As far as I know, Roy Moore has yet to concede defeat to Doug Jones, despite the fact Jones was sworn in yesterday as Alabama's new Democratic U.S. Senator. I guess it really doesn't matter whether Moore concedes or not. The voters across Alabama conceded the election for him.
On the night of Dec. 12 when it was obvious to everyone but Moore that Jones had pulled off the unthinkable by winning the senate seat as a Democrat, eyes quickly focused on 2020 when that senate seat will be back on the ballot.
To me, Jones' victory was historic. Early on, nobody thought a Democrat could win a statewide senate race in Alabama. But with the Republicans tapping Moore as their candidate the door was open and Jones walked through. It wasn't all about Democrat vs. Republican, it was about Jones vs. Moore.
I heard people, even before this special election was over, say that whoever won would be defeated in 2020.
I've since heard from some political analysis that Jones' victory was a fluke and whoever wins the Republican nomination in 2020 will win the full six-year term. Those people have as much a crystal ball as I have and nobody knows what will happen in 2020 any more than those sports analysts predicting in August that Alabama and Georgia would face off in an all-SEC national championship game. A lot of things happened from August to Jan. 1 that set up Monday's title game and a lot of things will happen between now and the General Election in 2020.
By next Tuesday you will likely see some preseason college football polls trying to tell us who will be in next year's title game. Those polls are about as worthless as the polls that said Hillary Clinton would beat Donald Trump and the polls a few weeks before the Dec. 12 vote that showed Moore winning.
The ball is in Jones' court. If he goes up there and jumps on the Nancy Pelosi bandwagon with both feet he's doomed. If he goes to Washington and follows Donald Trump, he will be doomed.
But from what I've read and heard about Jones, he'll ride his own wagon for the next two years. He won't follow a far-left agenda and he won't follow a far-right agenda.
Political labels are very misleading. Most people feel Republicans are conservative and Democrats are liberal with no room for anybody in the middle.
From my view point the voters are tired of this partisan wall that can't be crossed.
Jones comes over to me as a moderate. I expect him to back some of the Democratic agenda and I expect him to back some of the Republican agenda. I expect him to vote on how he feels it will best serve the people of Alabama and the citizens of this nation.
I have people ask me all the time if I'm a Democrat or a Republican and I say neither. Both parties have ideas and agenda I agree with and both parties have ideas and agenda I disagree with. I've never voted for anybody based on the party label they were running under.
As we begin the new year, the eyes of the nation will be on Jones. He will not only be watched in Alabama, he'll be watched in every state. His victory closed the party gap in the U.S. Senate to 51-49 in favor of the GOP.
Some say that close of a margin will make it difficult for Trump to push his agenda, but until recently he's had trouble getting his agenda pushed by his own party.
Jones has a unique opportunity to go to Washington and be his own man. He has a unique opportunity to go to Washington and vote his conscience and not vote simply how the party leadership tells him to vote. Luther Strange and Moore would have been party line voters regardless of the issues.
If Jones remains a moderate he will not only win the 2020 Democratic nomination but he'll be able to get some of those moderate Republicans to vote for him in November.
A lot will depend on who the Republicans nominate, but what's most important is how the voters in Alabama feel Jones did when he had this opportunity.
It will be an interesting two years.
