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Sarah Rumpf in RedState:

“With Moore out of the national political scene, the Democrats lose a punching bag.”

Ms. Rumpf tallies the winners and losers from last night’s special election. In the short term, she concedes that Democrats are the winners. But Mr. Moore’s loss deprives the Democrats of a target for their criticism. Her list of losers includes the president, Stephen K. Bannon, the Republican Party establishment and Senator Al Franken of Minnesota, among others. Her list of winners includes Richard C. Shelby, the senior Republican senator from Alabama, and the White House staffers that have sought to limit Mr. Bannon’s influence. Read more »

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Robert Tracinski in The Federalist:

“The obvious lesson here is that angry populism fueled by resentment against the bogeyman of supposed ‘elites’ is not the basis for a political party or movement.”

Though Mr. Tracinski admits that no one could have predicted, before the election, that Mr. Moore would have a litany of sexual misconduct allegations weighing down his campaign, voters should have seen other problems likely to arise. We could have foreseen, for example, that “he is the kind of personality that is a constant source of random political embarrassment” outside of the Republican mainstream. And those who think that it was merely the sexual misconduct charges lodged against Mr. Moore that sank him, Mr. Tracinski argues, are not seeing the coalition of voters that came out for Mr. Jones, including the overwhelming majority of black women. Mr. Moore may “have retained the loyalty of his die-hard, core supporters, but at the expense of alienating everyone else.” Read more »

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From the Left