By Josh Moon
Alabama Political Reporter
Luther Strange and Roy Moore debated Thursday night.
The rest of us lost.
Bigly.
For a few glittering moments, Alabama held at least a portion of the national spotlight, and into that bright light we trotted out a super homophobe, who apparently struggles with reading, and a middle-schooler trying to convince everyone that he’s friends with the popular kids.
It was, without question, an absurdly embarrassing display that in no way helped anyone.
All of the people who wanted to vote for Moore before the debate are still on board. Same for Strange.
If there is an undecided GOP voter somewhere in this state, the only thing that person is now deciding is whether he or she could overlook the “D” alongside Doug Jones’ name.
Part of the trouble was the debate format – the McKinley-Lincoln style that removes the moderator. I suppose that’s a way to placate the paranoid and remove a potentially biased third party, but it also removes the person who forces answers, ensures each candidate answers questions related to actual issues and presses the most important issues.
Without that person, you get two guys standing in close proximity to each other rattling off TV commercial scripts.
There was no one to press Moore on actual issues, to make him say what he would do from a policy standpoint to address immigration, the deficit and health care.
There was no one to force Strange to answer the one question everyone wants answered: Why did he accept an appointment – a thing of value – from a governor he was clearly investigating?
What we got instead were mini stump speeches.
Strange would spend five minutes telling everyone how much Trump loves him, how Trump could have picked anyone in the whole big wide world to endorse and become best pals with, but he chose Big Luther. That’s right! Big Luther and Trump are F-R-I-E-N-D-S!
That would inevitably be followed by Moore making fun of Strange for bragging about his (phony) relationship with the president and then attacking Strange over the fact that Strange attacked him.
Then Strange would follow by whining about being attacked, even though he’s happily accepted $30 million worth of attack ads against Moore and his former adversary, Mo Brooks. He would then stress the “issues,” which is a word Strange seems to think means “lie about things you’ve done.”
Moore would then ignore those blatant lies and go right on harping about Strange’s attack ads.
Among the doozies Moore let slide by: Strange claimed that he booted the lawfirm Beasley Allen out of the BP oil spill case – he didn’t use Beasley Allen’s name – and that his team of AG office attorneys negotiated the entire deal, saving the state millions.
It’s the kind of lie that has made Strange’s career – just obscure enough that the average person wouldn’t know how to check.
Let me help: Google the words “BP oil spill Beasley Allen.”
You’ll find rather quickly that the firm was paid more than any other private law firm in the country for its work on that case, and when the final settlement was announced, there were the Beasley Allen attorneys at the press conference.
But Moore, concerned with other matters, never called Strange on it.
And Strange, so focused on reminding everyone that he’s so close to the White House that Mike Pence isn’t comfortable eating alone with him, never called Moore on his early, incoherent babbling as he attempted to read his own handwriting.
If you were desperate for any sort of a big moment, I guess there was one: When Moore asked THE question. The one about Robert Bentley, the investigation and that appointment that sure looked like a quid pro quo.
It was the question that Strange and his campaign should have expected for months. It’s a question they should have prepared for.
Strange’s answer: He ran from it.
Even afterwards, in the media scrum, when he was pressed to answer the question, and then Alabama State Auditor Jim Zeigler was yelling at him to answer, Strange ducked it.
And that’s probably just as well.
In a debate that offered nothing of substance throughout, it’s fitting that the most important question never received an answer.
