Panicking GOP Might Postpone Alabama Senate Election As Roy Moore Crumbles

Republicans in Alabama and across the country are panicking as the state’s GOP Senate candidate, Roy Moore, crumbles under explosive new allegations about his sexual relationship with teenagers while he was in his 30s.

According to the New York Times, GOP lawmakers are so privately terrified of losing what should be a safe Republican seat that they’re pushing Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey to postpone the election altogether.

More from the report: “Republican senators and their advisers, in a flurry of phone calls, emails and text messages, discussed fielding a write-in candidate, pushing Alabama’s governor to delay the Dec. 12 special election or even not seating Mr. Moore at all should he be elected.”

This may sound like an outrageous and straight up undemocratic move to make, but as MSNBC producer Kyle Griffin noted in a tweet, the GOP governor could have the power to do it under Alabama law.

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The allegations against Moore – made by four women and confirmed by 30 sources – were damning enough, but the right-wing extremist doesn’t appear to be doing himself any favors either.

After immediately calling the charges a hit job carried out by Democrats and the “fake news,” Moore now seems to be in the “I do not recall” phase of the scandal. In an interview with Sean Hannity, he said he “does not generally” engage in sexual activity with teenagers.

As Democratic Rep. Ted Lieu tweeted on Friday, the rough translation of that answer from Moore is: “I do not generally engage in pedophilia. Just sometimes.”

Ultimately, there is no point in having an election if one political party can just delay voting if it doesn’t appear to be going their way. It’s like getting halfway through a final exam and telling the professor that, since you don’t know any of the answers, you’d like to continue at a later date.

That’s not how campaigns work. If you can’t handle the scrutiny of a political campaign – if you need to postpone it until the smoke of a teenage sex scandal blows over – then you shouldn’t be running in the first place.



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