Birmingham, Alabama
When the last tally showed Doug Jones overtaking Roy Moore and that indecisive needle pointed toward certain triumph, the few celebrants still outside the ballroom hurried to their positions in the victory choir. Local attorney Barry Hair, an Alabamian since ’83, stood in the middle of it all, hardly believing he was about to cheer the election of a Democratic senator from his state. He told me about the frustrations of being a liberal voter here and expressed relief that Alabama was about to escape becoming a national punchline when word came across the projector screen near the stage that we had a winner.
Barry’s exact quote, I believe, was: “Woo!” Which was also something quite a few others inside the capacious room told me. If the air were a chin, the revelers socked it cold. The tear ducts were dammed—and then they were broken as people began crying freely. Hugs—not high fives, hugs—were exchanged without concern for personal familiarity. In the happy scrum, my press credential slipped from its clip, temporarily making me just a young guy in a blazer and a t-shirt. As I swiveled to search for the badge, a dainty older lady named Stephanie embraced me like I was home for the holidays. “Well hi! I’m with the press!” I said, grabbing my ID from the ground and presenting it for clarity’s sake. I think she thought I said “I’m impressed!” after she nodded her head in a way that indicated agreement.
Doug Jones, a mainstream, center-left Democrat—unlike former Montgomery Rep. Artur Davis, who voted against Obamacare, and the conservative Howell Heflin, the last Democrat elected to the Senate from Alabama, in 1990—had just been voted to the upper chamber and supporters, staff, celebrity endorsers, and even Jones himself were impressed.
“Folks, I got to tell you, I think that I have been waiting all my life, and now I just don’t know what the hell to say,” he began his victory speech.
This is what Jones’s win was to Alabama Democrats, a group of political survivalists: a pleasant shock of which they dreamed about but could not possibly have been prepared for. Barry Hair’s wife, a different Stephanie, told me she’s a lifelong Alabamian. And when I asked if she’s ever seen anything quite like this in her state, she mouths, “Oh hell no.”
Jones and his backers also stressed repeatedly that his success would salvage Alabama’s image. Charles Barkley—the Alabama-born Hall of Fame basketball player and former Auburn University Tiger—implored voters on Monday night to vote for Jones out of mere sensibility. “At some point we’ve got to stop looking like idiots to the nation,” he said during a rally for the Democrat, at which he was billed the special guest.
“At the end of the day, this entire race has been about dignity and respect. This campaign has been about the rule of law. This campaign has been about common courtesy and decency,” Jones said on Tuesday night—subtle rebukes of Roy Moore. Breaking with typical Election Day protocol, Jones did not mention Moore by name during his remarks or even feign appreciation for a hard-fought race.
Such was the rare ignominy of Moore’s campaign. In the last few days before the vote prominent Republicans such as Alabama Sen. Richard Shelby and National Republican Senatorial Committee chairman Sen. Cory Gardner continued to shun the GOP candidate. After the results were reported, several Republican officeholders, including Jones donor Jeff Flake, communicated their satisfaction that Moore wouldn’t be heading to Washington. Surprisingly, President Trump tweeted a restrained statement congratulating Jones.
But these “trans-partisan” congratulations are feel-good moments relevant only to anti-Moore conservatives, moderates, independents, and Democrats for whom partisanship isn’t an essential nutrient. Former Obama adviser Ben Rhodes tweeted after the election, “Seems like Dems should go all out to take down Ted Cruz,” the Texas senator who is up for reelection in 2018. “A more favorable state than Alabama and a loathsome politician.” The suggestion obviously linked Cruz to Moore; all that was missing was the word “fellow” before “loathsome.”
Cruz has professional liabilities of likability, cordiality, and collegiality. He is an unquestionably talented lawyer whose manner and tactics some colleagues dislike. Compare this to Moore: a former judge twice removed from the bench, a person credibly accused of sexual molestation and sexual abuse of teenage girls, some as young as 14-years-old—someone who, an adviser said just this week, “probably” favors the criminalization of homosexual activity.
The degrees of difference between Ted Cruz and Roy Moore are so stark they’re best measured in Kelvin. But while Jones’s victory over Moore will be viewed by local liberals and some national conservatives and political observers as a moral accomplishment, to partisans elsewhere, Moore is only another Republican felled: a serial number, not a serial transgressor against high-school women and the law.
