I pretty much agree at this point, that his continuation as Senator is an unwanted distraction from numerous and far greater Repub misdeeds. As such, for strategic reasons alone, he should likely step down.
Having said that, however, I maintain that nothing I have heard so far suggests he is unfit to serve as a Senator. But I’ve expressed those thoughts at length before, and few folk around here seem to agree with me.
If strategic interests did not support his resignation, I would strongly wish he participated in any and all process, through which much more detail would come out. If the Senate considers him unfit, explain why, and hold all members of any party to similar standards. And even tho sexual misdeeds are prominently discussed right now, explain how that one category of misdeed warrants resignation, as opposed to all others. I’d love to hear more about the Congressional slush fund for settling claims. I’d like to hear about different types of misbehavior which are NOT the grounds for resignation/expulsion, but instead are addressed with education/rehabilitation. I’d love to hear more discussion of how far back before someone’s election misdeeds are relevant.
But, it would probably be best for him to resign, just to reduce it’s prominence in the news. Of course, it won’t deprive the Repubs of their soundbites. After all, 2 Dems (will have) resigned, whereas the Repubs simply denied any wrongdoing. :rolleyes: Be fully aware, that Repubs will continue to mention 2 Dems resigning in response to any question, or any issue, and the media will readily publish their bleatings…
In today’s political atmosphere both things can be true at the same time. He probably has done nothing to make him unfit to serve as a Senator, and at the same time, he must resign.
It’s chiefly about doing the right thing, even if it has negative consequences in the short term. In the long term, I think this will be the right thing politically as well, especially if the Republicans don’t follow along. If the Democrats continue like they are starting to now, and the Republicans continue as they have been for the past year or two, then it will be easy to convincingly portray the Republicans as the party of child molesters, gropers, and sexual harassers, and the Democrats as the party that boots abusers and harassers.
Oh yeah, sure; that’s gonna happen. The Democrats have been fucking great at getting their message out and controlling the conversation for the past couple decades, right?
Here’s what’s more likely, IMO: Democrats will do the right thing. Republicans will paint them as the party of harassers and gropers and rapists. Republicans will paint Republicans as never having done any of those terrible things; all accusations are obviously lies. Why obvious? Well, he/she got elected, right? Couldn’t get elected if they were bad people; the GOP just doesn’t let that happen. And so not only will the Democrats be labeled the party of gropers and harassers, they’ll also be the party who enables terrible people to make these accusations against their political enemies. And the GOP base will eat that right up.
I’m guessing the same. But it’s possible he hasn’t decided yet and wants a day to ponder his options (and possibly try to drum up support). But I think after he finishes pondering his options and failing to drum up support, he will step down. (For the good of the party and the cause and even though he denies many of the allegations etc. etc.)
The GOP base is not enough to win elections. The Democrats don’t need a strategy that will win over the GOP base. They need the middle-of-the-road voters.
I think a consistent Democratic policy of kicking out sex harassers coupled with a consistent Republican policy of coddling them would score them some points. But I don’t think that’s happening or will happen.
I hope you are right. I just don’t know that that portrayal will work. If a dozen or so left leaning lawmakers get booted out, and no republicans do, which side looks like the party of sexual harassers? Especially to a demographic that is getting its news from right wing biased sources.
Maybe I’m a pessimist in this, but the way I see it playing out is that there are 0 converts from the republican side of things, but quit a number of converts from democrats not wanting to be associated with the party that has such bad people in it that they are all resigning.
It may be doing the right thing (though I am not completely convinced on that), but I think it has consequences not only in the short, but also in the long term. I really do think that it could be the death of the party as a whole.
Especially if we lower the bar for resignation to uncorroborated accusation, we’ve already seen that there are those on the far right who are more than willing to lie in order to try to discredit other women that came forward, I think it stands to reason that there are women (and men) on the far right who would be willing to lie in order to bring down democratic politicians.
ISTM that the best move for the Republicans at this point would be to let Moore win in Alabama (as now seems likely), then expel him from the Senate and have new elections for his replacement, which would likely be won by another Republican without Moore’s baggage.
I agree, and got a lot of flak earlier in this thread for saying, that it would be suicidal to lower the bar to “uncorroborated accusations”, but I don’t see that happening. I haven’t been following this issue very closely lately, but my understanding is that Franken has now been accused of misconduct by six different women. Assuming that not all of them have a history of being on Roger Ailes’ payroll, it’s time for him to go. Is it completely rational and logical to say that this particular form of misconduct, unlike others, calls for immediate resignation, as opposed to just not running for re-election? Not really, but that’s politics for you.
I also agree that there is no point trying to persuade people who think Fox News is a credible source of information, but that doesn’t mean that there aren’t some swing voters out there who will reward the Dems for doing the right thing. Let’s get Franken out of the picture and focus on Roy Moore and this guy in Texas who used taxpayer funds to pay off his victims.
But what’s to say Moore wouldn’t just win the next election, too? Or draw enough votes to throw the election to the Democrat? If he were willing to step down for the good of the Party, he would already have done so.
Also, even in my most hyperpartisan mode, I would find it hard to justify expelling a Senator over allegations that the voters were well aware of at the time they chose to elect him.
The real problem here isn’t with Moore, it’s with the voters. Can’t we just expel Alabama itself? Joking. Kind of.
