Democrat faces long odds in Alabama race
TUSCALOOSA, Ala. — Anne Stickney does not have many good things to say about Roy Moore. She saw as mere ‘‘posturing’’ his name-making crusade over the display of the Ten Commandments in various
Alabama courthouses. She has no reason to doubt the recent allegations that, as a man in his 30s, Moore harassed and sexually assaulted teenagers. In sum, Stickney has concluded that Moore, the Republican nominee for U.S. Senate here, will not get her vote.
But she won’t be voting for his Democratic opponent in the Dec. 12 Senate election, either.
“Doug Jones has a good reputation for being a good man,” Stickney, 63, said. “But he’s still a Democrat.”
Instead, she plans to write in Lee Busby, a Republican and retired Marine colonel who is running a last-minute write-in campaign.
The outcome of the Senate race here is still anyone’s guess. But old habits die hard in Alabama, and veterans of Southern politics find it difficult to imagine that even this election would in the end stray far from the old fundamentals.
“I don’t think the Lord Jesus could win as a Democrat in Alabama,” said Brad Chim, who runs a Democratic communications firm in Mississippi that has conducted surveys in Alabama.
Moore was never widely popular in Alabama, even among Republicans; his zealous fan base has been just enough in some past elections, and in others — his two poor showings in Republican primaries for governor — it has been far short of enough. The aversion to Moore has grown only more pronounced with the outbreak of sexual misconduct allegations, including one that he molested a 14-year-old girl — allegations that Moore denies.
But Alabama Republicans who are looking for an alternative to Moore are turned off by the Democrats over a constellation of issues — Supreme Court nominations, the scope of federal regulation, the fact that a Democrat would probably stymie President Donald Trump’s agenda and the general sense that the national Democratic brand is in conflict with white Southern culture. But the obstacle that voters most commonly bring up is Jones’ stance on abortion.
“The biggest thing for me is that he’s prochoice,” said Susan Moore, a retired respiratory therapist who said she had been unhappy with Moore (who is no relation) for years, frustrated by his flouting of the law while he was a judge. She said she admired Jones’ prosecution of the Ku Klux Klan members who helped plan the 1963 bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham. But as for Jones in the Senate, she said, “I think he’s much too liberal for our state.”
Nearly 60 percent of adults in Alabama think that abortion should be illegal in most or all cases — tied for thirdhighest of any state, according to the Pew Research Center. Moore and Alabama conservatives have tried to stoke the Twitter hashtag AbortionJones.
John Saxon, an Alabama lawyer and a decades-long stalwart of Democratic politics, said he was recently out Christmas shopping when a man he did not know approached him in a parking lot. The man had a message for Jones.
“You tell him if he’ll change his position on abortion, I can get him all the Republican votes he’s going to need,” the man said, according to Saxon.
Moore has made limited public appearances, leading Jones, who held a flurry of events over the weekend, to mock Moore for hiding.
“We’re on the campaign trail meeting all of you and meeting folks here as no one knows where Roy Moore is,” Jones said Friday to reporters interviewing him.
Moore did make three campaign stops last week. Adoring audiences in little country churches still welcome the Bible-toting Moore. But the campaign also has been punctuated by tense moments and odd exchanges, including an online spat with latenight television host Jimmy Kimmel.
Moore — whose speeches typically include long, memorized recitations of Scripture and quotes from early America patriots — got into an uncharacteristic Twitter spat with Kimmel after “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” regular Tony Barbieri crashed the event in Theodore.
After a heckler interrupted Moore and was hustled out by security, Barbieri jumped up in front of the pulpit where Moore stood.
“That’s a man’s man,” Barbieri shouted. “Does that look like the face of a child molester?”
That led to the social media knock-down between Moore and the comedian. Moore’s campaign wrote: “@ jimmykimmel If you want to mock our Christian values, come down here to Alabama and do it man to man.”
“Sounds great Roy — let me know when you get some Christian values and I’ll be there!” Kimmel replied.
The Rev. Jeremy Ragland was taken aback by the furor after he invited Moore to speak at a “God and Country” service Thursday night at tiny Bryan Baptist Church in rural Walker County. Ragland said he received death threats and lewd suggestions about his own children before the event, prompting a show of security that included uniformed constables, a burly doorman and plainclothes bodyguards.
“When you’ve got people threatening to kill you, saying your children should be molested, what are you going to do?” an exasperated Ragland said.
But make no mistake, Moore, who blames liberals, the LGBT community, socialists and the Washington establishment for his problems, has his supporters. In one odd scene, about 20 pastors and activists in Birmingham took turns praising Moore for his decades of support for conservative causes. Afterward, speakers yelled down journalists and one grabbed a videographer’s camera as reporters attempted to ask questions.
Longtime Moore aide Dean Young chided reporters for even trying to question the candidate during an appearance on the steps of Alabama’s Capitol.
“This Jerry Springer stuff is over,” she said.
A couple of weeks ago, the three biggest newspapers in Alabama splashed the same tough editorial across the tops of their front pages. “Stand for Decency, Reject Roy Moore,” read the bold headline in Birmingham, Mobile and Huntsville, all part of Alabama Media Group. Some readers cheered; others canceled their subscriptions.
At the OpelikaAuburn News, a small-town daily in eastern Alabama, top editor Troy Turner wouldn’t even consider running such an editorial.
“I would have bullet holes in my windows,” said Turner.