Posted on 10/09/2005 9:30:58 AM PDT by Crackingham
Gov. Bob Riley, who on Saturday announced his bid for a second term, holds a 19-point lead over ousted Supreme Court Chief Justice Roy Moore among likely voters in the 2006 Republican gubernatorial primary, the results of a new statewide survey suggest. The Mobile Register-University of South Alabama poll showed Riley with 44 percent and Moore with 25 percent. The remainder were undecided. The results mark a dramatic turnaround from January, when a similar Register-USA poll found Moore leading the governor 43-35 in a hypothetical GOP contest.
The findings also defy what was once the prevailing political wisdom in Alabama: that Riley, weakened after voters drubbed his billion-dollar tax plan in 2003, would be a one-term governor and no match for Moore, a hero among religious conservatives after being removed from office in 2003 for his refusal to move his Ten Commandments monument out of the Alabama Judicial Building rotunda.
"This is surprising," said USA political science professor Keith Nicholls, who directed the poll. "I'm not sure what to make of this margin. I suspect a big part of it has to do with the positive national exposure Gov. Riley has gotten with the hurricanes. ... Moore has not been out front on much of anything lately."
saved by a hurricane
Moore should stick to writing books and the speaking circuit.
What qualifies this man to be Governor? Aren't there cases where he was less than fiscal in his Supreme Court office?
I suppose a campaign that primarily uses rambling speech about the Lord Almighty is the fast-track to rejection, this side of the Taliban I suppose.
Uh, all you need to know about Mr. Moore is, he is a trial lawyers dream, and he is at the heart of their new strategy, which is to form an alliance with the Religious Right, the same kind of strategy that first brought trial lawyers to prominence in the 1920s, a strategy that remained in Alabama politics until the Folsom-Wallace era.
Just know that Terry Butts is good friends with Jere Beasley and Butts has been a key impetus behind Roy's career as of late. If Roy is elected, Alabama has no chance of losing our status as tort hell.
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