No. of Recommendations: 0
I think you lost your way with that argument. Sure, we all violate some law all the time, even if unintentionally. That's not the point. The broader point is that Dems do NOT rally around (in general) a "disgraced" Dem. I personally thought that the Al Franken thing was an overreaction (apparently he didn't touch the woman, he just made a crass photo). But that is an example of Dems not rallying around one of their in-group.
Because he was being defenestrated by the in-group. If Franken had chosen to stay in office, and Democrats had made their piece with it, and then a local Republican prosecutor tried to charge Franken with sexual assault in a way that might jeopardize Democrats' ability to hold that Senate seat? You can bet that Democrats would have rallied behind Franken.
We saw that with l'affaire Clinton - the Bill version. Clinton was clearly "disgraced," and almost certainly committed perjury. But Democrats knew that a successful effort to remove him from office - or even a fairly bipartisan failure to remove him from office - would cost them the 2000 election. Wagons circled, troops rallied, etc.
There's always weak pickings on both sides that get tossed over the edge if it's politically expedient (or if they're willing to go quietly) - but if someone's deeply important to electoral success and the attacks are coming entirely from outside the house, you're not going to see that same response, especially if they're nationally popular with the base.
