Love him or hate him, Roy Moore is the most interesting man in politics right now.
The Alabama Republican rides a horse to the polls. He has a habit of pulling loaded guns on jam-packed crowds at campaign events. And he politics like a caged animal, a perpetual and beleaguered underdog always angry at some insidious and often unseen opponent.
With Moore behind Democrat Doug Jones in the polls, conventional wisdom seems to dictate that a loss in the special Alabama Senate election would signal the end of the cowboy candidate. But interviews with operatives close to the judge’s campaign, state representatives, and longtime Alabama politicos suggest otherwise.
Moore seems set up for another run in 2018. After all, the governor’s mansion always seemed like Plan B.
“From the beginning,” explained Republican state Rep. Jack Williams, “there was talk that if Moore fell short maybe he’d run for governor.” Long before he defeated incumbent Sen. Luther Strange, Williams said, the conventional political wisdom was that if “even if he fell short,” a close loss could set up a rebound for another statewide race. All the Moore memorabilia, fundraising, and messaging could be quickly repurposed for a governor’s race.
The Moore campaign hasn’t answered that question (they recently lost their communications director and they obviously are focused on the task at hand). Still, a politico who worked for Moore during the primary admitted that going for governor would be “the logical conclusion.”
“Moore’s done it twice before,” explained the operative who is no longer associated with the campaign. “So why not do it again? This time, he could run saying he was undercut by the Washington media and political elite.”
In other words, it’d be a quick anti-establishment skip and a short martyrdom hop back onto the campaign trail ahead of the June 5 Republican primary. Anyone who doubts this possibility needs to remember the character and the record of the judge.
Like an Alabama University cornerback, Moore doesn’t mind getting burned once. He forgets the loss and sets up for the next play. Though twice removed from the state Supreme Court and twice defeated for the Republican gubernatorial nomination, Moore mounted a bid for president and then ran for Senate. A shot at governor wouldn’t be any different.
In September 2016, a poll of more than 600 likely voters by the Alabama Forestry Association put Moore ahead of nine other candidates.
“He has, in politics what we like to call universal ‘name ID,'” Bill Harris, director of political affairs with the Forestry Association, said at the time. “He has good favorable and high negatives. I think with Judge Moore, you either like him or you don’t like him.
A lot has changed since then (to say the least). After securing the GOP nomination, Moore has been beset by repeated allegations of sexual dalliances with teenage girls during the 1970s. But what sunk other candidates has only energized him. Evangelicals still cling to that old rugged candidate, dismissing every allegation as a Northern slander meant to discredit an honorable Southern man.
“It wouldn’t surprise me at all,” Jacks Nelson, a politics professor at Birmingham’s Samford University, said of a shot at governor. “His supporters, they are so hardcore. I don’t think much could shake their faith in him. Some of them are pretty fanatical.”
The allegations of dalliances with a 14-year-old girl, Nelson admitted, could hurt. And allegations of sexual misconduct, like those that brought down former GOP Gov. Rob Bentley, are normally damning. But the supporters who unseated an incumbent and who rebuffed the forces of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky. Nelson noted, could again rally to Moore because “they really believe he is a man of God.”
None of this means that Moore will do it. And none of us should presuppose to understand what occurs inside the mind of the candidate who turned 2017 on its head. After all, current Republican Gov. Kay Ivey is plenty popular and plenty capable of dumping a bucket of ice water on Moore. But never say never.
So much will happen between Dec. 12 when Alabama decides who to send to the Senate and June 5 when Alabama decides who will become the Republican gubernatorial nominee. The state will celebrate Christmas and the New Year. Auburn and Alabama will both have their spring practices. And the state might just forget about all the allegations and evidence.
A loss on Dec. 12 doesn’t mean the end of horseback riding, gun toting, fire-breathing Roy Moore.
