Episode 2 Life on the #DemocraticPlantation in #SweetHomeAlabama

Lawyers, start your billing.

Cue in  Deliverance

EYE can't figure out if the person(s) advising Senator Doug Jones is/are political masterminds,  Republican operatives, or both.

“93% of black women that voted in the state of Alabama voted for Doug Jones... That’s the power of the sister vote.” - Birmingham City Councilor Sheila Tyson pic.twitter.com/lTgP7saCxx

— Kira Lerner (@kira_lerner) December 13, 2017

EYE have to give them(?) credit for being political mastermind(s)  they found a candidate black and white democrats could vote for, formed a winning coalition, and turned a red seat from the reddest of the red states blue.

Money and mobilization matter, campaigns matters, issues are important, and voters are listening. Doug Jones was assisted with a massive coordinated mobilization apparatus deployed on the ground in Alabama. A compilation of national grass-roots organization that partnered with local chapter groups like the NAACP. The turnout of African-American voters in Alabama cannot be overstated. 29 percent Black voter turnout, and Black women in particular, is credited with delivering the victory for Doug Jones.

The ground operation was well organized and well funded. The conventional norms still enlisted the help of the Party’s elite headliners including Barack Obama and Joe Biden who recorded robo-calls. Campaign events featuring Senator Cory Booker, Representative John Lewis, and athlete Charles Barkley were particularly important for drawing attention to what was at stake in this election.

Shortly after the election EYE started getting the feeling maybe we were punk'd because Doug Jones went from the lawyer who convicted the murderer of the Four Little Girls killed in The Sixteenth Street Baptist Church bombing in Birmingham, AL and the crusader for women's rights  to a so-called "moderate" who was going to represent ALL the people of Alabama.  Nod Nod Wink Wink

DOUG JONES: I think that this election shows that people across this country want to see people work together. When the people of Alabama elect a senator who runs on a platform of trying to find common ground and reaching across aisles, I think that's a message that both political parties should take heed.
SIEGEL: NPR's Debbie Elliott joins us from Montgomery. And Debbie, this is Jones' first elected position. What can you tell us about him?
DEBBIE ELLIOTT, BYLINE: Well, it's the first time he's run for public office, but he's no stranger to politics. He's been active in Democratic Party circles for some time. He's a former federal prosecutor appointed by President Bill Clinton. He's best known for reopening the 1963 Ku Klux Klan bombing of 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham where four black girls were killed. Here's Jones after he won a murder conviction in that case in 2001.

Fast forward to the escalating Civil War being waged within #DemocraticPlantation in #SweetHomeAlabama.  The minority is determined to rule the majority by whatever means necessary.

No good deed goes unpunished on the #DemocraticPlantation in #SweetHomeAlabama.  

Black voters told me over and over that Tuesday’s turnout is not a fluke — and doesn’t have to be an aberration. The same coalition of voters that turned out in Alabama on Tuesday, they said, can turn out and swing elections across the country. Democrats in other states can nominate candidates who have been working in the communities for decades, like Jones, or candidates that are not afraid to advertise on billboards in black neighborhoods. The winning candidate elsewhere could also be someone who isn’t willing to moderate his or her progressive views, they said.

EYE regret Doug Jones listened to those who advised him to throw the people who bought him to the party bus off and under the bus.  Really EYE do. 

History to the contrary, too many white Democrats refuse to learn that Blacks can win elections. Less than a week after Black voters were hailed for having “saved America” through a record turnout in Alabama to defeat Roy Moore’s bid for the U.S. Senate in December, pundits were advising the Democratic Party that it should reward its Black supporters by shoving them to the back of the political bus yet again. Bill Scher’s Dec. 20 article in POLITICO was typical of this bad advice. He suggested that in 2018, Democrats should run candidates like Doug Jones, who won a narrow victory over Roy Moore but polled lower than Moore among white voters.

Stay tuned.