No. of Recommendations: 0
Probably because a photo of him NOT touching her wouldn't qualify as sexual assault. If the photo showed him groping her, or worse, I think he would have been dropped like a bad habit.Battery is if he touches her. Assault is usually defined under state law as threatened unlawful physical violence. If you threaten to touch someone sexually, you can commit assault even if you don't actually make contact. I agree it's a very unlikely charge - but if there were a more credible charge and Franken was the Democrats' nominee for that Senate seat, you can bet that most Democratic voters would want to try to defend Franken rather than, say, lose a critical vote for Universal Health Care.
Yes, he was kicked to the curb - by Democrats. Again, easy to do when you know you'll hold the seat and there's no political cost. The GOP was perfectly willing to strip Steve King (R-IA) of his committee positions after his racist statements hurt the party's national standing, leaving him to twist in the wind and get trounced in his next primary.
That's very different than a national party leader like Trump or Clinton. Clinton gave them a black eye - but not much of one, since he was still enormously popular in 2000 and played a hugely significant role in the party during the next several election cycles. He was considered an
incredible asset to the party, up through at least 2012.
https://www.politico.com/story/2012/09/how-bill-cl...Nothing like would have happened if the Democrats had gone full Nixon on him and supported removing him from office. It's one thing for your
opponents to claim that your national leader's a bad guy - but if you
admit it yourself, you'll take a much bigger hit from the voters. The 1974 elections were
very unkind to the GOP, to say the least. Giving the out-group a major win -
helping them score that major win - is a blow to the strength of your political party with few parallels.
