]

94. I said don't give white folk credit for something black folks did.

Not don't give individual white folks credit at all whenever they aren't a public embarrassment by voting for whatever fresh turd on a hot stretch of bad road the Republicans slap on the table.

I mean, there were white folks in the civil rights movement, but you don't give White Folks credit for the civil rights movement. You pickin' up what I'm puttin' down?

And I also was specifically referring to the white person (Gillibrand) you tried to give this black folk led victory to. Gillibrand didn't do this, this ain't her lane stop trying to shove her in it.

Yeah, there were white folks who supported Doug Jones. Good for them! But If it was just the white vote, Moore would have won. Also, I got a real problem with praising white folks for not being or supporting racists. It's like praising men for not being rapists. Have the standards gone down so low that we have to praise people for not being a shitty as they could have been?

This victory is because of who Doug Jones was, and because black folk got out and voted in high numbers. This would have happened even if the Dems let an ethics probe move forward with Franken, instead of shunning him. It's not like black folks saw all the demands from Dems for Franken to resign, and then suddenly realize that "Hey, maybe I shouldn't vote for the pedo racist cowboy who can't ride a horse, and maybe vote for the dude who put the KKK away for murdering little black girls. Gosh, if the Dems hadn't shooed Al Franken away, I never would have done that. That you, blonde white lady Senator from New York, for inspiring me, a black person, to not vote for the white dude who looks back on slavery with fondness."

[Tipperary]

46. Nice try. But no. eom

[suegeo]

47. Not in Minnesota

[Thor_MN]

53. Squat.

Ridiculous notion. Alabama doesn't care about anything that happens in Northern states.

[Doodley]

80. Who said they do?

[gordianot]

54. Not convincing but a worthy try since she is a member of the Democratic Party.

This is a Democratic forum and nothing is being said to disrespect a member of the Democratic Party.

[LexVegas]

57. Yep. Recommend. nt

[Demit]

58. The chart in post #15 tells the story.

I doubt Gillibrand's maneuver was even a blip on the screen. The high number of write in votes helped, from Republicans who couldn't stomach Roy Moore, but it was the heroic black turnout that put Doug Jones in the Senate.

[Doodley]

82. A black vote is more heroic than a white vote? If the white vote stuck to Moore in the same numbers

voted for Trump, Moore would have won.

[Denzil_DC]

93. Do you have ANY idea of the obstacles placed in the way of black people voting? n/t

[Jakes Progress]

63. If you're saying she found a train to ride

I would agree.

If you are saying her actions did anything to affect the Alabama vote, you have not read the results of the voting breakdowns. She made no difference at all.

I like her in the Senate. I only wish she applied some of her ardor with the press to her work in the Senate. She needs to make up for the voice and intelligence she threw out. A little more time working the Senate; a little less time working the polls.

[Doodley]

83. A new poll shows 53% nationwide think Trump should resign over sexual allegations.

Gillibrand has a lot to do with that number being over 50% and it is not possible that had no impact at all in Alabama.

[Jakes Progress]

95. Just 53?

I don't think she had much to do with increasing the number, but rather saw a high number and jumped on the wagon to pretend to be a part of the band. She could have called for trump's resignation for the same reasons any time in the last 11 months. Why wait until is is a big old movement? Maybe she called for trump's resignation because she saw the polls about her after she decided to dump on a respected and respectable Democrat first. (Also got rid of competition for the Democratic nomination.)

And with just as much verification as you declare that is it "not possible" that she affected the Alabama vote, I declare that thinking that is just silly. Gillebrand has no pull or influence in Alabama.

[egduj]

64. I honestly didn't expect the dividends to be so soon.

[dansolo]

66. Are you claiming that Al Franken abused women?

This is the reason that I and others are pissed that Al was not allowed a proper hearing. There are considerable issues with all of the accusations against him, but he was never given the option to defend himself in a formal hearing. Now there are people like you calling him an abuser.

[Doodley]

84. I will let Al Franken's words speak for themselves, but he admitted that his own actions

could have caused offense to millions of women.

[MrsMatt]

68. Stop trying to make fetch happen. n/t

[Proud Liberal Dem]

71. It's NOT going to happen

[Proud Liberal Dem]

69. *citation needed*

[MrsMatt]

72. a line from the movie "Mean Girls"

http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/stop-trying-to-make-fetch-happen

[Proud Liberal Dem]

73. I know

I was responding to OP

[riverwalker]

78. meh

I won’t forget what she did. If she did it to him, her friend, she’ll do it to us.

[delisen]

81. One year of Trump plus Roy Moore minus Russia Influence

+the Mueller indictments/plea bargains + the Republican legislation mill
is the formula.

Not discounting the Gillebrand/Schumer positioning on gender -I just think its big effects ware elsewhere-like strengthening the changing media narrative on gender

[Doodley]

86. I agree there. I am glad you see the bigger picture.

[BannonsLiver]

89. Doug Jones was a damn good candidate and ran a well organized campaign.

In practical terms that mattered more than anything Gillibrand did. What comes down the road from her efforts to leverage the harassment issue remains to be seen.

[Jakes Progress]

96. No. No. That can't be.

It can't be Jones's hard work and record. The OP demands we acknowledge that Kirsten did it all.

[DiverDave]

92. uh-huh

9th dimension chess and all that, eh?
Not buying what you are selling.