The allegations made against U.S. Senate candidate Roy Moore of Alabama, published in the Washington Post last week, would seem to be indisputable. In his 30s, according to the Post’s story, Moore cultivated romantic relationships with teenaged girls and in one case initiated sexual contact with a 14 year old—a crime under Alabama law.
The four women involved have gone on the record with their allegations—they’re braver than the usual anonymous sources of Washingtonian political backbiting. Of equal importance, they did not take their stories to the reporters, as one would expect if the stories were manufactured. The Post’s reporters approached them, not vice versa, and they spoke only reluctantly. Moore denies the allegations but also cavils, as if he’s denying the reporters’ interpretation of events rather than the events themselves: “I have never provided alcohol to minors, and I have never engaged in sexual misconduct . . .” Asked by Fox News host Sean Hannity if he dated teenaged girls when Moore was in his 30s, the former prosecutor and judge replied: “Not generally, no.”
Moore had disqualified himself long before the Post story broke. Among other outrages, he claimed Sharia law was enforced in Illinois and Indiana, called America an “evil empire” owing to rampant immorality, and boasted of his admiration for Vladimir Putin. Moore is most famous, of course, for twice getting himself removed from office—he was chief justice of the Alabama Supreme Court—by refusing to obey a federal court order to remove the monument to the Ten Commandments he had had erected inside the court building and ordering Alabama judges to ignore the Supreme Court’s Obergefell decision.
Now there is highly credible evidence of his penchant for underaged girls. If he has any shame left, Moore will withdraw his candidacy and, if he is elected, refuse to serve. That seems unlikely to happen. The special election is scheduled for December 12.
Assuming Moore stays in the race, however, his candidacy may have a clarifying effect on the GOP. Having ignored their former insistence on the importance of personal character and nominated an unprincipled hooligan to be president of the United States, Republicans—Alabama GOP voters and Washington’s Republican commentators and politicos—will have to decide if they still think character doesn’t matter as long as you cast the right votes and make the right enemies.
So far, it’s unclear what Alabama’s Republicans think. Some polls have Moore trailing his Democratic opponent, Doug Jones while some show Alabama Republicans more likely to vote for him.
Moore’s support among GOP commentators and officeholders looks tenuous, too. The GOP’s Senate campaign arm has severed ties with the Moore campaign, a great many Republican and conservative observers have called on Moore to withdraw, and members of the Senate GOP caucus have endorsed the idea of running a write-in candidate. True, some reliable defenders of anything thought to be anathema to the GOP “establishment,” whatever that is, still seem conflicted on the subject: Hannity expresses ambivalence, and his Fox colleague Laura Ingraham says Democrats have done worse, which is true though irrelevant. But by and large Republicans seem decided: Roy Moore should spend his remaining years doing something other than pursuing a career in politics.
Of course Moore should step aside, but we almost hope he doesn’t. We almost hope he stays in the race and gives Republicans one more chance to decide if political outcomes matter more than character and morality. Almost.
