Doug Jones
Anyone who doubts Alabama Republicans have backed Democrat Doug Jones' run for the U.S. Senate should be able to take it to the bank now. An article over the weekend at Politico shows, in black and white, that long-time GOP donors make up a meaningful portion of Jones' financial support -- and still, polls show he is likely to lose tomorrow to Republican theocrat and child molester Roy Moore.We've already shown that GOP luminaries such as Karl Rove, Tom Donohue, Rob Riley, and Bill Canary have been backing Jones. But Politico adds to the right-wing equation backing Jones. From the article by Daniel Strauss and Luis Sanchez:
A small group of Alabama Republicans have joined forces with Democrat Doug Jones’ campaign ahead of Tuesday’s special Senate election. But they are having trouble swaying many friends and family members to cross the aisle, too.
Democrat Doug Jones’ campaign finance reports are dotted with longtime donors to Alabama Republicans like Attorney General Jeff Sessions, Sen. Richard Shelby and former Rep. Spencer Bachus. Republican attorneys in Birmingham and Mobile who have disliked Moore since he was a judge have banded together to offer support to Jones. The Republicans for Jones include Gina Dearborn, an Alabama lobbyist and former Shelby staffer who has backed Jones on social media and is married to White House deputy chief of staff Rick Dearborn.
Roy Moore is a detestable candidate in the eyes of many Alabamians with functioning cerebrums -- and many held that view long before reports that Moore, as an early 30-ish district attorney, had a taste for the flesh of teen-aged girls. But what do you get with Jones? A "Democrat" who likely will be taking marching orders from right-wingers like Sessions, Shelby, Rove, Donohue, and Riley.
Jones' documented ties to Rob Riley should be troubling for anyone with the slightest hint of a moral compass. The two of them worked to help generate $51 million in attorney fees from a HealthSouth lawsuit -- while Jones, at the same time, was "defending" former Gov. Don Siegelman, whose co-defendant was former HealthSouth CEO Richard Scrushy. It's hard to imagine a more glaring conflict of interest than that. Plus, Jones charged Siegelman $300,000 for a criminal defense he didn't perform; Jones bailed out before trial, because of his own scheduling conflict, and apparently did not repay a dime of the money he took from Siegelman.
You want to trust this guy with your taxpayer dollars?
On top of that, Jones has aligned himself with Rob Riley, one of the most grossly corrupt political figures in modern Alabama history -- and that is saying something. Noted Alabama whistle blower and oppo researcher Jill Simpson says she is convinced Jones played a role in her home catching fire and in several ugly highway incidents.
On a personal note, I have no doubt Jones was involved, directly or indirectly, in cheating me out of my job at UAB. It's undisputed that Rob Riley was directly involved in my unlawful incarceration in Shelby County, and that means Jones probably was involved -- or at least knows all about it, but has remained silent. For good measure, I have little doubt there is an "Alabama Underground Railroad" driving abuses against my wife, Carol, and me in Missouri -- including an unlawful eviction that led to cops breaking Carol's arm so severely that it required trauma surgery. We would not be surprised to learn (soon, hopefully) that Jones has been one of the conductors on the corrupt train from the Heart of Dixie.
Still, it appears Jones will lose in tomorrow's election. That might make him the first major political candidate to lose to an apparent child molester. That, if it happens, will be quite a distinction to take into history. From Politico:
Yet Moore has remained in the lead in most polls of the special election because of continued support from the vast majority of Republicans, according to surveys from the Washington Post and other outlets. Jones needs votes from at least 1 in 10 Republicans if he is to win, according to Alabama-based Democratic pollster Zac McCrary. But most GOP voters do not believe the allegations of sexual assault and other misconduct against Moore, and many are simply unwilling to cast a vote for a Democrat.
“I think there'll be a fair number of people that will just hold their nose and vote for a Republican candidate in the end,” said Blake Goodsell, an attorney and past Alabama Republican Party donor who gave $1,000 to Jones.
“I've got a lot of friends who are party loyalists, and I'm not saying there's anything wrong with that, but they're also having a really hard time on this one,” said Harlan Winn, an attorney backing Jones who describes himself as a moderate.
