On Election Day, U.S. Sen. Doug Jones (D-Mountain Brook) came up short in his bid to win reelection, losing to Republican Tommy Tuberville.
Some political watchers suggest that Jones may have fared better against his GOP opponent had he not vote for President Donald Trump’s impeachment earlier this year or against Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation in 2018.
During an appearance on CNN on Wednesday, host Dana Bash asked Jones about his thought process regarding those “tough votes,” to which Jones downplayed any regrets and said he voted based on what he thought was the “right thing.”
“I’ve never at the end of the day, quite frankly, saw those as tough votes,” he said. “I looked at qualifications. I looked at the evidence in those particular instances. And I voted according to my principles. And I think that some people, really more people up here, ought to put the politics aside. This is not about winning elections, this is about doing your job for the American people, living up the obligations. And that doesn’t mean taking a poll. It doesn’t mean putting your finger to the political pulse. It means doing what you’ve learned to do all your life. And that’s follow your conscience, your moral compass to try to do what you believe to be the right thing. And if folks did not appreciate that, there were a lot of folks in Alabama that did not. But at the same time, there were a lot that did. And so I think having a voice for those in Alabama that needed a voice for a long time has been very important over the last three years. And so I have no regrets on any of those votes at all.”
Jones also addressed the notion that the progressives are driving his party for the coasts and big cities, which has hurt Democrats’ chances in some places across the country. He argued all elements in the Democratic Party want the same thing and that the main difference is how to achieve those ends.
“I hope and I believe that the party will continue to be a big tent party,” he explained. “You know, being a big tent party is both a blessing and a curse. On the one hand, you got people in either extremes of that big tent, who like to fight with each other a little bit. But at the end of the day, we all want the same things. We all want good health care for the American people. We all want good jobs and good-paying jobs and to try to lower the, you know, to narrow the income gap that we’ve got out there.”
“We want to keep America secure both in our elections as well as our national security. How you get there is, I think, is the issue,” Jones added. “And I believe that we can do that. And I’m really hopeful for the Democratic Party. They see the problems that we got in some of the rural areas. They understand that, and I believe as we go forward, they’re going to see the messages because it was the Democratic Party that brought Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, all of those issues that those rural areas need, and they want.”
@Jeff_Poor is a graduate of Auburn University and the University of South Alabama, the editor of Breitbart TV, a columnist for Mobile’s Lagniappe Weekly, and host of Mobile’s “The Jeff Poor Show” from 9 a.m.-12 p.m. on FM Talk 106.5.
