Ten Commandments Judge Battles Bomb Victim’s Son in Alabama Race

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-10-18/ten-commandments-judge-battles-bomb-victim-s-son-in-alabama-race.html

Roy Moore, the Republican candidate and leading contender for chief justice of the Alabama Supreme Court, delivered a speech this week on some of his favorite topics: God, greed, guns, lust, hypocrisy and the Constitution.

The U.S. Constitution “is a restriction of the fallen nature of man,” Moore, 65, said. “And when you have a fallen nature, you succumb to greed and lust, which you can see in our government.” Following the speech at the Birmingham Kiwanis Club, which received 10 seconds of scattered applause, audience members declined to speak about Moore’s candidacy.

Alabama attracted international attention nine years ago after Moore was ousted as chief justice for defying a court order to remove a five-ton granite monument of the Ten Commandments from his courthouse. Despite the notoriety, Moore is poised to win back his old job, even absent the kind of business donations that have made Alabama Supreme Court races the most expensive in the U.S. The race exemplifies the grip the Republican Party now has on the country’s Deep South.

In Alabama and much of the region, even a disgraced Republican is now better than none, Natalie Davis, professor of political science at Birmingham-Southern College, said in a phone interview.