AL-Sen: In a stunning new article published Thursday, the Washington Post reported that in 1979, Alabama Republican Roy Moore had sexual contact with a 14-year-old girl named Leigh Corfman when he was 32; then as now, such contact would be punishable as a sexual offense under state law (though the statute of limitations has since run out). Now an adult, Corfman says she had kept silent for years until the Post approached her, saying that she could no longer "sit back and let this continue, let him continue without the mask being removed." The Post also spoke with three other women who say Moore pursued them when they were aged 16 to 18 and he was in his early 30s; while flattered as teenagers, they expressed serious concern now, with one calling Moore's behavior "disgusting."
The bombshell revelations prompted panicked D.C. Republicans, including Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, to call on Moore to drop out of next month's special election for the U.S. Senate, though nearly all qualified their demands by adding Moore should only do so, as McConnell put it, "[i]f these allegations are true." The number two Republican in the Senate, John Cornyn, went even further, declaring, "I'm interested in seeing what substantiation there is for the story." It's hard to imagine, though, what sort of evidence these Republicans would accept, short of a confession from Moore himself—and one is most certainly not forthcoming.
Moore not only denied all wrongdoing, and not only sought to turn this into a conspiracy by calling the news "a desperate political attack by the National Democrat Party and the Washington Post," he also went ahead and started fundraising off the scandal, blaming the "Obama-Clinton Machine's liberal media lapdogs" and saying "the forces of evil are on the march in our country." In an era when Republicans reflexively reject anything they don’t like as “fake news,” this is probably an effective tactic, at least with a certain segment of the population.
Indeed, some of Moore's fellow Republicans, especially those in Alabama, are already taking this line. Secretary of State John Merrill suggested he thought it was suspicious that these allegations only surfaced shortly before Election Day, and specifically wondered why a D.C. outlet—and not an Alabama publication—broke the story. Meanwhile, state Auditor Jim Ziegler offered the most eye-popping defense of Moore, saying, "[T]ake Joseph and Mary. Mary was a teenager and Joseph was an adult carpenter. They became parents of Jesus."
And it doesn't seem like the GOP has any good options even if Moore did want to quit (which would be utterly out of character for him). By far the best analysis of Alabama's relevant election laws comes from law professor Derek Muller, who explains that Moore cannot be replaced on the ballot because candidates must withdraw at least 76 days before an election (the Dec. 12 special election is just a month off), and election officials have already printed ballots and sent them to absentee voters.
Not only that, if Moore were to pull out, state law says that any votes cast for him would not be certified, essentially making it as though "there were no candidate at all," according to Muller. That would hand the race to Democrat Doug Jones by default. Conceivably, someone like Sen. Luther Strange (whom Moore defeated in the September primary) could wage a write-in campaign, but that might risk splitting the Republican vote between Moore-haters and those convinced he's the victim of a left-wing plot.
The GOP's one desperation shot would be to convince a judge to allow them to replace Moore despite what the law says. That hope's not without precedent: Muller cites the 2002 case of Bob Torricelli, the embattled Democratic senator who dropped his re-election bid after New Jersey's deadline; the state Supreme Court ultimately permitted Democrats to swap in then-retired Sen. Frank Lautenberg instead, in the name of providing voters with a proper choice in the election.
But there, Democrats succeeded in pressuring "The Torch" to stand down. It's unlikely, to say the least, that Republicans will be able to convince Moore to do the same. After all, this is the guy who was twice booted from the Alabama Supreme Court for defying the law. The real question is, will this be enough to sink Moore's hopes of victory? In a sane world, this would go without saying, but post-morality Republican voters may just convince themselves that even these sins don't matter. Toronto Star reporter Daniel Dale spoke with one county GOP chair, Jerry Pow, who made it clear that they don't: "I would vote for Judge Moore because I wouldn't want to vote for Doug," he said. "I'm not saying I support what he did." Oh, but vote for Moore and you do.