Building a campaign is never easy and finding good staff is always difficult. With just months before the special Alabama Senate primary, maybe that’s why Judge Roy Moore recruited veteran political operatives with a hard anti-Trump bent.
Filings with the Federal Election Commission show that Moore, the frontrunner to take the old seat of Jeff Sessions, hired avowed Never-Trump staff who said they’re “appalled” by Trump and worked to paint him as “weak” during his campaign against Hillary Clinton.
While working for the Jeb Bush Campaign, Brett Doster called Trump “an entertainer with a disastrous business record” and promised never to work with the candidate.
“I’m kind of appalled our party is nominating him. I won’t work for him, can’t bring myself to,” Doster told U.S. News in June 2016. “But I think the guy is going to end up being president. I think he’s on track to probably win this thing.”
Front Line Strategies, Doster’s consulting firm, signed with the Moore Campaign in August to help handle media for nearly $400,000 according to FEC reports. And since then, he’s appeared in the press speaking for Moore as an advisor and spokesman.
Less than three months before the general election, Chris Ashby formed Stand Up America PAC to boost third-party candidate Evan McMullin. Ashby’s group ran television ads to “amplify the campaign’s message that Donald Trump is weak—an unstable candidate whose silly policy ideas and dangerous fascination with authoritarians and dictators threatens our safety.”
Ashby Law, owned by the anti-Trump fundraiser, began doing legal work for Moore in July. The law firm did legal counseling ahead of the first round of the primary for $911 according to FEC filings.
Will any of this raise eyebrows in political circles? Probably not. Staffers and consultants switch party and candidate allegiances like baseball players get traded midseason to new teams. It’s how things work in Washington.
But that staffing could be significant in Alabama where the two remaining candidates battle back and forth to prove they’re truly loyal Trump allies. Incumbent Sen. Luther Strange enjoys the endorsement of the president, who will speak at a rally on his behalf Friday.
Moore counters that he’s the true outsider, the only candidate who can really fight the “swamp creatures” in the Senate. He could run into trouble if voters judge him by the consultants he keeps. FEC filings show that Moore has hired at least two Never-Trump operatives.Those hires don’t betray Moore as some kind of beltway insider. They show he will work with anyone to win.
Philip Wegmann is a commentary writer for the Washington Examiner.
