Steve M. makes an interesting point. After poking around a bit in the internals of the latest poll of the December 12th special election in Alabama, Steve notices that while 46 percent of respondents say that Republican Roy Moore is unqualified to serve in the Senate, forty percent of those surveyed say the same thing about Democrat Doug Jones. The results, from JMC Analytics and Polling, are the third in a row to show Moore back in the lead, which is in itself impressive considering that close to half the people think he’s unqualified.
For Steve, though, what’s jarring is that so many people think Jones lacks the requisite qualifications. What has he done, after all, to raise questions about his experience or fitness to serve?
I’m sure a lot of these red-state voters don’t like Jones, don’t agree with him on many issues, and don’t approve of the national Democratic Party — but does that make him unqualified?
I’m no fan of the Republicans, but I don’t think most of their candidates are unqualified to serve — sure, Trump is, and I’d have said the same thing about Ben Carson if he’d been the 2016 nominee. But Jeb Bush? Marco Rubio? John Kasich? I don’t like their politics, but they’re qualified. I’d even say Ted Cruz is qualified — a loony extremist, yes, but a qualified one.
The numbers here might be inflated because Republican poll respondents want to play “I’m rubber, you’re glue” in reaction to questions about their hero Roy Moore’s fitness to serve. But still: Is this an indication of Republican voters’ baseline belief regarding Democrats — that any Democrat is unfit to serve, just by dint of being a Democrat?
I think there’s always a temptation to make too much out of the internals of polls since they so often seem not to make any sense. In this case, we’re supposed to reconcile some things that don’t seem to stand on their own. For example, overall this poll shows Moore holding a five point lead on Jones (49 percent to 44 percent). Yet, on the question “Given the campaign that Roy Moore/Doug Jones has run so far, do you think that he is qualified to serve as US Senator?,” Jones (48 percent to 40 percent) looks better than Moore (49 percent to 46 percent).
Based on this, every single person in Alabama who thinks Moore is qualified to serve in the U.S. Senate intends to vote for him. Either that, or there’s a bunch of people who will vote for him even though they don’t think he’s qualified. At the same time, there’s very little difference between the 48 percent of voters who think Jones is qualified and the 44 percent who intend to vote for him.
If there’s one juxtaposition that really stands out here, it’s the fact that Moore has a better spread (five points) against Jones than he has on the qualifications question (three points). The two point difference doesn’t really create much of a distinction. For Jones, however, there’s a 13 point gap between his plus-eight score on qualifications and his minus-five score on the head-to-head matchup with Moore.
If these numbers tell us anything at all, they tell us that Jones is losing because too many folks think he’s unqualified, and that can only mean that he’s wrong on the issues. In the eyes of many Alabamans, to be qualified to serve in the Senate, you have to vote the right way, too, not just be a decent person. Jones would easily win the good person award. He’s probably not going to win the election.
“To be qualified to serve in the Senate, you have to vote the right way, not just be a decent person.”
Does anyone here disagree?
Of course I disagree. You can be qualified (well educated, competent, having relevant policy/legislative/legal experience) and wrong on every issue.
To me, that’s like saying, ‘Of course this surgeon is qualified. She went to the right schools and has 20 years’ experience. Sure, she intentionally kills 31% of her patients, but look at those qualifications!”
You seem to think that the purpose of a surgeon is to perform surgery. It’s not. Performing surgery is the method by which a surgeon achieves her purpose. Likewise, the purpose of a Senator is not to perform legislation.
If ‘being wrong on every issue’ isn’t disqualifying, what is the fundamental purpose of serving in the Senate? Controlling your image such that a sufficient number of voters in your state supports you?
Legally, everyone who lives in a state, is older than 29, and has been a citizen for 10 years is ‘qualified.’ But we’re not talking about what the word ‘qualified’ means narrowly. We’re talking about how we conclude if someone is qualified. If you’re not satisfied with the constitutional definition, I’m not sure how you’d jump from that to ‘went to the right schools and got the right jobs, even if he wants to hurt millions of Americans. Sounds qualified to me!’
(Sorry if I sound snippy. Don’t mean anything personal. I’ve just been trapped in despair of late, at what looks to me like the left’s fatal inclination to always see both sides, and to play fair, honoring our best selves in a spirit of–HELP, WE’RE DROWNING!!!–mature comity.)
I agree more with you than Marduk on this, but here’s where I’d split the baby between both of what you’re saying:
Take this toxic sludge of a tax bill being pushed out of the Senate. Look, I’m not a conservative, but I am reasonably sure I could write a bill that had conservative aims which added up, made sense, and would logically follow from a “pro-growth” perspective. I wouldn’t vote for it if I was a senator, but it’s something a generic “Republican” would write. But this bill? It’s like if you took every loophole benefiting middle income people and just gave it to rich people, and the bill as a whole has statutes conflicting with one another because of that.
For that reason, none of them are “qualified” because none of them can actually govern and write legislation. It’s not hard to write “qualified” legislation that redistributes income upwards. Yet they couldn’t do it.
The question of “is this person qualified” and “will I vote for this person” are very different. I could train a chicken to click the “D” button instead of the “R” button and it would vote my preferences more than every single Republican legislator.
I would vote for that chicken.
Doesn’t make the chicken qualified.
I would hope that everyone does.
I came here to say this. There are functions you need to do besides voting the right way like crafting the right legislation or conducting investigations but even there voting the right way is culmination.
Thanks. I was feeling even more than usual like a freak and an aberration. And your comment is better said than my ranting.
Moore refused to debate Jones. Thus, all they know about Jones is what Moore tells them and that appears to be all they need to know.
Of COURSE they think he’s “unqualified” – he’s not rabidly anti-abortion and pro-gun….that’s ALL they care about. The fact that they are about to get screwed by the Repub tax bill factors in not at all …
When Trump was elected, the floodgates were blown open. A pedophile can run for the Senate and win simply based on his party affiliation. And now Blankenship is declaring his intention to run for Senate against Manchin in West Virginia. A coal mine robber baron, who will invoke the power of coal and win the seat handily.
Every damned day we are seeing horrible things happen. Trump has flown so far off his rocker that he’s instigating petty twitter battles all around the world, from Britain to North Korea. He may have let Bannon go, but his bloody handprints are all over the basis of the tax bill: give all the money to the rich and fuck the entire rest of us.
Stupid people got us into this mess and stupid people are keeping us here. We have to keep fighting, but it gets harder every day.
Don’t understand the Bannon comment. Bannon wants to raise the taxes on the rich.
He’s a despicable human being and deserves all the scorn that can be mustered, but on this issue he represents the populist Trump wing…if there is such a thing.
Bannon lied. What he said is very understandable when you remember he’s a hypocritical liar. Bannon is also quite wealthy, so it’s amusing that anyone could believe he’d want to raise taxes on himself and his class, what with him being a rich hypocritical liar and all.
Bannon wants the votes of the white working class, but he doesn’t actually want to pass policies which help them. He’ll seek to demagogue and create bigger and bigger Big Lies which are poured into the ears of the white working class to cover up that fact.
If you were engaging in dry sarcasm, my apologies.
Doesn’t this show the genius of GOP-ers in relentlessly arguing that Dems are basically illegitimate. Sure, they’re reduced to that since they can’t defend their policies on the merits. But the intended effect is just this: to be a Dem is to be illegitimate.
Bingo. You win.
They’re voting for Moore because he’s got an R next his name. It’s tribal voting, pure and simple.
As has been said, above, GOP voters in Alabama (and everywhere else) of course see Doug Jones as unqualified. He has a “D” by his name.
Game, set and match.
Next question.
But Jeb Bush? Marco Rubio? John Kasich? I don’t like their politics, but they’re qualified. I’d even say Ted Cruz is qualified — a loony extremist, yes, but a qualified one.
How are these bozos qualified and Trump not? They’d dismantle government, and funnel wealth upward, just as well as Trump has. They’re all bigots, they just use dog whistles instead of an air horn like Trump does.
They are very qualified in dismantling government and funneling wealth upwards. Heck, Trump might be most qualified here.
And Dems do not really resist, do they? They should be raising hell regarding net neutrality and taxes right now. Instead, they are counting sexual accusations – why at this time?!
And this issue is completely overlooked:
The Republican War on College
The destruction of graduate education in the United States
Good question. Part of the reason is that the talking heads on TV will get a tax cut. They really don’t care about you or me. Did you know Matt Lauer was getting paid $25 million a year? Do you think he cares if your kid can’t afford college? And then they talk every night about what Trump tweets, which is why Twitter will never ban or suspend him. You can’t buy that kind of publicity. Since they report on Trump’s nutty ramblings, they have less time to report on the truly important stuff. In the end though the media companies are owned by big corporations. And big corporations don’t have you or me in mind. They have shareholders and Wall Street in mind. Which means we’re all screwed.
Dems are not even trying to spotlight truly important stuff, since Dukakis or so. Rather, they are earnest collaborators to a flow of distractions. “Hey, sex!” and one next moral outrage… Cambridge Analytica has good profiles on us, progressive cats. DNC is a corporate subsidiary, just as the media?
This is fucking offensive bullshit.
So sick of hearing bullshit from people who claim to be progressives.
This bullshit is literally helping Republicans get their work done.
Engaging in these false blanket claims may feel good to the practitioners of this bullshit, but I think helping Republicans do terrible things is a price far too high to pay. I wish the bullshit practitioners felt the same. But they don’t, even at this very precarious moment. It makes me sick at heart, but we must proceed nonetheless.
Progressives may bullshit themselves either way.
The comfort zone is where much BS lies.
Look, it’s simply untrue to claim that Democrats are not talking about the horrible tax bill and Net Neutrality moves. It’s untrue.
Now, if you want to claim that the media is spending an inappropriate amount of time on sexsexsex at the expense of other issues, then I’d agree. But you’re simply wrong that Democrats are talking about nothing else.
One thing the 2016 campaign made fucking crystal clear is that the things the media chooses to emphasize helps Republicans do their very dirty work, and makes it difficult for Democrats to get issues heard like the crisis in higher education you mention here. Clinton adopted much of Sanders’ education plank and ran on it in the general election, but the media ignored many of her stump speeches and daily campaign emphases while they broadcast the empty podium in anxious anticipation of the next outrageous statement from Orange Mussolini.
I certainly don’t think Democrats should ignore the sexual misbehavior claims against Congressmembers. But neither should that be the only thing they’re talking about. And it’s not. They bang the gong on issues we care about plenty.
It’s not at all complicated.
He hates the same people they hate, so they will vote for him no matter what.
.
This is likely voter, right?
This shows that Jones is doing very well (for a Democrat) but not well enough unless work on the ground can crack the polling to actual voting deficit that seems common in the past few elections.
This is a special election, which privileges Moore’s turnout. And reports from the field are reportedly not seeing black enthusiasm for Jones despite his prosecutorial claim to fame.
Time for those of us not in that arena to do our best magical thinking and envision a Jones victory. Of course I’m that desperate for a win in the South.
After all Randall Woodfin moved into his Birmingham mayor’s office today.
And reports from the field are reportedly not seeing black enthusiasm for Jones despite his prosecutorial claim to fame.
Because he’s not campaigning in it. Maybe he’s like every other Democrat down there and afraid of stepping on the toes of white people, instead of appealing to their better angels.
Yes, the pig people will continue voting in pigs.
“In the eyes of many Alabamans…”
While the rest of the world looks at Jones’ track record of putting the perpetrators of the Birmingham Church Bombers behind bars (albeit nearly forty years later) as a win, the People of Alabama might just have a different take on it…
Alabama Republicans are asked by pollsters “Do you think Roy Moore is qualified?” And then a few questions later: “Do you think Democrat Doug Jones is qualified?” They are aware that a lot of women have been attacking Roy Moore. They don’t like that and are standing by him.
So, they say reflexively “Doug Jones is unqualified.” The idiot right always tries to flip any allegation against their enemies in a display of belligerent stupidity: “just get a load of who’s in charge here! See who makes the impossible possible!”
Such surveys might more usefully ask “would you vote for Joseph Stalin if he were running against Doug Jones?” A majority of Republicans would answer that Stalin was “qualified” and Doug Jones not. If Stalin were actually running, the majority would probably be around 80%.
These people have zero morality beyond party loyalty. They are at war with the rest of America, and anybody who helps them win that war is OK with them. IT doesn’t matter at all if he rapes children.
They voted for Trump and he was on that video openly saying that he sexually assaulted women all the time because he could get away with it. Nothing is now beyond the pale.
I used to wonder if Trump admitted openly to necrophilia whether that would affect his support. Probably not. He said he could shoot somebody in public and they’d still support him and they admit it.