Alabama’s democratic process is under attack by rogue elements within the Republican political establishment who, I suspect, planted the story with the Washington Post to influence how our state’s voters decided this special election.
Their shortsighted tactical objective: to disrupt the candidacy of Roy Moore, a politician whose substance and style they detest.
On this front, they’re winning. Recent polls show a clear move away from the judge.
Their foolhardy strategic result: electoral sabotage. Alabama is about to elect a liberal Democrat to the U.S. Senate, placing important reforms and control of the U.S. Supreme Court in peril.
On this front, their success depends upon the actions of the only individual who could stop them: Governor Kay Ivey.
Sadly, it doesn’t appear she’ll do anything … at least for now.
“I’m going to cast my ballot on December the 12th, and I do believe the nominee of the party is the one I’ll vote for,” Ivey said earlier this week. “So that’s what I plan to do, vote for Republican nominee Roy Moore.”
Our governor added that she has “no reason to disbelieve” the accusers, who include one woman who says the judge sexually molested her when she was 14 years old.
(A child. Dammit, people. She was a child. Quit making reprehensible excuses for this.)
Our governor saying she has no reason to disbelieve the women is tantamount to saying she doesn’t believe Moore. It’s either one or the other. For surely his denials, feeble as they are, would provide a reason for disbelief if they were credible.
(Side note: While I believe the substance of the Washington Post’s story is accurate, I don’t believe they’re telling us the whole truth about how their reporters came upon it. I strongly suspect this was a political hit job against our election from the start, and the Post – and the accusers, as well – were weaponized by these political hacks.)
But here’s the big problem, Governor: A great deal of your fellow Republicans have no reason to disbelieve the accusers, as well. But many of them would also rather stay home than cast their vote for a man they strongly suspect molested a child, or at least firmly believe was creepy enough to date high school girls when he was in his 30s.
Moore already wasn’t popular among these people to begin with, and the pro-life vote (of which I’m a strong member) might not be enough in some of our state’s softer Republican areas.
Your political number crunchers surely know this.
Tell them to go back and look at the data from his races: Moore has always underperformed in key Republican strongholds in the suburbs of Mobile, Montgomery, Birmingham and Huntsville.
We need those areas to win this Senate seat. But they didn’t vote for Moore back when he was only accused of being a religious zealot, and many of them are surely not going to vote for him now that he’s accused of being a child molester, especially during a special election when turnout will be very low.
They don’t represent a majority of Republican voters, sure, but many of them will likely sit home or drive right by their polling precinct without even slowing down. That may be enough to tilt the balance in favor of the Democrat.
This is a perfect storm: a Republican nominee who has underperformed in past races, a special election that many moderate voters usually skip anyway, a Democrat opponent who hasn’t been forcefully challenged by our candidate (where are the anti-Doug Jones ads?), and an explosive allegation mere weeks before the election.
Moore wasn’t a lock before this happened, now the race is leaning Democrat.
This doesn’t reflect the will of the people of Alabama. Not at all. Everyone knows this.
We’re conservative, pro-life and wish to see much of President Donald Trump’s agenda realized. The guy who’ll likely win isn’t for any of those things.
This actually reflects the will of a few political operatives up in Washington, D.C., who thought it’d be fun to throw a monkey wrench into our special election out of spite.
Are our leaders – the people our voters, and our constitution, have empowered to protect our rights – going to allow this to happen?
This is a special election, after all, subject to all sorts of special decisions and special circumstances.
Our state isn’t on cruise control. Governor Ivy can stop this.
The special election can be stopped, postponed, or otherwise changed to protect the rights of Alabama’s voters. The governor has the power somewhere, and where there is a political will, there exists a legal way.
For the love of God, governor, stop this election.
(Agree? Disagree? Take this article over to social media and tell your friends why.)
