Dems: Black voters deserve more from party

“Let me tell you something: I’ve been in Alabama for the weekend campaigning with Doug Jones”. Not only was he critical of Moore before and after the race, Barkley urged his fellow Alabama residents to vote and to “stop looking like idiots to the nation” during a rally on Monday.

“We had nothing”, Mauk told AFP.

The mobilization of African American support is a routine part of just about any winning Democratic campaign. This is not to necessarily argue that a more progressive candidate would have outperformed Doug Jones; that’s quite likely not the case in Alabama. “So this was a real show of coalition politics, where we were able to hobble together [the] traditional base with moderate Republicans, with suburban women, with millennials and Gen-X”.

“It’s undeniable that over the course of a number of years, the Democratic Party fell short in our outreach and engagement in communities of color”, Perez said, according to The New York Times. She specifically mentioned help that came in from the Democratic National Committee and the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee. The story of this election is that of high Black voter turnout-despite voter suppression efforts.

After Jones’s victory, Clinton seemed to confirm that the party needed to adopt new tactics.

“If Democrats can win in Alabama, we can-and must- compete everywhere. Onward!” she said on Twitter. In fact, in both the 2008 and 2012 election, black women had the highest voter turnout of any gender or racial group, at a whopping 70 percent of eligible voters.

Barkley helped turn out an inspired black vote that proved decisive, despite his history of staying on the political sidelines, outside of some social and commercial stances and provocative proclamations in his role as a sports commentator.

The Democratic underdog Jones had just defeated Republican Roy Moore in a special election for an open U.S. Senate seat, shocking the country and the reddest of deep-red states by coming in ahead by just more than 20,000 total votes.

“It hit home more with black women, because of the way black women were treated during slavery – raped and assaulted, often and with no repercussions”, she said. That’s why it’s crucial to support black women running for political office, such as Stacey Abrams, who if elected will become the first black women to become a governor of a state.

None of the reports of voter fraud in the election have been confirmed. Jones is also known as the lawyer who successfully prosecuted the two Ku Klux Klan members behind the bombing of Birmingham’s 16th Street Baptist Church that killed four black girls in 1963. Then Barkley chose to make a joke about how the money will not going for opening “hair salons and restaurants” that really put a damper on such a nice move.

“I’m certainly glad that Senator Cory Booker came, I’m glad that former Governor Deval Patrick came, and the Congress members who came at the last minute”, Sanders said.

“I am hearing rumors that black voters from MS were encouraged to cross over into AL and vote”, Mitchell tweeted following the election. They’ve always had our votes and they’ve abused our votes. “You can make it happen”.

Marty Connors, a former chairman of the Alabama Republican Party, however cautioned against reading too much into the results.

The nature of the Roy Moore campaign, with his refusal to participate in debates, left little room for robust policy discussions.

“How do we change the rest of these Southern states?”

“They were running against a candidate that had an entire 18-wheeler worth of baggage that was pulling behind him”.