Roy Moore

The special U.S. Senate election in Alabama has has become a political focal point over the past few months. There is of course the main text, an extremist right-wing candidate, Roy Moore, accused of having sex with underage girls is running against a nondescript Democrat. The subtext is more interesting—potential control of the Senate. But far more important, the rightwing extremist, should he win, will roil the Senate in controversy, sucking all of the air out of what legislation is considered there; it will draw the GOP into a lengthy "ethics" investigation and allow the Democrats to demonize the entire GOP, suggesting that the entire GOP is just like Roy Moore.

For those reasons, I suspect that behind closed doors, there are at least a few Dems who are hoping for a Moore victory. but no matter who wins, the Dems will win if they win the election and they'll win if the lose the election. It's a good place to be politically.

I'm hopeful that Moore will lose today. His views are extreme and often unhinged, a throwback to political caricatures of the South of the 1950s. His positions draw far too heavily of his personal religious beliefs; his reasoning on important issues is muddled and mean-spirited; he refuses to recognize that our culture as a nation has changed, and has decided that he is the arbiter of morality and justice. He's a bad guy. And all of that has nothing to do with the sexual allegations that have surfaced.

But should Moore win, it an absolute certainty that there will be a deluge of claims that he is the new face of the GOP. That's dishonest and cynical, but no matter.

Hopefully, if Moore wins, the GOP will move quickly to isolate and investigate Moore and remove him from office if the claims against him are true. And even if he can't be removed, he should be relegated to meaningless committee positions and otherwise ostracized. He would represent exactly one percent of the Senate, an man with no allies, meaning that his influence would be almost non-existent.

Moore is not the only scumbag in Congress, but that doesn't matter. He shouldn't be there. Let's hope the voters in Alabama agree.