CNN's Chris Cilizza has some interesting thoughts:
"While Gianforte's campaign put out a statement -- ludicrous on its face -- blaming Jacobs for his "aggressive" reporting tactics, the Gallatin County Sheriff's Office decided that the evidence was clear, charging the Montana Republican nominee with misdemeanor assault."
and"...a Gianforte loss -- which would have been considered a total disaster by national Republicans as recently as 24 hours ago -- might wind up being the best possible outcome for the party. If Gianforte loses, he -- and the story -- disappear. Republicans would immediately blame his last-minute implosion for the defeat, allowing them to avoid the idea that the race should be properly read as a national referendum on Trump and the recently-passed American Health Care Act."
Cillizza also points out that over 250,000 votes had been mailed in before Gianforte's meltdown, which is seven in ten of all ballots expected to be cast. So the effect may be minimal. Cillizza speculates that it is likely, given the evidence that Gianforte will be convicted on his assault charge and wonders what the Republicans will do then. If they refuse to seat Gianforte it could set up Rob Quist as the front-runner in another race.
Among a sane citizenry, a thug like Gianforte would be soundly repudiated. But in today's divided climate, his brutish action may actually help him. We'll find out soon enough whether Montanans have the good sense to elect a sane man or a thug.
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Rob Kall is an award winning journalist, inventor, software architect,
connector and visionary. His work and his writing have been featured in the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, CNN, ABC, the HuffingtonPost, Success, Discover and other media.
Check out his platform at RobKall.com
He is the author of The Bottom-up Revolution; Mastering the Emerging World of Connectivity
He's given talks and workshops to Fortune
500 execs and national medical and psychological organizations, and pioneered
first-of-their-kind conferences in Positive Psychology, Brain Science and
Story. He hosts some of the world's smartest, most interesting and powerful
people on his Bottom Up Radio Show,
and founded and publishes one of the top Google- ranked progressive news and
opinion sites, OpEdNews.com
more detailed bio:
Rob Kall has spent his adult life as an awakener and empowerer-- first in the field of biofeedback, inventing products, developing software and a music recording label, MuPsych, within the company he founded in 1978-- Futurehealth, and founding, organizing and running 3 conferences: Winter Brain, on Neurofeedback and consciousness, Optimal Functioning and Positive Psychology (a pioneer in the field of Positive Psychology, first presenting workshops on it in 1985) and Storycon Summit Meeting on the Art Science and Application of Story-- each the first of their kind. Then, when he found the process of raising people's consciousness and empowering them to take more control of their lives one person at a time was too slow, he founded Opednews.com-- which has been the top search result on Google for the terms liberal news and progressive opinion for several years. Rob began his Bottom-up Radio show, broadcast on WNJC 1360 AM to Metro Philly, also available on iTunes, covering the transition of our culture, business and world from predominantly Top-down (hierarchical, centralized, authoritarian, patriarchal, big) to bottom-up (egalitarian, local, interdependent, grassroots, archetypal feminine and small.) Recent long-term projects include a book, Bottom-up-- The Connection Revolution, (more...)