HOW TRUMPY WILL THE 2018 GOP CANDIDATE FIELD BE IF MOORE WINS?

It's been said that a Roy Moore win on Tuesday will be a burden for Republicans, because Moore will take office as a political and cultural throwback and a suspected pedophile. He may face an ethics investigation in the sentence; his past and his rhetoric will hung around the necks of other Republicans running in 2018.

But there's one other reason Republicans might live to regret a Moore victory. In response to a tweet from Dave Weigel...

*hot take alert*

Even if Dems win #ALSen, doesn't mean a ton for 2018. Dems pasted Christine O'Donnell in 2010, bu lost basically every race with a legit GOP candidate.

— Dave Weigel (@daveweigel) December 10, 2017

... CNN's Andrew Kaczynski writes this:

Disagree with Dave here in that I think Moore's primary win could foreshadow other GOPers backed by Bannon-wing winning primaries and hurting them in otherwise winnable states. https://t.co/zKxDe9FbUk

— andrew kaczynski🤔 (@KFILE) December 10, 2017

Yup.

It's not at all clear that Steve Bannon should get the credit for Moore's primary win, and he won't deserve credit for Moore's general election win if it happens. But Bannon will certainly claim credit. The media loves covering Bannon, so we'll have another wave of stories telling us that he's the fear-inspiring kingmaker who's reshaping the Republican Party.

He'll attract more money. He'll proclaim that he intends to replicate the Moore campaign all over the country in 2018. And radical, Trumpy candidates will try to use the Moore campaign as a model for their own wins. Many will run with Bannon (and Breitbart) backing.

But Moore will have pulled off his victory (assuming he does so) in Alabama. The rest of the country isn't Alabama -- it isn't Trump country and it isn't Bannon country.

I could imagine, for instance, a Muslim-bashing, Trump-worshipping, God-bothering Bannon candidate defeating the far more electable Tim Pawlenty or Norm Coleman in Minnesota, thus ensuring that whoever wins the Democratic primary will secure Al Franken's seat for the Democrats.

Even though Trump didn't endorse Roy Moore in the Alabama primary, a Moore win makes the GOP Trumpier -- and more Bannonesque. Yes, Republicans, you go ahead and use that as your model next year.