Poor ‘big’ Luther Strange. He could Trump’s support for whatever reason and now his aides are blaming Trump for his “off-topic” rally in Alabama for his embarassing runoff defeat. That’s what happens when you endorse a McConnell swamp dweller like Luther Strange. They always stab you in the back somehow.
| ‘Big’ Luther Strange now blaming Trump for his crushing loss |
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Kudos to whichever unnamed advisor to “Big Luther” had the elephant-sized stones to blame Trump for not carrying a weak, charisma-less incumbent across the finish line in a race he trailed consistently by 8-10 points. Trump gambled some of his populist prestige in endorsing Strange, knowing that he was a longshot, then doubled down by showing up in Alabama on the final weekend to try to help him pull off the upset. Every big-name populist star on the right was on Moore’s side while Trump’s chief ally was the toxically unpopular Mitch McConnell. The entire episode was a minor disaster in the making for Trump by wading in but he chanced it to help out a loyalist. And now he’s getting shanked for it.
Which narrative is more persuasive? That somehow Strange was on his way to a comeback before the tremendously popular president threw Alabama Republicans off-track by attacking the NFL? Or that Trump was right that Strange was, ahem, “low energy” and couldn’t get the crowd at his own rally excited about him, creating the perception that Trump had lost “his people”? Remember, Roy Moore has lost Republican (gubernatorial) primaries in Alabama before. He wasn’t invincible even in a populist climate; no doubt Jeff Sessions would have stomped him, assuming Moore had had the nerve to primary Sessions at all. Strange, a weak candidate who’s much less well known, was a different story.