Despite being outspent by the Washington establishment 15-to-1, Moore prevailed. His solid bloc of conservative evangelical voters stood strong against an avalanche of negative ads.
When the Washington Beltway, Big Money interests pony up, they bring with them the best and meanest pollsters and media consultants in the country. They congruently polled and told Luther Strange to tie himself inextricably to Donald Trump. Luther stuck to the script perfectly. Trump even came to Alabama to endorse Big Luther. But it was to no avail.
When you are able to have $15 million spent for you and the president and vice president fly in to endorse you, you can look in the mirror the next day and honestly say; “I did all that I could do to derail the 10 Commandments Judge. Four months from now, Mitch McConnell and crowd will be saying, “Here comes the Judge.”
The GOP Senate runoff was finalized last Tuesday, but it was probably decided last year, and the dye was more than likely cast in February and April when the race officially began.
When disgraced and disregarded governor, Robert Bentley, gave Attorney General Luther Strange the Senate seat appointment in February, it was the kiss of death. Folks in Alabama have never liked someone getting appointed to an office. When George Wallace was in his heyday of popularity, he would appoint someone to a political office and they would invariably lose every time. Alabamians tend to resent this means of arrival into a political post. Citizens especially look with a disparaging eye when an individual gets selected by a governor who they are investigating for corruption while they are the state’s chief prosecutor. It appears clandestine and casts a cloud of conspiracy over the deal. Perception is reality in politics.
Big Luther was likely laid to rest in April when newly minted governor, Kay Ivey, changed Bentley’s decision to delay the special election to fill the remaining time on Jeff Sessions' term from next year’s 2018 election to a special election this year.
Luther took the appointment with the assumption that he would have the luxury of nestling into the seat for almost two years and running as a veteran incumbent with two years under his belt, plus having every race on the ballot the same day; two years for people to forget the appointment, plus 15 million dollars of Washington money is a much safer bet than seeking election in a special election less than six months after the Bentley appointment against religious folk hero Roy Moore.
Judge Moore was poised to win whatever he sought in his next pursuit of elected office. When the Alabama Judicial Inquiry Commission removed him from the bench for his refusal to follow a ruling from a federal judge, it made him a martyr among conservative Alabamians. In the Heart of Dixie, that was a very good hand to be dealt.
It made folks angry when the federal courts took him out of office for displaying the Ten Commandments. However, the wrath that his removal from the bench last year evoked was enormous, especially after he had been elected by the same voters because they liked his socially conservative stances.
Private early polling of the 2018 governor’s race revealed that Moore was the frontrunner in that race. That is probably why Kay Ivey called for a special election as one of her first acts as governor. She knew that Moore would be lured into the Senate seat, which better suits him.
There is a lot of talk and speculation that the Democratic nominee, Doug Jones, can make a race of it when the General Election is held on December 12. It is still very doubtful that a Democrat can win a statewide race in Alabama, especially for the U.S. Senate. However, it will be fun to watch.
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