Alabama takes a deep breath while the world hearkens to hope

Thank you Alabamians! A majority of the state's voters dared to support the Democrat Doug Jones to fill the vacant US Senate seat vacated by the now embattled Attorney General Jeff Sessions. In so doing, the voters expressed their willingness to change their state's political direction, at least for the time being. 

Alabama voters elected the Democrat Doug Jones. In so doing, they sent a hopeful message to the nation and to the world to show how racism, sexism, bigotry and sexual misconduct do matter, more than political ideology. 

Voters rejected the Roy Moore.

In my opinion, by electing Doug Jones, the Alabama voters were convinced that he was a man who they could trust. I doubt the US Senator Elect Doug Jones' election was an endorsement of his candidacy, but a vote of confidence in his good character, especially compared to that of his unlikable opponent.  

Although the thin margin of the Republican Roy Moore's defeat indicated he "shoulda' won", in fact, the special election caused Alabamians to do some political soul searching. 

What kind of a Senator did they want to represent them? In my opinion, the special election caused Alabamians to take a deep breath and to look at their political "selves".  Meanwhile, the world can finally hearken to the fact that the Democrat Doug Jones defeated the man who Donald Trump endorsed. 

Paul Gattis wrote a post election review opinion in AL.com

The easy, immediate and accurate analysis of Roy Moore's loss in Tuesday's election for the U.S. Senate is that the allegations made against him cost him the race.

That's absolutely true.

And that's absolutely not true.

Without those allegations of sexual misconduct, which Moore repeatedly denied, he certainly would have sailed to victory. 

It's obvious when you look at the narrow margin of victory - about 1.54 percent unofficially, according to the Alabama Secretary of State's website - that the Nov. 9 story in The Washington Post was Moore's political death knell.

And it's obvious when you look at the difference in votes between Moore and Jones - a mere 20,715 unofficially. And it's obvious when you look at the staggering high number of write-in votes - 22,780, one of which was cast by Alabama's senior senator, Richard Shelby.

Don't forget that the write-in questions were so prevalent in the weeks leading up to election day that Secretary of State John Merrill's office issued a press release explaining the process to voters.

But for all the reasons it's clear that the allegations swung enough votes away from Moore to cost him the election, the narrow loss leads to a wide field of speculation.

Could Moore have done more? Instead of being the absentee candidate who ran an absentee campaign, could Moore have overcome his eventual small margin of defeat by embracing voters rather than keeping himself at safe distances if not outright ignoring them?

Moore essentially campaigned on reputation alone. He sat back with the expectation that the support he's enjoyed in twice being elected to the Alabama Supreme Court would carry him past Jones - the energetic, workaholic candidate who would squeeze three events in three different cities in the same day.

Moore, meanwhile, always seemed like the reluctant candidate. That's not to say he didn't want to win and become senator, it's just that he seemed to have a distaste for the pursuit of votes.

Roy Moore's campaign went dark immediately for weeks after defeating Luther Strange on Sept. 25, in the GOP primary runoff. 

At a sort of kickoff to his general election campaign on Oct. 28 outside of Decatur, Moore spoke for just seven minutes at a farm equipment business, gave an abbreviated recitation of his conservative social views and his audience - bundled in blankets on the cool night awaiting a country music concert - appeared largely unmoved.

From there, it was a third trip to Washington since defeating Strange - an awkward exercise, Moore's campaign said, where Republican leaders visibly gave the Alabama candidate the cold shoulder.

Then the sexual misconduct allegations bombshell landed on the campaign and Moore never recovered. He made a handful of appearances -- often in strangely remote small towns (Henagar, Dora, Jackson) but always seemed more concerned with dodging the media than in embracing his constituency.

He would quietly slip into a venue, often with a diversionary car - because of concerns about the media. He would make a speech and take no questions from the audience - because of concerns about the media.

And ultimately, he disappeared from campaigning altogether. He made just one public appearance over the last week before the election - the bash outside of Dothan on Monday along with former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon.

What else could Moore have done differently? Address the allegations head on.

Moore adamantly, vehemently denied he did anything wrong.

Given that fervent position, Moore should have conferred with his advisers, developed the answers they wanted to put forward in response to questions about the allegations and prepared to give those answers.

Then, Moore should have called a press conference, answered questions from the media for which he had earnestly prepared, then hit the campaign trail with a vengeance and without fear of more questions from the media or voters.

"I've answered those questions," Moore could have responded. "We're moving forward with winning this race and advancing President Trump's agenda."

But that didn't happen and maybe there is a reason it didn't. 

In fact, the day after the allegations broke, Moore did what was intended as a damage-control interview with Fox News personality Sean Hannity. And, simply put, it did not go well at all - a reality acknowledged even within the Moore campaign.

In the interview, Hannity asked Moore if he remembered dating girls as young as 17 or 18 years old when he was 32.

"Not generally, no," Moore said. "If I did, you know, I'm not going to dispute anything. But I don't remember anything like that."

The interview went so poorly that, days later, even Hannity himself essentially said he did not believe Moore's defense and demanded better answers within 24 hours. Moore obediently tried to comply, though Hannity appeared so unmoved that - after the much-ballyhooed exchange - he simply said that it was up to the Alabama voters to decide.

And on Tuesday, December 12, 2017, they decided.

They decided that the allegations mattered. They decided that Moore's campaign was more about his vision of how the world should be rather than an effort to see the world through the eyes of his voters.

And just enough voters decided - even if just barely - they didn't want Roy Moore as their senator.