After allegations, Moore avoids spotlight, questions
MONTGOMERY, ALA. » Republican U.S. Senate candidate Roy Moore has been a rare sight on the traditional campaign trail in the days ahead of a critical U.S. Senate race. He’s appeared at only a handful of rallies in front of friendly audiences and steadfastly has shunned reporters from the mainstream media.
Moore’s past campaigns have never been heavy on the conventional, but his relative absence from the spotlight this time around is nearly unheard of for a major party candidate.
Moore has focused on meeting with small groups of supporters and an aggressive social media campaign out of camera range as he tries to win Tuesday’s election against Democrat Doug Jones — a contest that was supposed to be an easy GOP victory — until November, when a number of women stepped forward to accuse Moore of engaging in sexual misconduct when he was in his 30s and they were teenagers.
Moore has denied the allegations and refuses to back down.
Moore’s stealth effort has left Jones resorting to mockery as the Democrat crisscrosses the state trying to pull an upset in Tuesday’s special election, buoyed by the possibility that enough Republicans will abandon the 70-year-old Moore in the wake of the allegations.
“Roy Moore is in hiding. He’s kind of like the groundhog. He comes out every so often to see if he can see his shadow,” Jones said Saturday in Selma during one of several stops for the Democrat this weekend.
Ben Du Pre, a campaign spokesman, said Moore is not holding back.
“He’s talking to voters. We are getting the message out any way that we can. I know you are the old media and you get offended when we don’t talk to you, but we’ve got Twitter. We’ve got Facebook. He’s doing interviews. He’s doing radio.”
Moore campaign chairman Bill Armistead said Moore has spent the week doing smaller unannounced event with supporters and has been on the phone with pastors and others urging supporters to get to the pools on Tuesday. He said the campaign feels confident going into Tuesday.