The rise and fall of Judge Roy Moore

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Hidden voters
Moore’s campaign contends that the current polls don’t accurately reflect all of the Christian conservatives who will vote for him. “Judge Moore is difficult to poll because of his broad base of support,” says his spokesman J. Holland. “We’re not concerned with polls. We don’t have faith in polls.”

Joe Perkins, a Democratic political consultant whose client Moore defeated in his 2000 race for Alabama chief justice, agrees that the strength of Moore’s support is sometimes hidden. Perkins says his candidate ran a perfect race, and he thought they could win on Election Day. But Moore won, 54-46 percent. “It was largely because there were people who voted that don’t usually vote.”

This time around, however, Perkins doesn’t believe that a huge turnout among Moore’s supporters can compensate for his 50-point disadvantage in the polls. “It is hard for me to think it would make up for this huge disparity.”

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One-issue candidate
Observers like the University of Alabama’s Stewart argue that Moore is trailing because he has been unable to broaden his support beyond Christian conservatives. Moore won his judicial races, Stewart adds, because Alabama voters often believe that morals, values, and religion are key attributes they want in their judges. But for their governors, he says, they want something more.

“One-issue candidates are notoriously unsuccessful for that very reason,” says Amy Walter, who tracks political races for the nonpartisan Cook Political Cook. She said that the dozen or so Democratic Iraq war veterans running for Congress this year are examples of one-issue candidates who haven’t fared well.

But Moore’s supporters contend that it’s false to label him as a one-issue candidate. In fact, the mission statement on his Web site states that Moore advocates term limits for state legislators, fewer legislative sessions, returning control of education to parents, lower taxes, and closing the border to illegal immigrants. Still, Alabama voters best know Moore for his Ten Commandments monument.

Indeed, his campaign’s first television ad of the race, which was released last week, shows videotape of the 2003 Ten Commandments controversy. “It was never about the monument … or the Ten Commandments,” the ad’s narrator states. “It was always about the recognition of God as the sovereign source of our laws, liberty, and government!”

The Riley factors
While the polls show that Moore’s political fortunes are on the decline, Gov. Riley’s are reaching highs that many wouldn’t have thought possible after his tax-increase plan went down to defeat at the beginning of his first term. But since then, the state’s economy has improved, producing a surplus and a low unemployment rate. He also received credit for his handling of Hurricane Katrina, especially compared with how leaders in Louisiana and in the federal government handled it.

“Roy Moore hasn’t proved to the people of Alabama that he can keep on doing what Gov. Riley has set in place,” says Riley campaign spokesman Josh Blades.

The winner of the Riley-Moore primary on June 6 will face either former Democratic Gov. Don Siegelman or Democratic Lt. Gov. Lucy Baxley in the fall. (Siegelman is currently facing a trial on corruption charges, and his trial isn’t expected to conclude before the primary.) And political analysts give the edge to Riley in the general election.

But, no matter what the polls say, Moore hopes to make believers out of everyone two weeks from now. Holland, Moore's spokesman, says: “He’s just an unpredictable candidate, and I think you’ll see that on June 6.”

Mark Murray covers politics for NBC News.

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