Reprieve: Alabama opts not to inflict Roy Moore on rest of the nation

For one brief moment Tuesday night, oxygen was in short supply over the continental United States.

The collective sigh of relief at the decision by voters in Alabama not to elect Roy Moore amid allegations of sexual misconduct saved the rest of the country from having to perhaps make the most indefensible argument for the merits of democracy in the history of the institution.

More importantly, however, it saves the Senate form having to spend time and resources deciding what to do with an elected member whose ability to govern would be marred at best by the court of public opinion. The Republican party was faced with a situation for which there was no clear path to victory -- either lose the Senate seat Moore was up for or win the seat and inherit that controversy.

The party did itself no favors in deciding to continue to support Moore despite the allegations that he courted teenage girls while he was in his 30s, especially not after many top GOP members had previously called for him to step aside or for a write-in campaign to elect a more preferable candidate over the Democratic opponent Doug Jones.

Jones won, largely thanks to the vast turnout of Democratic voters, namely African-Americans and even more specifically African-American women.

In Jones' victory and that of the country, the GOP and President Donald Trump were handed a defeat that many see as an indicator of what is to come with the 2018 mid-term elections fast approaching.

That remains to be seen.

What is known at this juncture is that a sense of normalcy ---- electing someone with an unblemished record who, regardless of party affiliation, will be able to work undistracted toward hearing, debating and hopefully arriving at common sense legislation and governance -- might be returning to the nation's fractured political sphere.

That should be, after all, the least common denominator when proposing candidates for office, not whether he or she might have been a sexual predator.

That's obvious. Now.

Published in Editorials on December 13, 2017 9:49 PM