"...a desperate attempt to hold on to his political appointment at all costs..."
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Sen. Luther Strange, R-Ala., picked up on a line of attack against Judge Roy Moore on Tuesday that a super PAC affiliated with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., launched earlier this month in a half-million dollar attack ad campaign.
In a Tuesday press release entitled, “Luther Strange Lays Out Alabama’s Clear Choice,” the Strange campaign charged Moore with being a career politician who “has made a career out of profiting off of public service and sticking tax payers with the bill.”
“Roy Moore, who has spent 40 years putting himself and his ambition ahead of Alabamians,” the Strange campaign said. The release also contended that Strange will be a vital ally to President Donald Trump in draining the “swamp.”
Trump has endorsed Strange, but has appeared to take a step back from engaging in the race.
As reported by Western Journalism, the Senate Leadership Fund also accused Moore of being greedy. It claimed that because Moore was unsatisfied with his high-paying job as the chief justice of the Alabama Supreme Court chief justice, he and his wife “took” a million dollars from a charity Moore had started.
Birmingham NBC affiliate WVTM fact-checked the ad and found it to be false.
The Moore campaign told Western Journalism that Roy Moore was paid just over $530,000 over an eight-year stint as director of The Foundation for Moral Law, an average of about $67,000 per year.
Additionally, Roy Moore did not receive a salary from the foundation while serving as Alabama’s supreme court chief justice, but only from 2005 to 2012, when he was not on the bench.
After Moore returned to the bench for his second stint as chief justice, his wife, Kayla, began working for the foundation, and received a salary of $65,000 in 2013.
The foundation is not a charity, but rather a non-profit corporation, which engages in litigation in defense of religious liberty and public education in the relationship between God and government.
The Moore campaign countered Strange’s release with one of its own. Moore’s release refused to apologize for his public service, which includes being a West Point graduate, Vietnam War veteran, county prosecutor and judge, as well as chief justice.
The release noted, “When not in public service, Roy Moore has been a small-time rancher and the President of a legal foundation that battled liberal groups like the ACLU and the Southern Poverty Law Center — Luther Strange was swimming in the swamp as a Washington lobbyist.”
“Roy Moore is a crusader who sacrificed two political jobs because he would not compromise his principles — Luther Strange betrayed his principles and let his greed get to him,” the campaign added. “He wanted to be a senator so badly he sacrificed his integrity by taking a Senate appointment from disgraced Gov. Robert Bentley, a man he was supposed to be investigating for criminal acts.”
“Honestly, this (attack by Strange) just reeks of a desperate attempt to hold on to his political appointment at all costs,” the Moore campaign said.
Bentley was forced to resign two months after appointing Strange in February, as he was under threat of impeachment for allegedly using state funds to cover up a sex scandal.
Strange sought the appointment while serving as Alabama’s attorney general, despite his office investigating Bentley for criminal conduct at the time.
Just weeks before seeking the Senate seat late last year, Strange asked the Alabama House Judiciary Committee to suspend its impeachment inquiry of Bentley, saying it would interfere with his investigation.
A Harper Polling survey released this week showed Moore with a narrow lead over Strange: 47 to 45 percent.
But two other polls released earlier this month following the Aug. 15 primary both found Moore with an 18-point lead, carrying about 50 percent support to Strange’s 32 percent. One of the polls, put out by JMC Analytics, nearly predicted the correct spread on primary election day.
Breitbart reported the Senate Leadership Fund has secured $2.3 million in advertising space to run between now and the Sept. 26 runoff, but whether that ad money will play a decisive role is not clear.
“An analysis showed Strange and his allies spent $30.24 per vote on advertising, while Moore spent only $1.77 per vote,” Breitbart reported, referring to the Republican primary, in which Moore garnered 39 percent support, compared to Strange’s 33 percent.
Alabama conservative political commentator Quin Hillyer predicted Strange and his allies will run a “harshly negatively and deceitful campaign.”
“The attacks from the Senate Leadership Fund against Roy Moore are so out of context as to amount to a vile and vicious smear,” he told Western Journalism, referring to the “Wanted More” attack ad run during the primary.
On primary election night, Moore made a similar prediction as Hillyer, saying, “Let me warn you about what is about to happen and the news media had better beware: They are going to present the most negative campaign ads in the history of Alabama.”
The SLF spent $4.2 million during the primary election cycle, at least $2.5 million of which went to attack ads against Congressman Mo Brooks and Moore.
SLF director and former McConnell chief of staff Steven Law has pledged to spend up to $10 million to seek to elect Strange.
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