In Birmingham, they don’t love the governor.
More specifically, they don’t love 73-year-old Robert Bentley, the disgraced Republican governor who used taxpayer cash and public resources to have and to hide a steamy affair with a much younger woman.
Though Bentley accepted a plea deal and moved out of the governor’s mansion months ago, an embarrassed Alabama electorate still remembers the shame he brought on their state. That’s a problem for Sen. Luther Strange. He could lose his Senate seat because of another man’s sex scandal.
“It’s hard to explain to anyone outside the state,” says Rep. Bradley Byrne, who placed second against Bentley in the 2010 gubernatorial primary. “But we’ve had to watch two years’ worth of press about the former governor. We feel very strongly, the voters feel very negatively, and the first time they will get to vote on those feelings is this special election Tuesday.”
While Byrne has remained neutral throughout that process, declining to endorse either Strange or Judge Roy Moore, he says the scandal is inescapable. “Virtually every time I have a conversation with a voter about this race, and I never bring it up, they always mention Bentley,” he says. “Obviously, that’s not good for Sen. Strange.”
Maybe that reality is not fair. Strange wasn’t the governor’s wingman, after all. He was only the attorney general. And Strange didn’t convince Bentley to bully aides into silence, to joyride with his mistress on the governor’s helicopter, or to leave his wife of more than 50 years. He just accepted a special appointment to the Senate from the governor he was supposed to be investigating.
Three days ahead of the runoff, most of D.C. has forgotten about the quid-pro-quo rumors. Most see the battle between Strange and Moore almost exclusively as part of a larger proxy war, a clash between establishment Republicans and insurgent populists.
But on the ground in Alabama, the individual voter isn’t focused on Senate infighting. They’re still hung up on Bentley and more than likely that will influence how most of them pull the lever. It feeds a dark politics in the Heart of Dixie where, as Samford University politics professor Leonard Nelson explains, “the rural vote is won at various church services and fried chicken dinners with old-fashioned politicking.”
Strange has responded to rumors of his supposedly ill-gotten Senate seat with a mixture of outright denial and total disregard. During an April interview with the Washington Examiner, Strange insisted that as attorney general he led “the strongest public integrity unit in the country.” During last week’s debate, when Moore attacked Strange for having “a lack of character,” Strange completely ignored the charges.
Neither approach has been terribly effective. Even with a White House endorsement, appearances from both President Trump and Vice President Pence, plus a deluge of outside cash, Strange hasn’t been able to catch up to Moore. He trails Moore by 8 points with just three days to go.
“Reality sometimes becomes perception,” explains Christopher Reid, a 33-year-old attorney and conservative talk show host. The young Alabama politico sympathizes with the incumbent and still holds out hope that Strange can close the gap.”I have no doubt Luther did nothing unethical or illegal,” he says before admitting that “it looked that way to many in my state.”
So if Alabama picks Moore, if those southern voters decide they don’t want Strange around, more than anything it will probably be because they still hate the old governor.
Philip Wegmann is a commentary writer for the Washington Examiner.
