Tapper was openly doubting the Fox News poll that showed Moore leading 50-42 because who wants to admit to a pollster that they're voting for a pedophile? Even though they're totes gonna vote for a pedophile.

And let's face it, we're talking about a state that once elected noted racist George Wallace's wife so they could keep him in the gov's mansion even though he was term-limited.

Your expectations, however low, are probably way too high here.

The Shy Tory effect is def real. Any straight poll that has Moore within ~10 points makes me believe he'll probably win

538 did a good piece on this today and why handwriting analysis isn't goiing to solve the yearbook mystery:

https://fivethirtyeight.com/features...ate-roy-moore/

Thanks for the link.

Shouldn't they be able to test the ink to see if it's 40 years old? Or at least matches the rest of the inscription?

That sounds like the kind of sci-fi bs that I always had to tell juries was bs and only happens on tv. I mean, sure I know carbon dating is a thing that exists, but I really doubt what you are describing happens outside of tv. I suspect you could maybe test paper for age or something like that, but probably not ink on paper. Since we already know the paper is 40 years old, that wouldn't do much.

I've seen documentaries where they do it for suspected painting forgeries. I also thought the IRS could test accounting books to see if entries were made later - in extreme cases.

One of the nutter claims is that someone added Roy Moore's signature but the other stuff was already there. I bet you could test if those are the same ink at least.

What about traces of Moore's DNA on the page?

Thought they could date the ink for often forged autographs of old star photos too.

Minirra:

Alabama voter (and long time North Alabama resident) here ...

I'm not so sure pedo Roy is a lock. This may be more "wishful thinking" than an outright prediction, but Democratic challenger Doug Jones may have a better chance than all these polls are indicating. The last time Roy Moore ran statewide for elective office was 2012. In that election he was running to reclaim his Chief Justice of the Alabama Supreme Court position - an office he had been booted out of after refusing to obey a United States Supreme Court order to remove a Ten Commandments stone monument he had erected. Moore "won" that election, but just barely. He won against a Democratic opponent by a margin of 51 to 49 percent. (And that was before all these creepy allegations became public knowledge.)

I watched a video somebody posted [on here?] of Moore's wife and one of his campaign aides arguing with a gaggle of reporters who were attempting to ask questions. Moore's wife (and the spokesman) were frantic as to why reporters weren't talking about "the issues" instead of "personal crap!" that nobody cares about? (I'm paraphrasing a bit, but it was obvious that top Moore campaign aides - especially his wife - do not want the media asking questions about Roy Moore, teenage girls, and [alleged] "stuff" that happened nearly 40 years ago.)

One gets the sense, from watching this spectacle, that the stories (and the continuing coverage) are having an effect - probably not a good effect - on the Moore campaign. I'll be voting at a church precinct on December 12. I'll probably vote in mid-afternoon. It's going to be interesting gauging the turnout. I have a feeling there's going to be heavy voter turnout statewide. The only way I can see turnout not being heavy is if a substantial number of Republicans decide to stay home and not vote. If turnout is depressed, I would think that has to be good for Doug Jones.

Democrats are certainly not a majority in this state, they're outnumbered by something like 2-1, but I get the feeling that Democrats are highly motivated to get out and vote. Plus, Doug Jones is running a smart campaign. I'm seeing a lot more of his ads on TV than I am Moore's, another indication that Roy Moore is having trouble raising money.

Adding all this up, I think Doug Jones might just pull this out. Whatever happens, election night will be interesting ...

From casual conversations, what do your center-right or right-leaning friends/colleagues think of

A) Roy Moore
B) Doug Jones?

verneer:

Since I'm an unapologetic "librul" - which is something of an endangered species here in Alabama - I don't really know that many center-right or right-leaning folks; so I can't deliver a good reading on where those folks are leaning. (My suspicion, which the polling data seems to bear out, is that very right-leaning folks, especially right-leaning men and right-leaning Christian evangelicals, are going to vote for Moore, but that was expected since those folks would [very likely] vote for Moore even if all this "stuff" had not come out.) I'm semi-retired now, so I don't have as much daily contact with friends and colleagues as I used to, so I'm taking my cues mostly from what I'm reading and what I'm seeing on television.

There is one demographic that may produce a "surprise" on election day: Women. These allegations against Moore, irrespective of whether or not they are true, resonate with women - more so than with men. I'm sure there are women who have never had the experience of being subjected to an unwanted sexual advance, but there are a lot of women who have. There are also women who have memories of unpleasant experiences involving men like Roy Moore - or know a close female friend who has confided such an experience to them. It is hard to quantify how many of these women since they don't generally talk about such encounters publicly, but there's no doubt that these women exist - probably in substantial numbers.

I don't know what the percentage of these women is - and how many of them will vote - but that percentage is greater than zero. In a statistically "close" race, a heavy turnout of women could swing the result in Doug Jones favor. That is exactly what happened in the recent elections in Virginia. Democratic candidates unseated Republicans en mass due largely to a huge turnout of women voters. That Virginia vote was widely interpreted as women voting "anti-Trump," but I can see the same kind of "anti Roy Moore" thing happening here in Alabama.

Alabama Governor Declares She Will Vote for Roy Moore

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry...ushpmg00000009

J. Pierpont Morgan, the famous 20th century banker, declared that a man has two reasons for every decision he makes: The reason he says and the real reason. Such is the case with Governor Kay Ivey. When this story first broke, Governor Ivey claimed that she was "very disturbed" and "very troubled" by the accusations. In the past 10-12 days she has traversed from being very disturbed to declaring that she intends to vote for Roy Moore. The real reason Governor Ivey has decided she will vote for pedo Roy is not because she wants a Republican senator. The real reason is because she wants a Republican Governor - namely herself!

Kay Ivey has already declared that she will run for a full term as Alabama Governor in 2018. Ivey will face a field of three (or possibly more) challengers in the Republican primary. (One of those challengers is Tommy Battle, the mayor of Huntsville, Alabama. There are also [at least] one or two other challengers who have indicated that they intend to oppose Governor Ivey in the Republican primary.) Governor Ivey has to make sure she survives the primary or finishes in the top two so that she's assured of making it to a runoff. Since Christian evangelicals, (aka Roy Moore supporters), make up approximately 49 percent of Republican voters in Alabama; Governor Ivey knows it would be political suicide for her to declare that she is disgusted with Roy Moore. So instead of saying that she's voting for Roy because he's a Republican, what she's really saying is that she's voting for Roy because she wants Roy's voters to vote for her. A true profile in courage.

FYP

'Dat secret ballot tho.

I really like the point you made about Roy Moore's last CJ election.

http://blog.al.com/spotnews/2012/11/...hief_just.html

Only winning 51-48, against an abbreviated Democratic campaign.

In the same election where this happened:
https://ballotpedia.org/Alabama_Segr...ndment_4_(2012)

That state literally voted to keep unenforceable Jim Crow laws on the books

Seems to me that the fact that Doug Jones is white, gives him a fighting chance. That electorate doesn't like Roy Moore all that much.

You can chip off paint and do tests on it to see if it has like, chemicals that didn't exist in the 1600s, but I would be enormously skeptical about any sort of IRS tests for accounting books. Like, they may have SAID they did that, in that they paid a guy to look at it and say "yeah these marks are from later I can tell from the indentation pattern", but that ain't true.

This isn't really relevant but in the event any of you serve on a jury like 90% of what Hollywood says about forensic science is a lie and you should be enormously skeptical of anything besides DNA. Judges aren't scientists and lawyers are good at cloaking bull**** to get it in.

Can't tell if serious but....

No. Touch/Transfer DNA is incredibly rare in the real world outside of crime dramas. His DNA not being there would not be dispositive of anything.

Yeah, that you could do I guess, I didn't hear the claim that the signature was added later.

I briefly worked on a forensics-related project like a decade ago and holy balls the whole field is just rife with bad science, poor standards, incompetent technicians, etc. etc. Real eye-opener. It's terrifying that people are locked up or even put to death on the strength of some of this bull****.


http://www8.nationalacademies.org/on...RecordID=12589

This is absolutely 100 percent true. Every single jury trial I had ever done, I had to spend at least 5 minutes during voir dire talking to the jurors and making sure they understood that all the stuff they see on CSI and Law & Order is science fiction. It's become a real problem for the legal profession because jurors now expect all this forensic evidence in every case, and the vast majority of cases just aren't solved that way, they're solved by witnesses. Even with DNA, people have this belief that every time you touch an object, even for a split second, you're going to leave a detectable amount of touch DNA behind, and that simply isn't true.

but if it's his jizz...

Might have missed something, but I don't see how the signature will even matter. He's obviously guilty and people aren't going to change their vote because of it. Good chance the signature is forged anyway.

yea because dems totally needed an 8th witness to come forward with a forged yearbook signature to really tip the scales

the **** is wrong with your brain?

Never said it was some grand Dem strategy or anything. Doesn't mean some idiot along the way didn't do it. A proven forgery would help him more than a real signature would hurt him.