Democrats and sexual harassment scandals

How Republicans react to credible reports of serious sexual assault on the part of their candidates:

How Democrats react to vague claims about their candidates having committed inappropriate and obnoxious acts that qualify as sexual harassment but on the level of offensive and annoying rather than violent or criminal:

That's a screen capture from "Duck And Cover" - original TV advert 10/27/2010.

I don't know what the details of the Al Franken sexual harassment controversy will turn out to be. And we probably won't know, now that he's already announced he's resigning from the Senate.

But I do know that on Wednesday, a majority of the Democrats in the Senate called on Al Franken to resign his Senate seat. Next Tuesday is the Alabama Senate election in which the hard-right Republican candidate and troglodyte Roy Moore has been credibly accused of sexual assault on a 14-year-old and a 16-year-old when he was in his 30s. President Trump has been clearly supporting him. So is the Republican national Committee. Republicans in Congress are dutifully reciting the talking point that the people of Alabama have to make the decision.

Allan Smith (The polling trends for Trump and Roy Moore are starting to look remarkably similar Business Insider 12/04/2017) reports:

Republican Senate candidate Roy Moore's polling rebound has begun to follow a similar pattern to then-Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump in the month that followed bombshell sexual misconduct-related revelations against them.

Moore, the Alabama candidate who last month was hit with allegations that he preyed on teenagers when he was in his 30s, saw his RealClearPolitics polling average dip immediately. His his substantial lead over Democratic opponent Doug Jones evaporated in the week that followed the initial revelations.

But now, less than a month after the first allegations were made public, Moore has regained a lead over Jones and has watched his polling average return to a familiar level.

The trend mirrors one that Trump experienced following the release of the "Access Hollywood" tape last fall.

But the Democratic Senators couldn't wait until Wednesday of next week to call on Franken to resign. And this just after John Conyers announced he's stepping down from his Congressional seat after much more serious allegations than those against Franken.

Regardless of the merits of the charges against Franken or the appropriateness of wanting him to steop down, these last few weeks have show Republicans, including the James O'Keefes of the world now see that the Democrats are still inclined to their long-standing approach we've seen with ACORN, Shirley Sherrod, "General Betray-us" and other instances: "Surrender first. Then fret later about whether we should have fought or not."

I'm optimistic about the Democrats' chances in 2018 because the Trump Administration is so bad and because there is a continuing surge of real grassroots activism. After Wednesday, I'm emotionally deflated about it, though. Because the Democrats are clearly very sorely tempted to try to coast. And the Republicans are going to be able to maintain effective control if the Democrats' instinct remains to respond to any kind salacious accusations against Democrats by:

The only message that Republican partisans will take from this is that "Duck and Cover" remains the Democrats' unofficial theme song.