Democrats Have to Choose Between Character and Power
The Maine Senate race is far from the first time that an American political party has had to choose between character and power. In 2017, Alabama Republicans nominated a state supreme court judge named Roy Moore for U.S. Senate. A month before election day, The Washington Post published a report that when Moore was a 32-year-old assistant district attorney, he initiated sexual contact with a 14-year-old girl. Three other women alleged that Moore had also pursued them when they, too, were underage. Asked on Sean Hannity’s radio show whether he had ever dated underage girls, Moore replied, “Not generally, no.” Then a fifth woman stepped forward to accuse Moore of sexually assaulting her in her teens. Four days after the Post story broke, local Alabama media reported that it was common knowledge in the area that Moore stalked teenage girls—so flagrantly that a local mall banned him from setting foot on their property. By Moore’s own account, he had become interested in the woman he subsequently married when she was in her mid-teens and he …
