Talking heads are using the Steve Bannon quotes slamming President Donald Trump and family as an opportunity to re-write the history of Alabama’s U.S. Senate race to make Bannon the state’s most important political figure.
That’s just not true, but Bannon makes a good boogeyman and, apparently, a better scapegoat.
The media, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and now even President Donald Trump are blaming the Senate loss on Breitbart’s leader:
“Yet Steve had everything to do with the loss of a Senate seat in Alabama held for more than thirty years by Republicans. Steve doesn’t represent my base — he’s only in it for himself.”
Why this matters: No one in Alabama voted for Moore in the runoff because Bannon came to the state at the last second and held a silly rally. Moore won the Republican primary because Gov. Robert Bentley appointed a fatally-compromised Luther Strange and McConnell spent millions of D.C. dollars destroying Rep. Mo Brooks. The “Bannon vs. the Establishment” narrative is a complete media creation.
The details:
— In a recent poll, 13 percent of Republicans said a Bannon endorsement would make them more likely to support a candidate, the same number said it would make them less likely.
— An earlier poll showed that 61 percent of respondents had a negative view of Bannon.
— Another poll had Bannon’s favorability at 11 percent.
— Bannon was fired from the White House on August 19th. No one thought Strange still had a chance to win the September 26th primary at that point.
— Had Roy Moore not been accused of being a child-molesting sexual predator, he would have easily won.
Dale Jackson hosts a daily radio show from 7-11 a.m. on NewsTalk 770 AM/92.5 FM WVNN and a weekly television show, “Guerrilla Politics,” on WAAY-TV, both in North Alabama. Follow him @TheDaleJackson.