To hear senators in the Republican majority tell it, they just don’t have any power. At least not over their own party, not when it comes to Roy Moore. The Republican National Committee has now transferred $170,000 to the Alabama Republican Party for the final week of Moore’s Senate campaign against Democrat Doug Jones, even as a series of Republican senators have said they oppose that decision. “Said” being the operative word, because they sure aren’t trying to do anything about it—most are just complaining enough to distance themselves from Moore without actually working to weaken him:
“That’s up to them,” Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) said of the RNC’s renewed involvement in the race, throwing up his hands.
“I can’t blame them. Let’s face it, they represent the Republican Party,” Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) added, speaking about the RNC. “Frankly, I think if he gets elected, that ought to be — that ought to settle an awful lot of the questions.”
Settle what questions? If he gets elected, then he magically didn’t spend his early 30s sexually preying on teenage girls? Because, uh, that’s not the way it works.
“I don’t understand that move,” South Dakota Sen. John Thune, the third-ranking Senate Republican, said of the RNC’s decision. “I guess that’s consistent with what the president wants to see happen, but it’s not consistent with what I’ve been saying. I just think, again, we’re putting ourselves in a situation where we’re going to have a cloud of uncertainty and a cloud of distraction come January.”
It’s true that senators don’t control the RNC—but wow, to be the third-ranking Senate Republican and apparently have no insight into the actions of your own party. That’s sad. Or it would be, if it didn’t seem like some of these senators were just letting Trump’s RNC do the dirty work while they try to look principled in their non-support of a child molester.
Roy Moore has just gotten an infusion of RNC money. Can you chip in $3 to help Democrat Doug Jones win on Tuesday?