Republicans Fear Roy Moore Repeat With Ex-Con Candidate

For years, it seems that Republicans have been plagued by bad candidates. Even before last year’s Roy Moore fiasco in Alabama, there was Todd “Legitimate Rape” Akin in Missouri who claimed in 2012 that a woman’s body could “shut down” a potential pregnancy during a rape. In 2010, Christine O’Donnell told Delaware voters, “I’m not a witch.” Before that, there was the time when Louisiana Republicans nominated a former Grand Dragon of the Ku Klux Klan, David Duke, for governor. Now there are fears that Republican voters may be about to make a similar mistake.

The fears are not about Arthur Jones, the 70-year-old white supremacist who won the Republican nomination in the Illinois third congressional district. Jones was unopposed in the Republican primary last March after the party essentially wrote off the district, which has been represented by Democrat Daniel Lipinski since 2005. Illinois Republicans have disavowed Jones and refuse to support him.

It also isn’t California that has Republicans worried. Last week, the California GOP ejected Patrick Little, a Republican candidate seeking to challenge Dianne Feinstein (D) for her Senate seat. Little was polling in second place among Republican hopefuls even after praising Adolf Hitler and calling for “limiting representation of Jews in the government.”

The current candidate that has Republicans in a panic is West Virginia senatorial hopeful, Don Blankenship. Blankenship is among the Republicans attempting to unseat Joe Manchin (D), a popular former governor who was elected to replace Robert Byrd (D) in the Senate in 2010. Any Republican challenging Manchin is in for a tough race.

As far as we know, Blankenship isn’t a white supremacist or a witch. At this point, his views on “legitimate rape,” are also not known. The problem with Blankenship is that he is an ex-convict.

In West Virginia, a coal mining state, Don Blankenship went to prison for his role in the deaths of 29 miners in 2010. Blankenship served one year on a misdemeanor conviction for conspiring to violate federal safety standards at the Upper Big Branch mine after being acquitted of several felony charges. Blankenship was released in May 2017 and immediately began a Twitter feud with Sen. Manchin. Because Blankenship was not convicted of a felony, he did not lose his right to vote. On his campaign website, he calls himself a “political prisoner.”

So, why would anyone vote for Don Blankenship? Blankenship is positioning himself as the Trumpist candidate in a state that Donald Trump won by more than 40 points in 2016. His primary strategy of running against Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) is similar to that of Roy Moore in Alabama.

In April, the ex-con candidate released a campaign ad referring to McConnell as “Cocaine Mitch,” a Trumpesque nickname. In a press release accompanying the ad, Blankenship explained that McConnell’s father-in-law, one of his campaign donors, owned a shipping company that “was implicated recently in smuggling cocaine from Colombia to Europe, hidden aboard a company ship carrying foreign coal was $7 million dollars of cocaine.”

Also similar to the Alabama race, there are two other likely Republican candidates, U.S. Representative Evan Jenkins and state Attorney General Patrick Morrisey. Both have vulnerabilities. Jenkins is a former Democrat who switched parties several times, the last in 2013 for his successful congressional campaign. Morrisey is former pharmaceutical company lobbyist and his ties to pharmaceutical companies raised questions during his time as attorney general. Blankenship has attempted to tie Morrisey to the opioid epidemic. Morrisey also ran an ad in which he said he wanted to “not to just change Washington, but to blow it up and reinvent it.”

The only public poll for the primary shows Jenkins in the lead with 25 percent and Morrisey with 20 percent. Blankenship trailed in the mid-April poll with 16 percent. Politico reports that internal surveys show Blankenship gaining ground. To avoid a runoff, a candidate must receive 50 percent of the vote so if Blankenship is among the top two finishers on Tuesday he has a chance to win the nomination.

President Trump is among the Republicans who realize the danger of nominating Blankenship. Trump tweeted this morning, “Don Blankenship, currently running for Senate, can’t win the General Election in your State...No way! Remember Alabama. Vote Rep. Jenkins or A.G. Morrisey!”

Trump also didn’t support Roy Moore initially. The president backed Luther Strange, the incumbent appointed to take the seat of Jeff Sessions. Alabama voters rejected the president’s endorsement and concerns about Moore’s electability.

If Blankenship does not win the nomination, he may still scuttle the eventual Republican candidate. He has vowed not to support Morrisey and says he is considering a third party candidacy, even though West Virginia has a “sore loser” law against such campaigns.

If West Virginia Republicans back Blankenship in this week’s primary, Republicans may lose one of their best chances to pick up a Democrat Senate seat and enlarge their majority. The nation will find out tomorrow whether Republican voters learned a lesson from Roy Moore’s candidacy or whether they still prefer eccentric, anti-establishment candidates regardless of the risk.

Originally published on The Resurgent

Alabama May Have Just Saved the GOP

Last night, the Republican Party got its first break in over a year.

The defeat of Roy Moore in Alabama may sting for a while, but it may just be the wakeup call that the GOP needed. To lose a Senate seat in one of the most conservative states in the South is quite an accomplishment. There will be plenty of blame and finger-pointing to go around, but ultimately the fault lies with Roy Moore himself, along with the people who elevated him to the nomination.

The candidate was obviously never properly vetted by Republicans, but if the Washington Post could find a handful of women from Moore’s past, why couldn’t his Republican primary adversaries? Perhaps Moore was considered untouchable in Alabama conservative circles for his high-profile resistance to the removal of the Ten Commandments monument and the implementation of same-sex marriage, but, in truth, these were examples of judicial activism that should not have been applauded by people who support the rule of law. There are ways to resist bad rulings, but Moore’s actions were not appropriate for his position.

Even beyond the obvious, there were signs of skeletons in Moore’s closet if Republicans had cared to look. In 2002, amid the Ten Commandments controversy, the Montgomery Advertiser hinted that Moore’s associates had stories to tell, but were biding their time.  “Some of those who worked with Moore roll their eyes when asked about him but keep their mouths shut,” Todd Kleffman wrote. “There are plenty of stories to tell, the longtime secretaries, parole officials and lawyers said, but not on the record and not now, while Moore sits atop the state court system and controls its purse strings.”

Part of the blame for Moore also lies with former Gov. Robert Bentley (R-Ala.), who appointed another weak candidate, Luther Strange, to fill the Senate seat of Jeff Sessions when he was tapped to become attorney general by Donald Trump. Strange was tainted by Bentley’s corruption as well as purported ties to the Republican establishment. Even though President Trump endorsed Strange, Moore attacked him by linking him to Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.). In a healthy party, ties to party leaders are a good thing, not a liability.

Steve Bannon and the anti-establishment wing of the Republican Party also share the blame. In recent years, the Republican establishment has been subject to its own derangement syndrome in which many members of the Republican base put party leaders on a level with Democrats. This intra-party feuding led directly to the nomination of both Donald Trump and Roy Moore in primaries where a main qualification for many Republican voters was that candidates should be from outside the Republican mainstream.

While both Trump and Moore were Republican outsiders, they were also outside the American mainstream. Donald Trump eked out a victory because enough voters in the right places saw him as less threatening than Hillary Clinton. In Moore’s case, his questionable record combined with the allegations of sexual misconduct and a bevy of embarrassing statements and ultimately turned much of his own party against him. Even President Trump, at a September rally for Strange, expressed doubts about Moore’s ability to win a general election.

The lesson that Republicans should learn from Roy Moore is that “at least he isn’t Hillary” only works when a candidate is running against Hillary. It doesn’t work when the opposition candidate is Doug Jones, a decent man with a good record, and the Republican candidate is a man who seemed to think fondly of the slavery era in a state where blacks make up more than a quarter of the population.

In the past few years, Republicans seem to have forgotten the Buckley Rule that conservative voters should nominate the most conservative candidate who can win. If conservative voters take this lesson to heart, they will nominate decent, sane, mainstream conservatives in the primaries that will be held in a few months. If they truly learn the lesson of Roy Moore, they will reject candidates from Steve Bannon’s crackpot wing of the party.

Roy Moore’s loss may have come at just the right time for the party. Many signs are pointing to a Democrat wave in 2018. It may already be too late to stop the Democrat landslide, but if Republicans look for candidates that appeal to voters outside the anti-establishment wing of the GOP they may be able to prevent a total wipeout and at least maintain control of the Senate.

In the short term, there will be anger against the Republicans who crossed party lines to vote for Doug Jones or who cast their ballots for a write-in candidate. If Republican voters don’t insist on good candidates, they will continue getting candidates who rely on the “at least he’s not [insert Democrat here” argument. Rather than betraying the Republican Party and traditional Republican principles, the Republicans who had the moral courage to rebel against a deeply flawed and embarrassing candidate may have actually saved the Republican Party.

Originally published on The Resurgent

Alabama Sen. Shelby Rejects Roy Moore As Another Embarrassing Statement Surfaces

The weekend before the closely-watched Alabama senatorial election, another scandal emerged for Republican Roy Moore. An audio clip surfaced from an appearance by Moore on a conspiracy-related internet talk show in which Moore agreed with the hosts that voiding all constitutional amendments after the 10^th “would eliminate many problems.”

Moore’s comments came on a 2011 episode of the “Aroostook Watchmen,” a right-wing internet talk show based in Maine. On an audio recording obtained by CNN, Moore responded to a statement from one of the hosts advocating an amendment that would void every amendment that was not part of the original Bill of Rights.

“That would eliminate many problems,” Moore replied. “You know people don't understand how some of these amendments have completely tried to wreck the form of government that our forefathers intended.”

Moore specifically cited the 17^th Amendment, which changed the process for electing senators. Originally, senators were selected by state legislatures, but the amendment made it so that senators were chosen directly by the people of the state. Following the host’s lead, Moore also criticized the 14^th Amendment, which was passed after the Civil War and includes the Equal Protection and Due Process Clauses.

“The danger in the 14th Amendment, which was to restrict, it has been a restriction on the states using the first Ten Amendments by and through the 14th Amendment,” Moore said. “To restrict the states from doing something that the federal government was restricted from doing and allowing the federal government to do something which the first Ten Amendments prevented them from doing. If you understand the incorporation doctrine used by the courts and what it meant. You'd understand what I'm talking about.”

“For example, the right to keep and bear arms, the First Amendment, freedom of press, liberty,” Moore continued, “Those various freedoms and restrictions have been imposed on the states through the 14th Amendment. And yet the federal government is violating just about every one of them saying that -- they don't, they don't -- are not restrained by them.”

There is a total of 27 amendments to the Constitution. Some other important amendments that come after the 10^th included the abolition of slavery (13^th), guaranteeing the right to vote regardless of race (15th), extending the right to vote to women (19^th), and the prohibition of poll taxes (24^th).

Moore did not specifically advocate a return to slavery, but he was previously criticized for another quote in the Los Angeles Times from September 2017 in which he seemed to downplay the institution.  An audience member asked Moore when he thought America was last great. Moore answered, “I think it was great at the time when families were united — even though we had slavery — they cared for one another.... Our families were strong, our country had a direction.”

While the clip did not specifically mention the 19^th Amendment, Roy Moore did co-author a legal textbook that argues that women should not elected to public office.

In a response to CNN, the Moore campaign denied that the candidate ever supported the repeal of 16 amendments. “Once again, the media is taking a discussion about the overall framework for the separation of powers as laid out in the constitution to twist Roy Moore's position on specific issues,” a spokesman said in an email. “Roy Moore does not now nor has he ever favored limiting an individual's right to vote, and as a judge, he was noted for his fairness and for being a champion of civil rights.”

“Judge Moore has expressed concern, as many other conservatives have, that the historical trend since the ratification of the Bill of Rights has been for federal empowerment over state empowerment,” the campaign spokesman said.

In the same episode of “Aroostook Watchmen,” Moore seems to embrace several conspiracy theories as well. Moore implied that Barack Obama was not a citizen and expressed support for “new hearings into what really happened on 9/11.” Moore has long questioned the validity of Obama’s birth certificate including a statement in December 2016.

The Moore campaign told CNN that he “believes that Islamic terrorists were responsible for the 9/11 attacks, [has] made rebuilding the military one of his key campaign purposes, and is the only Senate candidate with experience serving in a combat zone.”

The combination of Moore’s past and his embarrassing behavior have led many Republicans to reject their party’s candidate. On Sunday, Alabama’s senior Senator, Republican Richard Shelby, revealed that he did not vote for Roy Moore.

“I'd rather see the Republican win, but I'd rather see a Republican write-in,” Shelby said on CNN’s “State of the Union.” “I couldn't vote for Roy Moore. I didn't vote for Roy Moore.”

Shelby did not say who he voted for, but Lee Busby, a retired Marine, entered the race as a conservative write-in candidate in November. There is speculation that Shelby may have voted for Col. Busby.

Originally published on The Resurgent

Democrats Seize The Moral High Ground

Republicans have a tendency toward shooting themselves in the foot and this week was no exception. With their abrupt about-face on accused sexual harassers John Conyers (D-Mich.) and Al Franken (D-Minn.), the Democrats have captured the moral high on the issue of sexual misbehavior.

For a while it seemed as though both parties would look equally hypocritical on the issue of sexual misdeeds. For weeks, the lists of officials in both parties who were credibly named by numerous accusers grew longer and longer while partisans promptly excused their allies and condemned their enemies.

That changed this week when the Democratic Party suddenly turned first against Conyers and then against Franken. Conyers announced his retirement on Wednesday. Franken’s resignation came on Thursday after 32 Democratic senators called on him to resign.

The Democrat reversal could not have come at a more inopportune time for Republicans. After tepid support for Roy Moore for several weeks, President Trump endorsed Moore on Monday with a charge to the accused child molester to “Go get 'em, Roy!” The same day Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), who had previously called on Moore to drop out of the race, said, “ It'll be up to the people of Alabama to make this decision” and dismissed the possibility that the Senate would refuse to seat Moore if we wins. The Republican National Committee, which had previously severed ties with Moore suddenly made a contribution of $170,000 to Moore’s financially strapped campaign.

Perhaps the Democrats were waiting on the Republicans to go all-in on Moore to offer up Conyers and Franken as sacrificial lambs. Perhaps the timing was coincidental due to new revelations about Conyers and Franken. In any case, the events of the week could not have been better timed for Democrats.

Moore, who has said that he didn’t “generally” date teenage girls when he was in his 30s, seems to retain a slight lead in polling for the Alabama Senate race. This in spite of contradictory statements about the sexual assault allegations and whether he dated his wife while she was still married to her first husband as well as other scandals such as financial improprieties at his charity and his advancement of conspiracy theories.  

It was a classic bait and switch. Republicans took the bait and supported Roy Moore and the Democrats promptly switched to a hardline on sexual misconduct. The result will be that for the remainder of the Alabama campaign, and though the 2018 elections if Moore wins, Democrats will batter Republicans about the head with charges that the party, which claims to be the party of Christian principles and family values, fully supported a candidate who is credibly accused of being a sexual predator of teenage girls.

What’s worse is that the Democrats will be absolutely right. In the 2018 elections, Republicans will already be defending a do-nothing Congress and an erratic and unpopular president. Now, they must justify their support for Roy Moore as well.

The GOP has faced a similar conundrum in the past. In 1991, David Duke, a former Ku Klux Klan grand wizard, won the Republican gubernatorial nomination in Louisiana. In an election that presaged this decade’s races to the bottom, Duke’s opponent was Edwin Edwards, a Democrat who had been tried twice on charges of mail fraud, obstruction of justice, and bribery. Edwards was so disliked by Louisiana Republicans that the outgoing governor, Buddy Roemer, coined the slogan, “Anyone but Edwards.”

That year, unlike recent history, Republicans did not embrace a flawed candidate, claiming that the opposition was worse. Instead, Republicans did the unthinkable. Pushing their partisan tendencies aside, the Louisiana GOP endorsed Democrat Edwards under the slogan, “Vote for the crook. It’s important.”

The question for today’s Republicans is, “What is important?” 

Originally published on The Resurgent

Roy Moore Apparently Dated His Wife While She Was Still Married

Roy Moore, the scandal-plagued Republican candidate for Senate in Alabama, may have dated his wife while she was still married to her first husband in spite of claims to the contrary. An analysis of court documents and Moore’s own claims about their courtship indicates that Moore and Kayla Kisor may have met before Kayla filed for divorce and dated before the divorce was final.

The Washington Examiner recently pointed out the apparent contradictions between Moore’s account, published in his 2005 book, “So Help Me God,” and court records from Kayla Kisor’s divorce case. Moore wrote that, after meeting Kayla at church shortly before Christmas 1984, “I was determined to get to know her, but Kayla, divorced and with a beautiful little girl, Heather, who was nearly a year old, was not interested in a relationship with anyone.”

However, when the Examiner looked into the details of Kisor’s case, they found that she had only separated from her first husband, John Charles Heald, on Dec. 1, 1984. Kisor did not file for divorce until Dec. 28, 1984 and it was several months before her divorce was finalized on April 19, 1985.

“Regardless of when they met, Judge and Kayla did not date while she was still with her ex-husband or legally married,” Moore campaign spokesman Brett Doster told the Examiner.

In Moore’s account, he and Kayla began dating “soon after” she visited the law office of one of Moore’s colleagues “early in the new year” of 1985. According to Moore, the couple dated “for about a year.”

A source familiar with Kayla’s first marriage told the Examiner that Moore gave Kayla’s daughter a puppy for Valentine’s Day in 1985, two months before Kayla’s divorce was final. It was “was always an assumption” that the couple dated while Kayla was still legally married, the source said.

Moore and Kayla were married on Dec. 14, 1985, approximately a year after their first meeting and eight months after Kayla’s divorce became final. Roy Moore was 38 and Kayla was 24 at the time.

Kayla was 21 at the time of her first marriage, which lasted two-and-a-half years. Her petition for divorce cited “cruel treatment during the marriage.”

Roy Moore has been accused by numerous women of harassing teenage girls in the late 1970s and early 1980s. In some cases, the women say that Moore touched them inappropriately. One of the accusations of sexual assault came from a 14-year-old girl.

AL.com provides a further description of Moore’s 1984 meeting with Kisor. “Sitting with her mother on the sofa against the wall was a beautiful young woman,” Moore wrote in his book. “I learned that her name was Kayla.”

Moore wrote that he had met Kayla previously, but did not specify when. He did describe the occasion: “Many years before, I had attended a dance recital at Gadsden State Junior College. I remembered one of the special dances performed by a young woman whose first and last names began with the letter 'K.' It was something I had never forgotten. Could that young woman have been Kayla Kisor? Anxious to meet her, I began with the line, 'Haven't we met somewhere before?’”

In an interview cited by Newsweek earlier this year, Moore said, “I was standing at the back of the auditorium and I saw her at the front and I remember her name, it was Kayla Kisor, K.K. It was, oh gosh, eight years later or something, I met her and when she told me her name I remembered K.K.”

Eight years prior to their 1984 meeting would have been about 1976 or 1977. Moore would have been 29 and Kayla 15 at the time of their first meeting. Beverly Young Nelson, who accused Moore of assaulting her in a car when she was 16, was a high school sophomore in the same class as Kayla Kisor in 1977.

Moore’s spokesman said the questions about the discrepancies from the Washington Examiner were “really scraping the bottom of the barrel.” The Washington Examiner is a conservative newspaper.

The Examiner noted that Moore’s campaign has attacked the credibility of his accusers “based on alleged inconsistencies in marginal details of their accounts.” The Moore campaign has called Moore’s signature in a yearbook a forgery and questioned such details as locations of telephones and names of restaurants.

“Amid an outpouring of misconduct allegations, Moore’s campaign has clearly set the standard that details are important and should be vetted rigorously,” The Examiner responded. “Why, then, should the inconsistencies surrounding Moore’s story not draw his own credibility into question?”

Originally published on The Resurgent

Alabama Senate Race Too Close To Call

There is another new wrinkle in the topsy-turvy Alabama Senate race. A new poll released over the weekend showed Democrat Doug Jones with a three-point lead over embattled Republican Roy Moore.

The Washington Post – Schar School poll found Jones with 50 percent support of 739 likely voters to Moore’s 47 percent. The poll has a margin of error of 4.5 points making the poll a statistical tie.

Two other polls that overlap the Post poll further confuse the state of the race. A CBS/You Gov poll released this morning found Moore with a six-point lead over Jones and an Emerson College poll gave Moore a three-point advantage.  

The only recent poll that shows either candidate with a lead outside the margin of error is the CBS poll, which found Moore with a 49-43 advantage over Jones. That poll sampled 766 likely voters and had a margin of error of 4.8 percent.

The polling showed that voters are divided over the allegations against Moore. The Post poll showed that 35 percent believe that Moore harassed teenage girls while 37 percent are unsure or have no opinion. Only 28 percent doubt the accusations. CBS reported that 92 percent of Republicans don’t believe the accusations against Moore.

Only one poll, Emerson, asked voters about independent candidate Lee Busby. Busby entered the race in mid-November as a conservative alternative to Moore. The retired Marine polled at five percent compared to 49 and 46 percent for Moore and Jones respectively.

Emerson is also the only poll of the three that has regularly sampled the race. The record of polls on Real Clear Politics shows that previous Emerson polls gave Moore 55 percent in early November and 53 percent just after Thanksgiving. This shows a slight downward trend for Moore and more women came forward and Jones built an advantage in fundraising and advertising. Moore’s lead in the Emerson polling has declined from 10 points in early November to his current three-point advantage.

The small number of undecided voters may eventually break for Doug Jones since Moore is much more well known in the state. An axiom of polling developed by analyst Dick Morris is that undecided voters favor the insurgent candidate. If the incumbent or better-known candidate has not sealed the deal and is polling below 50 percent as the election approaches, it often means that he will lose the election.

Polling is difficult in state and local races and the different results almost certainly reflect different assumptions about what the electorate will look like as well as the changing nature of the race. The bottom line for the current crop of polls is that the race is too close to call. Moore seems to hold a slight lead despite Jones’ advantage in the Washington Post poll, but, with donations pouring in from around the country, Jones is within striking distance.

With the race inside the margin of error in most polls, the election could go either way. The final result will depend on which candidate can best urge their voters to turn out and get to the polls. 

Originally published on The Resurgent

Jones Has Heavy Advantage Over Moore in Ads and Fundraising

Roy Moore is still in a close race with Democrat Doug Jones, but you might not know it from watching Alabama television. The Democratic candidate is spending about seven times more than the scandal-plagued Republican. Jones has aired about 10,000 television ads compared to about 1,000 for Moore.

“I saw probably 40 to 50 Doug Jones ads, and I saw one Roy Moore ad,” Daniel Deriso, an aide to the Democratic mayor-elect of Birmingham, said of the Thanksgiving break.

Politico reports that Jones held a financial advantage even before the accusations of sexual misconduct against Moore. Since the reports of Moore’s alleged misbehavior in the late 1970s became public, online donations to the Jones campaign have rolled in from around the country. At the same time, the Moore campaign took a hit as the Republican National Committee cut off support.

AL.com gave Moore a slight fundraising advantage in late October. At that point, Moore had raised $2.5 million through the end of September and had $543,000 on hand after the difficult primary fight. Jones had raised $1.6 million and had a balance of $1 million. Three weeks later, after Moore’s accusers came forward, the Washington Examiner reported that Jones was raising $250,000 per day.

The fundraising advantage gives Jones the upper hand in the race, which is rare for Democrats in deep red Alabama. Even amid the ongoing scandal and with scant support from national Republicans, polling shows a tight race with Moore and Jones in a dead heat. Jones’ ability to drown out Moore’s message in a blitz of advertising may be the deciding factor in the race.

Politico notes that Jones’ ads are aimed at Republicans who are not happy with Moore. The ads feature Republican critics of Moore, criticisms of the healthcare system and emphasize Jones’ background as a federal prosecutor, a nonpartisan position that helps to distance him from the national Democratic Party. The ads feature quotes from Ivanka Trump, Attorney General Jeff Sessions, and Sen. Richard Shelby (R-Al.) saying that they believe Moore’s accusers.

The Jones campaign is flush enough with ad money that it is moving beyond attacking Moore’s sexual history to education policy. In a new ad, Jones says that Moore “compares preschool and early childhood education to Nazi indoctrination” while Jones promises to work “across party lines for preschool and smaller class sizes.”

Appearing as nonthreatening and bipartisan is vital for Jones. Fifty-two percent of Alabamans identify as Republicans and half say they are conservative. There is no path to victory in a statewide election for a Democrat who cannot win Republican votes.

It is Jones’ liberal views that are his Achilles heel in conservative Alabama. His opposition to restrictions on abortion has made him vulnerable to attacks in a state where 57 percent of voters identify as pro-life. Still, some Alabamans find the accusations against Moore too much to overlook.

“I’d like to see someone in there who’d support Trump, but I believe the women,” Suzanne Turner of Huntsville told the Washington Post. “I put a Doug Jones sign in my yard. I felt a little sick doing that. But I had to.”

The race is reminiscent of last summer’s special election in Georgia in which Democrats pinned their hopes and treasure on Jon Ossof. Ossof outspent Republican Karen Handel by six to one in the race for former Secretary of Health and Human Services Tom Price’s congressional seat, but still lost a close race.

As the campaign enters the final stretch, it will be Jones whose message inundates the airwaves and sets the tone. Jones will be able to paint himself as a nonthreatening moderate while hammering away with the argument that Moore is an extremist and a sexual predator. In Alabama, it may still not be enough. 

Originally published on The Resurgent

Marine Colonel Enters Alabama Senate Race As Write-In Candidate

A new candidate has emerged the embattled Alabama Senate race. Lee Busby, a retired Marine colonel, has announced that he will challenge Republican Roy Moore and Democrat Doug Jones as an independent candidate in the special election to fill the seat of Jeff Sessions.

Per the Daily Beast, Busby, who served as a vice chief of staff to then-Gen. John Kelly, the current White House chief of staff, has worked as a defense consultant and investment banker since his retirement after 31 years as a Marine. In his spare time, Busby sculpts busts of fallen soldiers.

“Alabama is not happy with the two choices we have down here. They are not appealing,” Busby said.

Roy Moore, the embattled Republican candidate for the Alabama Senate seat, has been accused of inappropriate sexual contact with teenage girls when Moore was in his 30s. Additionally, Moore has embraced a number of conspiracy theories and failed to complete two terms as chief justice of the Alabama Supreme Court. Polls showed a close race even before the allegations against Moore became public.

Busby’s entrance into the race as a write-in candidate is bad news for Roy Moore, who seemed to be consolidating a lead in recent days. Many prominent Republicans refused to support Moore on the basis of the credible accusations against him, but others, including President Trump, supported him on the grounds that the Senate seat was too important to lose to Democrats. Busby provides a conservative alternative for Alabamans who cannot vote for a man credibly accused of sexual assaulting teenage girls, but who also reject the liberal positions of the Democrats.

With the Alabama special election set for Dec. 12, Busby has only two weeks to mount a campaign. The late entry into the race means that Busby stands almost no chance of winning, but he could act as a spoiler in the tight race.

Originally published on The Resurgent

Two Quotes That Show How Much The Parties Value Character

The past week laid bare the deepest motivations of many people in American politics. While both parties claim to be the champions of morality and virtue, people paying attention were disabused of the notion that either party is more concerned with character than votes.

On Friday, Kate Harding, a self-described “feminist and the author of a book on rape culture,” wrote an op-ed in the Washington Post offering a partisan defense of Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.). Harding doesn’t defend Franken’s bad behavior. Instead, she defends his political affiliation.

“It would feel good, momentarily, to see Franken resign and the Democratic governor of Minnesota, Mark Dayton, appoint a senator who has not (as far as we know) harmed women,” Harding writes. “If I believed for one second that Franken is the only Democrat in the Senate who has done something like this, with or without photographic evidence, I would see that as the best and most appropriate option. But in the world we actually live in, I’m betting that there will be more. And more after that. And they won’t all come from states with Democratic governors and a deep bench of progressive replacements. Some will, if ousted, have their successors chosen by Republicans.”

Yes, you heard that correctly. Harding is openly admitting that the only reason that she doesn’t want to see Franken punished is that it would set a precedent in which other Democrats, ones who might be replaced by Republicans, might also be forced to resign.

Harding’s position is obviously partisan and hypocritical, particularly from a feminist in the party that five years ago claimed that Mitt Romney and Republicans were waging a “war on women.” What is shocking is how blatant Harding’s hypocrisy is. In her world, political affiliation means more than justice for women who were harassed or abused by Democrats. Republicans rightly denounced the political calculations of Democrats like Harding.

But wait, as they say, there’s more!

The very same day, at the same moment that Republicans were denouncing Kate Harding’s hypocrisy, the Republican governor of Alabama was making a remarkably similar statement. “I believe in the Republican Party, what we stand for, and most important, we need to have a Republican in the United States Senate to vote on things like the Supreme Court justices, other appointments the Senate has to confirm and make major decisions,” Gov. Kay Ivey (R) said on AL.com. “So that's what I plan to do, vote for Republican nominee Roy Moore.”

At the same time, Ivey acknowledged that the allegations made against Moore were credible. “I certainly have no reason to disbelieve any of them,” she said. “The timing is a little curious. But at the same time, I have no reason to disbelieve them.”

Ivey says that she believes in what the Republican Party stands for, but what does the party stand for if it refuses to condemn a man who is credibly accused of molesting a 14-year-old girl and harassing numerous others? It seems that what the new Republican Party stands for is electing Republican candidates at all costs.

Republicans and Democrats finally have found something that they can agree on. They both believe that party politics trumps concerns about character. Unfortunately for the rest of the country, the point of agreement found by the two parties will only serve to further divide the country.

Democrats and Republicans stand united in their hypocrisy. Both seem only too willing to compromise their core beliefs in order to support politicians that represent what they purport to hate. Any man who forces himself on a woman would be rightfully condemned by the left… as long he isn’t a Democrat official. The right would be ready to castrate a 30-year-old man who cruised malls trying to pick up teenage girls… as long as he wasn’t a Republican candidate.

In a perfect world, our politicians would be held to a higher standard than the people they govern. In the real world, the two parties excuse their own members by pointing to the bad behavior of those on the other side. It is a race to the bottom in which both sides claim, “Your pervert is worse than ours.” The truth is that when feminists back misogynists and Christians support an alleged child molester, they have already lost, regardless of whether their candidate wins. 

Originally published on The Resurgent

Roy Moore Was Never A Good Candidate

One year into the Trump revolution it now appears almost certain that a Senate seat in deep-red Alabama is going to end up in the hands of the Democrats. The slim Republican majority will likely be eroded to a single seat, which will effectively put the brakes on the Republican agenda. It’s worth looking back at how the Republican Party got here.

The Alabama Senate race began simply enough. Incumbent Jeff Sessions left to become the attorney general with the full expectation that the governor of Alabama would appoint a Republican to take his place and the state’s conservative voters would rubberstamp the governor’s pick.

Enter Luther Strange. Strange was the state attorney general and was responsible for the investigation of Gov. Robert Bentley. Bentley picked Strange to be the new senator in a move that many Alabamans thought smacked of an insider quid pro quo after impeachment proceedings against the governor were delayed for six months.

Although he was endorsed by President Trump and the majority of the Washington Republicans, the scent of corruption was too great for Strange to overcome. Strange and Moore were the top two finishers in the Republican primary in August. Moore, backed by Steve Bannon and the populist wing of the GOP, went on to defeat Strange in the runoff to become the Republican nominee.

Things went bad for Moore almost immediately. A Fox News poll in October, weeks before the sex scandal broke, showed that Moore was tied with Democrat Doug Jones at 42 percent. The poll was a shock to Alabama Republicans.

In a moment that may turn out to be prophetic, President Trump had argued at a September rally for Luther Strange that “ Roy has a very good chance of not winning in the general election.”

Moore had a long history in Alabama. Twice elected to the Alabama Supreme Court, he had finished neither term. He was removed from the court in 2003 for refusing to comply with a federal court’s order to remove a Ten Commandments monument from the state building. In 2015, he was removed again for refusing to comply with the Supreme Court’s decision mandating same-sex marriage. Between his partial terms on the court, Moore mounted two unsuccessful campaigns for governor in 2006 and 2010.

Even before Moore partnered with Steve Bannon to take on Strange, there were warning signs about Moore. The most obvious red flags were Moore’s connections to fringe conspiracy beliefs. Moore debuted as a columnist for World Net Daily, a prominent fake news site, in 2006. One of the columns that Moore authored argued for a religious test for office that would prohibit Muslims from serving in Congress. Moore was also a prominent birther, claiming that Barack Obama was not a natural-born citizen as recently as December 2016. In a September 2017 interview with Vox, Moore claimed, “There are communities under Sharia law right now in our country.”

Even before the sexual assault allegations, there were questions about Moore’s character. In 2002, Moore founded the nonprofit legal organization, the Foundation for Moral Law. Moore said in public that he did not take a “regular salary” from the group, but the Washington Post reported that the charity paid Moore a salary of $180,000 per year, which amounted to more than $1 million and was far more than the foundation disclosed on IRS filings.

In 2002, the Montgomery Advertiser hinted that there was an unknown, dark side to Roy Moore. “Some of those who worked with Moore roll their eyes when asked about him but keep their mouths shut,” Todd Kleffman wrote for the Advertiser, “There are plenty of stories to tell, the longtime secretaries, parole officials and lawyers said, but not on the record and not now, while Moore sits atop the state court system and controls its purse strings.”

Jimmy Hedgspeth, the Etowah County DA, said at the time, “If Roy wasn't the chief justice, I'd tell you anything you want to know. I think we have to have respect for the office, even if we don't like the people who hold it.”

Teresa Jones, who worked with Moore at the District Attorney’s office in Gadsden, said in a tweet, “It was common knowledge about Roy's propensity for teenage girls. I'm appalled that these women are being skewered for the truth.” Other locals in Gadsden say that Moore was banned from the mall for harassing teenage girls.

Looking back, there were plenty of warning signs about Roy Moore. If the Washington Post could hear the whispers about Moore and seek out witnesses to his behavior, why couldn’t opposition researchers from other Republican campaigns? Why didn’t Alabama’s party establishment intervene to spare the state the disgrace that it is currently experiencing?

The answer is that the Republican Party is caught up in irrational populist anger. The party’s voters rejected Luther Strange because he was too corrupt and too connected to the party establishment. They rejected Mo Brooks because he was insufficiently subservient to Donald Trump.

In the end, Alabama Republicans violated the basic rule of William F. Buckley to nominate the most conservative candidate who can win. In Roy Moore, Alabama Republicans picked a candidate who was known to have embraced conspiracy theories, who was vulnerable to questions about his business dealings, who had two failed campaigns for statewide office and who, after winning elections, had failed to fulfill his term of office twice. Even without allegations of sexual misconduct, Moore should have been toxic as a candidate.

Originally published on The Resurgent

No Surprise That Evangelicals Are Standing By Roy Moore

In the wake of last week’s revelations about Alabama Republican Roy Moore, a new poll shows that more than 70 percent of evangelical voters in Alabama still support the man accused of molesting a 14-year-old girl. About half of the evangelicals who still support Moore say that the charges make them more likely to vote Republican, a statistic that shows how little regard Republican voters hold for the mainstream media.

The poll by JMC Analytics found that 37 percent of evangelicals are more likely to vote for Roy Moore in the wake of the sex scandal than before. An additional 34 percent said that the allegations made no difference in their vote. Only 28 percent of evangelicals were less likely to vote for Moore after the revelations. The same poll showed that 38 percent of voters at large were less likely to vote for Moore.

The poll’s findings will be assumed to show hypocrisy on the part of evangelical voters, but this isn’t necessarily true. CNN exit polls show that 56 percent of Protestant voters voted for Donald Trump. In contrast to Trump, Moore’s sex scandal is more easily explained away.

Roy Moore tacitly admitted to Sean Hannity that he dated girls “as young as 17.” At the same time, Moore called the more damaging allegation that he improperly touched a 14-year-old girl “completely false.” In contrast, evangelicals have already voted en masse for Donald Trump, who admitted to sexual assault in a taped conversation on “Access Hollywood.”

In Trump’s case, the tape was made in 2005 and other allegations of sexual misconduct were even more recent. The allegations against Roy Moore are almost 40 years old. Moore has been happily married (to the same woman, unlike Donald Trump) for the past 32 years. Moore’s wife, Kayla, told Breitbart that they met when she was 23.   

With no allegations of sexual misbehavior in more than three decades, it is easy to argue that Roy Moore is a changed man. Christians believe in in the power of God to change hearts and lives. They also believe in repentance and forgiveness. It is much easier to believe that Roy Moore is a changed man who has repented of his long-ago actions than Donald Trump.

The second reason that evangelicals have not abandoned Roy Moore is a simple one. They believe that Democrats are a bigger threat than someone who may have exercised bad – and, in at least one case, criminal – judgment four decades ago.

Democrats have worked painstakingly hard to convince the country that they are no friend to Bible-believing Christians. The list of attacks on Christians by liberal Democrats is long and includes a legal campaign against the Little Sisters of the Poor, political assaults on photographers and bakers who hold a traditional view of marriage, attacks on freedom of speech for pro-life activists and campaigns to remove Christian symbols from nearly aspect of public life. In a viral clip from the 2012 Democratic convention, Democrat delegates even booed the inclusion of God in their party platform.

Roy Moore was directly involved in two incidents which were perceived by Alabama evangelicals to be assaults on their religious liberty. In 2003, Moore was removed from his position as chief justice of the Alabama Supreme Court for his refusal to remove a 10 Commandments monument. Moore worked his way back to the state high court, but was removed again in 2015 after refusing to order probate judges to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples. Critics might argue that Moore’s actions were self-serving and violated his oath to uphold the rule of law, but they also made him a hero to the state’s evangelical voters.  

Now, after decades of having their religious beliefs attacked by the left, Alabama Christians see their champion, Roy Moore, under assault from the same liberals who have celebrated as courts chipped away at their religious liberty. Moore’s habit of tilting at windmills may not have been successful, but, like Donald Trump, he is viewed as a man who fights back. Many evangelicals will even refuse to believe the charges, in spite of Moore’s admission, because they view the Washington Post and other mainstream media as fake news.

Ultimately, Alabama evangelicals will have to decide between an accused child molester and Democrat. Many of them openly admit that they consider the Democrat to be worse. Considering how Democrats have treated evangelicals, this should not be a surprise.  

Originally published On the Resurgent

Roy Moore Isn’t Going Anywhere - Neither are His Supporters

As prominent Republicans call for Alabama Senate candidate Roy Moore to step down amid allegations that he had inappropriate sexual contact with a 14-year-old girl in 1979 when Moore was 32, the flamboyant Republican is refusing to drop out of the race. In a series of tweets Thursday night, Moore vowed to “NEVER GIVE UP the fight!”

“The Obama-Clinton Machine’s liberal media lapdogs just launched the most vicious and nasty round of attacks against me I’ve EVER faced!” Moore said in the first of four tweets. “We are are in the midst of a spiritual battle with those who want to silence our message.”

“The forces of evil will lie, cheat, steal –– even inflict physical harm –– if they believe it will silence and shut up Christian conservatives like you and me,” Moore said in the second tweet in the series.

“I believe you and I have a duty to stand up and fight back against the forces of evil waging an all-out war on our conservative values!” the third tweet said. “Our nation is at a crossroads right now — both spiritually and politically.”

“Our children and grandchildren’s futures are on the line. So rest assured — I will NEVER GIVE UP the fight!” Moore concluded.

The final tweet also contained a statement in which Moore said that the accusations were a “fabrication” and a “completely false and desperate political attack.”

The accusations against Moore are serious and credible enough to end the Senate hopes of a candidate in any era but this one. Republican leaders, including President Trump, have urged Moore to withdraw from the race, but it is Donald Trump’s example that will inspire Moore and his supporters to fight on. After all, it was only last year that Republicans decided that a history of sexual assault was not disqualifying for their presidential nominee.

The Moore campaign can make a credible case that the accusations against Moore are less damning than those against Donald Trump. In Trump’s case, the candidate was caught on tape in 2005 when he was 59. There was no denying the candidate’s own words. In Moore’s case, it is his word against that of his accusers about events almost 40 years ago. Moore says that the accusations are not true and many of his supporters will take him at his word.

There is also a difference in the amount of evidence. At least 16 women came forward against Donald Trump and his supporters considered them all liars in spite of Trump’s admissions on the “Access Hollywood” tape and boasts of sexual conquests in his books. In Moore’s case, the candidate has been happily married for 33 years and does not have a reputation as a ladies man. Even if Moore’s supporters accept the accusations as true, Moore’s track record for the past three decades gives them room to write off the incidents as youthful indiscretions that are not representative of his current character.

Finally, the argument could by made that voters looked the other way with Donald Trump because the possibility that Hillary Clinton would become president was simply to horrible to accept. A similar argument can be made that preserving the Republican majority in the Senate so vital that it is necessary to overlook Moore’s actions of four decades ago.

Republicans have been unable to advance their agenda already and a loss of the Alabama seat would cut the GOP majority to a single vote. This would effectively end any chance of enacting conservative reforms. It would also make it easier for Democrats to win control of the Senate outright next year.

For all these reasons, Roy Moore will not leave the race and the vast majority of Republicans will stand by him. After elevating an admitted philanderer and “p-ssy grabber” to the head of the party of family values and the country as a whole, it will be easy to stand by someone like Moore. After compromising your principles once, it is very easy to do it again.

For a Republican Party that now seems to put politics over character and values, the descent has been swift. A year ago the party found a way to excuse Donald Trump’s behavior as “locker room talk” and private matters between consenting adults. Now many Republicans are well on the way to rationalizing child molestation.

Originally published on The Resurgent 

Poll Shows Alabama Senate Race Tied

A surprising new poll shows that Republican Roy Moore is tied with Democrat Doug Jones in the Alabama Senate race. Moore handily defeated incumbent Senator Luther Strange in the Republican primary last month.

In the new poll by Fox News, both Moore and Jones had the support of 42 percent of registered voters. The poll showed that only 53 percent of respondents were extremely or very interested in the race. Of those voters, Jones had a slight led of 46-45 percent.

Previous polling had shown Moore with a lead over Jones. Two polls taken at the end of September showed Moore with a lead of eight and five points respectively. Those polls sampled likely voters, which are historically more accurate than polls of registered voters.

The new poll shows deep divisions in the Republican Party. Forty-two percent of Moore’s supporters have reservations about the GOP candidate, who has a history of controversial behavior and comments. Only 28 percent of Jones voters have reservations.

Moore’s history, including two unfinished terms on the state Supreme Court, explains why a third a Jones voters support the Democrat candidate because they believe that Moore is too extreme. Twenty-one percent say that they are voting against Moore as opposed to voting for Jones.

While campaigning for Luther Strange, President Trump worried that Moore might have problems in the general election. Two months before Election Day, that seems to be a real danger. Thirty-nine percent say that Moore is “out of step” with Alabama compared to 29 percent who say that Jones is too liberal.

In deep red Alabama, the electorate still favors the Republican, but the new poll should be alarming to GOP strategists. Expect both parties to pour money into the state to compete for the 11 percent of voters who are still undecided.

Originally published on The Resurgent

Roy Moore Will Be Another GOP Maverick - If He Can Win

Judge Roy Moore cruised to victory in the Alabama Republican primary runoff yesterday. Moore’s victory came despite heavy support by President Trump and Republican leaders in Washington for incumbent Luther Strange. In fact, some of the Washington endorsements for Strange probably did more to help Roy Moore than their intended recipient.

President Trump’s endorsement of Luther Strange had a limited effect. Polling in late August showed Roy Moore with 51 percent and 32 percent for Strange with 17 percent undecided. Moore won the actual vote 55-45 percent, which seems to indicate that a majority of undecided voters broke for Strange.

Politics makes strange bedfellows. Few have been as strange as the alliance between Donald Trump and Luther Strange, who was singled out as a “swamp creature” by many conservatives. Strange was hobbled from the start by opponents who tied him to two recent corruption scandals in Alabama. Strange was among the many Alabama politicians, including Attorney General Jeff Sessions, who took money from a company that was later charged with bribing a state legislator in connection with an EPA cleanup. He was also tainted by his appointment to the Senate by Gov. Robert Bentley at the same time that Strange, who was then Alabama’s attorney general, was investigating the governor for corruption in a scandal that eventually led to his impeachment.

In spite of appeals by the president and prominent Republicans, most conservative groups rallied behind Moore, who ran primarily against Mitch McConnell, who had also endorsed Strange. The August poll by JMC Analytics found that 45 percent said that McConnell’s endorsement made them less likely to vote for Strange. Forty-six percent said it made no difference.

The antipathy to the Republican leadership comes at an inopportune time. The Republicans have just suffered an embarrassing defeat on Obamacare thanks to a small number of Republican senators who deserted the party to vote against the Republican reform bill. Roy Moore has strong conservative and Christian credentials, but he will not be a senator who can be counted on to stand with the party on votes for bills like Graham-Cassidy.

Moore has a reputation as a maverick and a rebel. Moore was twice elected to the Alabama Supreme Court and was twice removed. In 2003, a panel ruled that Moore had violated the state ethics code and removed him from the bench after he ignored a federal court order instructing him to remove a Ten Commandments monument. In 2015, Moore was suspended again for ordering state judges to ignore the Supreme Court ruling that made same-sex marriage the law of the land. While Moore has remained true to his principles, his actions have not been effective at advancing his agenda.

President Trump, at this weekend rally for Luther Strange, made two key arguments for Strange. The first was that Strange was a loyal legislator who had been a reliable vote for the Trump agenda. Moore overcame this objection by running as a supporter of the Trump agenda, even if he might be less of a sure vote than Luther Strange. “Don’t let anybody in the press think that because he [Trump] supported my opponent that I do not support him,” Moore said in the New York Times after his victory.

Trump’s second point was that Moore might not be electable in the general election. He may have a point there. The eccentric former judge has a history of controversial remarks and even pulled out a pistol at a campaign rally the day before the election. The possibility of Moore pulling “a Todd Akin” and handing to the election to the Democrats with an outlandish comment is a real possibility.

In the crimson state of Alabama, as the Republican candidate, the race is Moore’s to lose. Whether Moore wins or loses, the Republican problems in the Senate will not be resolved and it will still be difficult to advance the Republican agenda. The real loser is the traditional Republican establishment whose endorsements were rejected by voters even as the candidates fought over who was President Trump’s best ally.

Originally published on The Resurgent

Trump Stands By 'Big Luther'

At a rally in Huntsville, Ala. last night, President Trump continued to strongly endorse incumbent Republican Senator Luther Strange. Strange, who is linked to a corruption scandal in Alabama, will face challenger Roy Moore in the Republican primary runoff next Tuesday.  

The president kicked off his speech with support for Senator Strange, who he said “will fight for your interests, defend your values and always put America first.” In a rambling speech, Trump said that he liked “Big Luther,” nicknamed for his height, for his loyalty, including a no-strings-attached commitment to vote for the Obamacare reform bill that Trump called the “coolest thing that has happened to me in six months.”

“The last thing I want to is be involved in a primary,” Trump said, adding that he wanted to repay Strange’s loyalty by helping him when he was down in the polls.

“I might have made a mistake,” Trump said of his endorsement. “If Luther doesn’t win, they’re not going to say we picked up 25 points in a very short period of time. They’re going to say, ‘Donald Trump, the president of the United States, was unable to pull his candidate across the [finish] line.’”

Trump said that Strange and challenger Roy Moore were “both good men.” The president said that if Moore won the primary, he would be “campaigning like hell for him,” but expressed doubts that Moore could win the general election.

Politico reports that polling in the race shows Moore with a slight lead in the race. Moore was the top finisher in the first round of polling in August, finishing six points ahead of Strange. The winner of the Republican primary will face Democrat Doug Jones in a general election on December 12.

Originally published on The Resurgent

Roy Moore Is Heavy Favorite In Alabama Senate Runoff

A new poll shows that former judge Roy Moore has a landslide-size lead in the runoff to decide which Republican faces the Democrat Doug Jones in Alabama’s special Senate election. The poll by JMC Analytics found that Moore currently has a lead of almost 20 points over Luther Strange, the sitting Senator appointed to fill the seat of Attorney General Jeff Sessions.

The poll, which contacted Alabamans from across the state, found that 51 percent of respondents who were considering voting in the runoff favored Moore. Thirty-two percent planned to vote for Strange with 17 percent undecided.

The big surprise from the poll was how ineffective the Republican endorsements of Strange have been. President Trump carried Alabama with 62 percent of the vote last year, but his endorsement of Strange seems to have had no net effect at all. The poll found that 51 percent said that Trump’s endorsement made no difference. The remainder were split almost evenly between those who said that Trump’s endorsement helped Strange (25 percent) and those who said it hurt him (23 percent).

Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) fared even worse. Forty-six percent said McConnell’s endorsement made no difference while 45 percent said it made them less likely to support Strange. Only 10 percent seemed to value McConnell’s endorsement.

Sixty-eight percent self-identified as evangelical Christians. Roy Moore, who is considered a hero by many Christians for his battles to keep a monument to the Ten Commandments in the State Supreme Court building and for his refusal to uphold the Supreme Court ruling instituting same-sex marriage, has a definite advantage among Christian voters. The poll shows Moore with 58 percent support among evangelicals.

Luther Strange has been bedeviled by several corruption scandals. Strange, the former attorney general of Alabama, was appointed to the Senate by Gov. Robert Bentley who was forced to resign in disgrace. Strange, who was in charge of the investigation into Bentley’s extramarital affair and the ensuing cover-up and abuses of power, has been accused of delaying the impeachment proceedings against the former governor.

Strange and many other Alabama politicians also took donations from two companies that are accused of paying outright bribes to state legislator Oliver Robinson. The $360,000 in bribes were associated with an Alabama coal company’s attempt to avoid paying for the EPA cleanup of a toxic site.

Finally, Strange s the subject of an investigation into two felony campaign finance violations. An ethics hearing was originally scheduled for August 2, but was moved to August 16, the day after the initial primary election.

Moore was the top finisher in the first round of polling with 38 percent to Strange’s 32 percent. Pre-election polling had showed the two men in a virtual dead heat. Since neither candidate received a majority, a runoff was scheduled for Sept. 26. The general election will be on Dec. 12.

The new poll was conducted among 515 likely voters and the margin of error is 4.3 percent.

 Originally published on The Resurgent