Al Franken's Senate Is Rated As A Tossup

As Minnesota begins to prepare for a special election to fill the Senate seat of the soon-to-be-resigning Al Franken, there seems to be at least a slight hope that Republicans might wrest control from the Democrats. In blue Minnesota, a Republican pickup would be a long shot, but it isn’t out of the question.

When Franken resigns, the first step in the process will be for Gov. Mark Dayton (D-Minn.) to appoint a temporary successor. A permanent replacement will be picked in a special election in November 2018. Dayton has not announced who will replace Franken, but whoever he chooses will have the advantage of incumbency in the special election. However, as Luther Strange (R-Ala.) learned the hard way, appointed incumbents are not assured of victory in special elections.

Shortly after Franken’s intention became known, the Cook Political Report moved the Minnesota Senate race into the tossup category. Jennifer Duffy points to Franken’s 312-vote margin in 2008 as well as Hillary Clinton’s half-percent victory over Donald Trump in 2016 as evidence that a Republican could be competitive in a statewide race in Minnesota.

The FiveThirtyEight blog agrees, noting that the state of Minnesota gives Democrats only a slight advantage while the generic congressional ballot currently has Democrats leading Republicans by eight points. The formula shows a generic Democrat leading in the Minnesota race by about nine points. In comparison, Sen. Bob Menendez (D-N.J.), who recently eluded jail on corruption charges thanks to a mistrial, is forecast to win his reelection by about 20 points in a deep blue state using the same formula.

The biggest unknown variable is who the candidates will be. Two likely Republican contenders are Tim Pawlenty, a popular former governor who ran for president in 2012, and Norm Coleman, who lost his senatorial seat to Franken in 2008 in what many believe was a stolen election. There are at least a half-dozen other Republicans and as many Democrats who may toss their hats in the ring as well.

No matter who the Republican candidate is, 2018 is shaping up to be a difficult year for Republicans, especially in states that lean Democrat. Many early signs, from fundraising data to President Trump’s approval rating, point to a possible Democrat wave building for the midterm elections next year.

Nevertheless, Franken’s resignation will make things a little bit harder for the Democrats. Minnesota’s open seat brings the total of Senate seats that Democrats must defend to 24. Four of those, including Minnesota, are currently rated as tossups by Cook. The loss of any of these seats would make Democrat hopes of winning control of the Senate very unlikely. Events and candidates may mean that Minnesota isn’t a tossup long, but, for the moment, the Gopher State provides a glimmer of hope for the GOP.

Originally published on The Resurgent

Democrats Seize The Moral High Ground

Republicans have a tendency toward shooting themselves in the foot and this week was no exception. With their abrupt about-face on accused sexual harassers John Conyers (D-Mich.) and Al Franken (D-Minn.), the Democrats have captured the moral high on the issue of sexual misbehavior.

For a while it seemed as though both parties would look equally hypocritical on the issue of sexual misdeeds. For weeks, the lists of officials in both parties who were credibly named by numerous accusers grew longer and longer while partisans promptly excused their allies and condemned their enemies.

That changed this week when the Democratic Party suddenly turned first against Conyers and then against Franken. Conyers announced his retirement on Wednesday. Franken’s resignation came on Thursday after 32 Democratic senators called on him to resign.

The Democrat reversal could not have come at a more inopportune time for Republicans. After tepid support for Roy Moore for several weeks, President Trump endorsed Moore on Monday with a charge to the accused child molester to “Go get 'em, Roy!” The same day Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), who had previously called on Moore to drop out of the race, said, “ It'll be up to the people of Alabama to make this decision” and dismissed the possibility that the Senate would refuse to seat Moore if we wins. The Republican National Committee, which had previously severed ties with Moore suddenly made a contribution of $170,000 to Moore’s financially strapped campaign.

Perhaps the Democrats were waiting on the Republicans to go all-in on Moore to offer up Conyers and Franken as sacrificial lambs. Perhaps the timing was coincidental due to new revelations about Conyers and Franken. In any case, the events of the week could not have been better timed for Democrats.

Moore, who has said that he didn’t “generally” date teenage girls when he was in his 30s, seems to retain a slight lead in polling for the Alabama Senate race. This in spite of contradictory statements about the sexual assault allegations and whether he dated his wife while she was still married to her first husband as well as other scandals such as financial improprieties at his charity and his advancement of conspiracy theories.  

It was a classic bait and switch. Republicans took the bait and supported Roy Moore and the Democrats promptly switched to a hardline on sexual misconduct. The result will be that for the remainder of the Alabama campaign, and though the 2018 elections if Moore wins, Democrats will batter Republicans about the head with charges that the party, which claims to be the party of Christian principles and family values, fully supported a candidate who is credibly accused of being a sexual predator of teenage girls.

What’s worse is that the Democrats will be absolutely right. In the 2018 elections, Republicans will already be defending a do-nothing Congress and an erratic and unpopular president. Now, they must justify their support for Roy Moore as well.

The GOP has faced a similar conundrum in the past. In 1991, David Duke, a former Ku Klux Klan grand wizard, won the Republican gubernatorial nomination in Louisiana. In an election that presaged this decade’s races to the bottom, Duke’s opponent was Edwin Edwards, a Democrat who had been tried twice on charges of mail fraud, obstruction of justice, and bribery. Edwards was so disliked by Louisiana Republicans that the outgoing governor, Buddy Roemer, coined the slogan, “Anyone but Edwards.”

That year, unlike recent history, Republicans did not embrace a flawed candidate, claiming that the opposition was worse. Instead, Republicans did the unthinkable. Pushing their partisan tendencies aside, the Louisiana GOP endorsed Democrat Edwards under the slogan, “Vote for the crook. It’s important.”

The question for today’s Republicans is, “What is important?” 

Originally published on The Resurgent

Fifth Woman Accuses Al Franken

A fifth woman has come forward to accuse Senator Al Franken (D-Minn.) of improper sexual conduct. The accusation comes from an army veteran who accompanied Franken on a USO tour in 2003.

The new accuser is Stephanie Kemplin, 41, of Maineville, Ohio. In 2003, Kemplin was deployed to Kuwait where she met Mr. Franken, who was taking pictures with the troops. Kemplin, at the time a 27-year-old fan of “Saturday Night Live,” stood in line to take a photo with Franken.  

“When he put his arm around me, he groped my right breast. He kept his hand all the way over on my breast,” Kemplin said on CNN. “I've never had a man put their arm around me and then cup my breast. So, he was holding my breast on the side.”

“I remember clenching up and how you just feel yourself flushed," she said. "And I remember thinking -- is he going to move his hand? Was it an accident? Was he going to move his hand? He never moved his hand.”

Kemplin said that she was “embarrassed” by Franken’s behavior, which lasted for about 10 seconds.

“It was long enough that he should have known if it was an accident,” she said. “I'm very confident saying that.”

A photo taken at the time does not show Franken’s hand on Kemplin’s breast. Kemplin is leaning in towards Franken with her head touching his cheek. Franken’s right hand is visible on Kemplin’s back. His left hand appears to hang straight down at his side. Kemplin is smiling in the photo.

Kemplin said that she was stunned when the photo was taken and that she did not say anything to Franken at the time. She does not remember discussing the incident with fellow soldiers at the time, but did tell her sister and ex-boyfriend.

“You're immediately put on the spot. What are you going to do? What are you going to do? Your mind goes a mile a minute,” Kemplin said. “Who was I going to tell?”

“I just remember her telling me that he grabbed her breast and that she was so shocked about it,” Kemplin’s sister said. “My sister is pretty bold and assertive and she said that she didn't know what to do.”

A former boyfriend also verified that Kemplin told him that Franken “went to put his arm around her and copped a feel.”

Kemplin was the allegedly the victim of another sexual assault while deployed as well. She complained about another soldier who shared a tent with her in 2003, shortly after the incident with Franken. An investigation was launched, but the soldier was not charged.

The first accusation against Franken came from Leann Tweeden, a radio personality, who claimed that Franken kissed her and groped her on a different USO tour in 2006. Lindsay Menz accused Franken of feeling her butt while they posed for a photo at the Minnesota State Fair in 2010. An anonymous accuser claimed a similar experience in 2007 and calls Franken a “serial groper.” A second anonymous accuser says that Franken touched her butt and asked her to come to the bathroom with him at a Democrat fundraiser in 2008.  

Franken has said that he does not remember groping the women and denied “proposition[ing] anyone to join me in the bathroom,” according to a statement.

“I'm someone who, you know, hugs people,” Franken said on Minnesota Public Radio. “I've learned from these stories that in some of these encounters I have crossed the line for some women.”

Kemplin, who is Republican, says that she knows not everyone will believe her. “Nobody wants to believe anybody if you don't immediately stand up and say something.”

Originally published on The Resurgent

Two Quotes That Show How Much The Parties Value Character

The past week laid bare the deepest motivations of many people in American politics. While both parties claim to be the champions of morality and virtue, people paying attention were disabused of the notion that either party is more concerned with character than votes.

On Friday, Kate Harding, a self-described “feminist and the author of a book on rape culture,” wrote an op-ed in the Washington Post offering a partisan defense of Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.). Harding doesn’t defend Franken’s bad behavior. Instead, she defends his political affiliation.

“It would feel good, momentarily, to see Franken resign and the Democratic governor of Minnesota, Mark Dayton, appoint a senator who has not (as far as we know) harmed women,” Harding writes. “If I believed for one second that Franken is the only Democrat in the Senate who has done something like this, with or without photographic evidence, I would see that as the best and most appropriate option. But in the world we actually live in, I’m betting that there will be more. And more after that. And they won’t all come from states with Democratic governors and a deep bench of progressive replacements. Some will, if ousted, have their successors chosen by Republicans.”

Yes, you heard that correctly. Harding is openly admitting that the only reason that she doesn’t want to see Franken punished is that it would set a precedent in which other Democrats, ones who might be replaced by Republicans, might also be forced to resign.

Harding’s position is obviously partisan and hypocritical, particularly from a feminist in the party that five years ago claimed that Mitt Romney and Republicans were waging a “war on women.” What is shocking is how blatant Harding’s hypocrisy is. In her world, political affiliation means more than justice for women who were harassed or abused by Democrats. Republicans rightly denounced the political calculations of Democrats like Harding.

But wait, as they say, there’s more!

The very same day, at the same moment that Republicans were denouncing Kate Harding’s hypocrisy, the Republican governor of Alabama was making a remarkably similar statement. “I believe in the Republican Party, what we stand for, and most important, we need to have a Republican in the United States Senate to vote on things like the Supreme Court justices, other appointments the Senate has to confirm and make major decisions,” Gov. Kay Ivey (R) said on AL.com. “So that's what I plan to do, vote for Republican nominee Roy Moore.”

At the same time, Ivey acknowledged that the allegations made against Moore were credible. “I certainly have no reason to disbelieve any of them,” she said. “The timing is a little curious. But at the same time, I have no reason to disbelieve them.”

Ivey says that she believes in what the Republican Party stands for, but what does the party stand for if it refuses to condemn a man who is credibly accused of molesting a 14-year-old girl and harassing numerous others? It seems that what the new Republican Party stands for is electing Republican candidates at all costs.

Republicans and Democrats finally have found something that they can agree on. They both believe that party politics trumps concerns about character. Unfortunately for the rest of the country, the point of agreement found by the two parties will only serve to further divide the country.

Democrats and Republicans stand united in their hypocrisy. Both seem only too willing to compromise their core beliefs in order to support politicians that represent what they purport to hate. Any man who forces himself on a woman would be rightfully condemned by the left… as long he isn’t a Democrat official. The right would be ready to castrate a 30-year-old man who cruised malls trying to pick up teenage girls… as long as he wasn’t a Republican candidate.

In a perfect world, our politicians would be held to a higher standard than the people they govern. In the real world, the two parties excuse their own members by pointing to the bad behavior of those on the other side. It is a race to the bottom in which both sides claim, “Your pervert is worse than ours.” The truth is that when feminists back misogynists and Christians support an alleged child molester, they have already lost, regardless of whether their candidate wins. 

Originally published on The Resurgent

Trump's election rigging claims debunked

As Donald Trump declined in the polls, he began making claims that elections are rigged and that the system is stacked against him. Trump even went so far as to say that he may not accept the decision of the voters on November 8.

It is true that there have been recent instances of voter fraud in this country. The 2008 Senate race in which Democrat Al Franken beat incumbent Republican Norm Coleman stands as one of the sleaziest episodes in recent electoral history. Democrats “found” enough votes in recounts to turn a Coleman victory into a Franken upset. A watchdog group later found that enough felons had voted illegally to sway the election.

The electoral system is not foolproof. Even in states with voter ID laws, there are ways to commit voter fraud. People can vote in more than one state. They can abuse absentee ballots. They can buy votes. Elected officials or political groups can suppress or intimidate voters.

There is an easy way to tell if Donald Trump is in danger of losing the election due to a rigged system. If the system is rigged against Republicans, then the Democrats orchestrating the fraud would probably want to elect Democrats to Congress as well as the White House. If Democrats are manipulating the races and polling, then Democratic congressional candidates should be performing as well as Hillary Clinton. Republican candidates should be performing as poorly as Mr. Trump. A quick look at several hotly contested races should determine whether Trump’s charge of election rigging is accurate.

• ·         In Florida, Donald Trump trails Hillary Clinton by four points according to the Real Clear Politics average. In contrast, Senator Marco Rubio leads his Democrat challenger by a five-point average. Marco Rubio performed so well at his debate this week that Democrats have cut off funding to his challenger. Florida is a must-win state for Trump.
• ·         In the blue state of Illinois, Clinton leads by an average of 15 points. Tammy Duckworth, the Democrat challenging Republican Mark Kirk also holds a lead, but by only seven points.
• ·         Trump trails Hillary Clinton by four points in Nevada. Republican Joe Heck and Democrat Catherine Cortez Masto are locked in a close race for Harry Reid’s Senate seat.
• ·         In New Hampshire, Trump trails Clinton by eight points. Kelly Ayotte, the incumbent Republican, is in a close race with Maggie Hassan. Most polling shows the race in a dead heat, but one outlier poll shows Hassan up by nine points.
• ·         In Ohio, another state critical to the Trump campaign, the presidential race is in a statistical tie. On the other hand, Senator Rob Portman, the Republican incumbent is cruising to reelection with a 15-point lead.

The story is the same in other states as well. Trump is running behind Republican Senators in Georgia, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. In Texas, where there is no Senate race this year, Clinton polls within five points of Trump. Mitt Romney won this reddest of red states by 16 points.

In one interesting case, Trump actually trails Clinton by one point, within the margin of error, in Arizona. John McCain, the incumbent Republican who is reviled by many as a “Republican in name only,” leads his Democratic opponent by 15 points. Arizona is not normally a swing state.

In state after state, Donald Trump performs poorly when compared to other Republican candidates. If there was really a conspiracy to rig the vote against Mr. Trump, his Democrat opponents would probably scheme to defraud Republican congressional candidates as well. There is no indication that this is happening.

Trump’s performance seems to be poor across the board. He lags behind other Republicans in red, blue and swing states. Trump is in trouble regardless of whether local voters are conservative or liberal and whether election officials are Democrats or Republicans.  

Since many of the same voters who prefer a Republican congressional candidate over a Democrat choose Hillary Clinton over Donald Trump, Trump’s theory of rigged elections can be discarded. If, after watching him for a year, voters, including many Republicans, are rejecting The Donald, he should bear the blame himself and accept responsibility.

Originally published on The Resurgent