If Moore wins, can the senate just refuse to seat him and force the governor to appoint a replacement?

I don't think that's relevant. For the most part she didn't win the popular vote because voters didn't show up for Trump. What is relevant is the predictions before the election that a lot of "true conservative" Republicans wouldn't show up to vote Trump, and in the end virtually all of them kissed the ring. The poll has an option to say you're not going to vote. "Undecided" is virtually all going to be voting Moore but don't want to admit it, imo. Like I think 90% of them are intending to vote Moore and of those, some won't show up on the day, but many will.

We went down this road with Roland Burris. The Dems initially tried to refuse to seat him because holy **** corruption, but it didn't work and he was ultimately seated. Refusing to seat and expelling are two different animals.

Burris is such a great guy he has a giant tomb with TRAIL BLAZER and all of his accomplishments, and a blank page for the future ones. Trump's probably jealous of it.

Anyway back to the discussion, the winner in the december election is gonna get seated. Sure the establishment R's don't like the guy either but they'll put him in over not having the seat.

Adidas sandals w Puma socks n jammies so bad ass bro f the libs.

http://www.al.com/news/index.ssf/201...hdraw_roy.html

Secretary of State says the GOP can do it for seemingly any reason. If Moore got a plurality, the election would be void. The statute is cited at the bottom.

This realization could be very bad for democracy across the country in GOP-controlled states.

I assume this is how Trump will (try to) become President for Life.

I don't see why that's a problem in general. Each party should be able to set it's own rules as to how they nominate their candidate. They can go with old school smoke filled room and pick a guy, they can have a primary, random draw, whatever. The state shouldn't really need to interfere with that. As long as they get their final choice in by the deadline (which in this case has already passed), then I don't really see what the problem is.

If the party's members don't like this sort of thing, they can simply change their own rules to prevent it from happening.

Obviously in this particular case when one party finds out their nominee is a pedophile, it's inconvenient for those opposed to pedophilia, but as a general rule, I'd have no problem with it.

Same goes for the rule where the party can withdraw a candidate without replacement whenever they want. If the party wants to do that, then fine.

The only part I'm not sure I like is that if Moore is officially withdrawn and still wins, the election is void. I think there are a lot of potential ways to handle that scenario and I need to give that more thought.

Care to elaborate? There's nothing about this scenario relevant to term limits, which is what Trump will have to circumvent.

http://thehill.com/homenews/senate/3...or-moore-after

Nearly 40 percent of Alabama evangelicals said in a new poll that they are more likely to vote for GOP Senate candidate Roy Moore following allegations of sexual misconduct against him.

This rule doesn't exist in most states. AL isn't likely to use it much either, because it means your party isn't running a candidate in that race.

In this particular case, it seems it could lead to a lot of odd strategies. For example, if I understand everything correctly, it seems the Alabama GOP could do the following:

1. Withdraw Moore by sending official notice immediately before the election (i.e., as close to the election as allowed).

2. Don't tell anyone else including Moore (it will probably leak, but the idea is to keep it as quiet as possible).

3. Still campaign hard for Moore right up until the election

4. When Moore wins, election is declared void since Moore was officially withdrawn

5. Have new election with Strange or some other deplorable non-pedophile as GOP nominee.

6. New GOP nominee wins senate seat in the repeat election.

7. Alabama GOP spins the whole thing by saying, "Well we campaigned hard for Moore because we didn't believe the allegations, but as the election approached, we realized there was substance to the allegations and we had to withdraw him". End result is that Alabama GOP can appear anti-pedophile and they still get an R senator.

I think if the GOP opted to rat**** Moore like that, he would simply enter the primary for the new race.

What are the chances he'd run 3rd party assuming the GOP reschedules the race and pulls their support, lets him win but pulls support voiding it, or lets him win and impeaches him?

Dude seems like an absolute nutter, and him running 3rd party would be our optimal run out.

He's a super independently wealthy nutter who isn't really a party loyalist nor does he owe the GOP much.

Right. And one of the tragic things is that the right uses this to blunt criticism of their increasingly extreme political behaviors. So a whole industry of journalists and other apologists will note SOME combination of partisanship plus civic duty that explains why right-wingers vote for Moore, just as they did for Trump. Hey, we gotta vote, and Democrats are terrible for us, so a sex predator it is. You voted for Bill Clinton, no different! blah blah.

No one should expect any different. Partisanship IS strong. For everyone. We've had some people admit they would vote for Sex Predator Democrat over Trump and I dunno, fair enough I guess? We'd all be put to a tough decision. But it's obviously a weird thought construction since the parties and the primary process exists primarily so that doesn't happen.

The right wing pundit class, et al wins some people to this way of thinking -- that poor Republicans are just leafs in the wind and the one and only political action the right winger ever takes is voting in the general election, forgive them, they cared so much about abortion and judges they just have to vote for sex predator creeps and racist, too bad.

The strongest condemnation of the right, imo, isn't that they vote for Trumps and Moores when it's time for the general election. It's shameful but we can appreciate how game theory works.

The biggest blight on the right is that guys like Trump and Moore, who it should be reminded wants to exclude Muslims from public office and criminalize homosexuality, get through the primaries over more mainstream candidates.

That is the truly heinous thing. You can clearly identify the increasingly reactionary, angry, fascisting thinking taking over the right not by their general election behaviors but by the authoritarian deplorables getting through their primaries. In no healthy party are Donald Trump and Roy Moore candidates for anything. The Access Hollywood tapes and sexual assault of minors revelations highlight what everyone else already knew about these types of people. That the right has no filter and these guys are on ballots for the general election is their true, principle failing as a party and a movement dedicated to any decency whatsoever.

On Sunday morning's "Meet the Press" program, Chuck Todd asked Minnesota senator Amy Klobachar this exact question. She seemed to hem and haw at first, avoiding a direct answer, so Mr. Todd asked her the same question a second time. Senator Klobachar seemed to answer "Yes," that the Senate could vote - by a two-thirds majority - to refuse to seat Roy Moore; but she quickly noted that there was a better alternative ... This "better alternative" would be for the people of Alabama to vote for (and elect) the Democratic candidate, Doug Jones.

I've noted in earlier posts that if Governor Kay Ivey postpones the election or calls a new election, there will likely be litigation and court challenges. It will be Alabama's version of the 2000 "Bush versus Gore" imbroglio. If the December election is called off and/or the Alabama GOP withdraws Moore's nomination, nobody can predict where the chips will fall.

Yesterday I was convinced that Governor Ivey will be under intense pressure, (from both within and outside Alabama), to call off the December election and appoint an "interim" senator - most likely Luther Strange - thus giving the Alabama GOP plenty of time to "persuade" Roy Moore to drop out. However, after thinking about this for the past 24 hours, I have my doubts that Governor Ivey (or the Alabama GOP) will intervene. First of all, Governor Ivey knows that any action on her part to delay or postpone the December 12 election is very likely going to produce a s**t storm of litigation. If Doug Jones is leading in the polls, especially by a number greater than the MOE, he will almost certainly file a challenge. If Roy Moore thinks (or believes) he is on the way to a win and the election is called off, he'll probably file suit. If the election is called off or postponed, at least one of them will take it to the courts. So the only way Kay Ivey avoids a litigation imbroglio is to let the election proceed as scheduled - regardless of which candidate is leading in the polls.

I believe Governor Ivey will choose not to intervene for a more pragmatic reason, namely her own political calculus. Governor Ivey is running for a full term as Governor with the election to be held in just under a year from now. Governor Ivey will face a strong field in the Republican primary with several well financed challengers. One of those challengers, Tommy Battle, currently the mayor of Huntsville, has already announced he will oppose Governor Ivey. Mayor Battle is a popular mayor and will receive strong support from North Alabama. (A lot of good jobs have come into North Alabama during Mayor Battle's tenure - a point he won't hesitate to emphasize in campaign ads.) Mayor Battle will be well financed as he was a real estate developer with strong ties to the business community before he ran for mayor. There will be other challengers (from other areas of the state) to Governor Ivey, so she can't expect to waltz her way to a full term.

What Governor Ivey knows is that she's going to need every vote she can get in the Republican primary. What she also knows is that if she pisses off die hard evangelical Roy Moore supporters, (which amount to approximately 49 percent of the state's registered voters), by calling off or postponing the December 12 election; she could easily face a backlash from those same [angry] Roy Moore supporters come next November. So my "guess" - and it's only a guess - is that Governor Ivey is going to sit on her hands and let the special election proceed as scheduled. From Governor Ivey's perspective, if the people of Alabama elect Roy Moore and send him to the U.S. Senate, that's Mitch McConnell's problem - not hers!

Got to admit, I did not see this coming:

I bought Roy Moore at .59 over the weekend but tbh dont feel great about it

What do we think is a fair price that Moore stays in and wins?

nyt just confirmed. legit surprised

That seems like a significant shift, but let's not underestimate McConnell's flexiblilty.

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politic...ctifying-women

Another shoe drops

http://abc3340.com/news/local/atty-g...-moore-accuser

More important is this:

. His 63-26% support among evangelicals has dropped to 57-34%

http://winwithjmc.com/wp-content/upl...ion-Poll-2.pdf

Yeah, lots of people thought this was coming. This kinda stuff doesn't really only happen to 2-3 women. There's probably a ton of them out there.

Hopefully they do their due diligence in vetting the claims, as someone outed as fake would be a massive distraction.

Yeah, I was thinking about something else when responding. I was thinking about the possibility of just moving the special election by a few months.