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Does Character Trump Representation?

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At stake today is the U.S. Senate seat in Alabama between two candidates of opposite ideologies. Also at stake is the broader question for Alabama voters who must decide: How will we govern ourselves? By a system driven by innuendos and accusations, or by due process?

In American Greatness, Chris Buskirk covers the “salicious claims” against Republican candidate Roy Moore “stemming from events alleged to have occurred nearly 40 years ago.”

The timing of the claims—they have never surfaced during any of Moore’s prior statewide (and similarly controversial) campaigns and did not come up during the primary—makes their motivation and perhaps their veracity suspect. But this is not a defense for Roy Moore or an excuse for or justification of what he is accused of doing in the late 1970s. I have no way of knowing what happened in rural Alabama all those years ago. And neither does anyone else who was not directly involved.

What is apparent, however, is that accusing Moore after the primary was designed to kill his candidacy and prevent the Republican Party from choosing a replacement—thus handing the precious Senate seat to Jones, who would have absolutely no chance of winning otherwise. Alabama went for Donald Trump by 28 points, after all. Dirty tricks are nothing new in politics. But this level of cynicism is destructive of republican government because it consciously seeks to deprive the citizens of Alabama of a senator who would accurately reflect their political principles.

The Democrat candidate, Doug Jones, supports the party’s Marxist agenda and would be an energetic supporter of the entire Schumer-Pelosi agenda. Jones is all for Obamacare and on board for expanding government-funded abortions. He also would restrict both the 1st and 2nd Amendments.

Chris Buskirk brings up the bigger issue: Justice. “The focus has been on the private matter of Judge Moore and his accusers, but the citizens of Alabama and of the country also have a claim for justice in this election that in most ways supersedes, or at least preempts, the others.”

Voters also realize—better than our public intellectuals—that justice requires a process focused on a full airing of facts and time to assess them in context. The Roy Moore hit job—and that’s what it was whether the allegations turn out to be true or false—was timed and calculated precisely to avoid a full airing of facts. It sought political advantage, not the truth. Rewarding that would also be a miscarriage of justice.

Today, voters go to the polls where they must rely upon “reflection and choice,” and vote for the candidate that represents their views. Voters understand that it is about how the senator they elect will vote.

Read more from Mr. Buskirk here.

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Debbie Young

Debbie, editor-in-chief of Richardcyoung.com, has been associate editor of Dick Young’s investment strategy reports for over three decades. When not in Key West, Debbie spends her free time researching and writing in and about Paris and Burgundy, France, cooking on her AGA Cooker, and practicing yoga.