Which Alabama Will Claim Victory Tonight?
By the end of the race, Democrat Doug Jones finally found his message. In one of the closing TV ads of his campaign, Jones promised: “I’ll never embarrass you.”
It’s a simple, but effective, message. It reminds me of Jimmy Carter’s post-Watergate promise that “I’ll never lie to you,” mixed with George W. Bush’s post-Clinton impeachment pledge to “restore honor and integrity” to the presidency. In both cases, these promises constituted the fundamental arguments for their candidacy. Both slogans demonstrated a strong contrast with the past, with each candidate promising to give the public what they were clamoring for.
And so it is in Alabama.
To some degree, the Alabama race for U.S. Senate is now a contest about …the state of Alabama. In more ways than one. The merits of the candidates and their policies have long since been eclipsed by a sort of identity politics where the state’s very reputation is on the ballot.
This message has become a drumbeat this last week. As BuzzFeed’s Alexis Levinson observed, “Each of [Jones’] surrogates — from Alabama or not — urged voters to take pride in their state, and show a skeptical country that they can defeat Roy Moore.”
“At some point, we gotta stop looking like idiots to the nation… at some point we got to draw a line in the sand, and say ‘we’re not a bunch of damn idiots,’” basketball star and Alabama native Charles Barkley said on Monday night.
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