WHEN FORMER Alabama supreme court chief justice Roy Moore speaks in sympathetic venues, he is "treated like a rock star, signing autographs and getting thunderous standing ovations," according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Moore's cult following (as well as his newly unemployed status) has prompted some of his more zealous supporters to suggest that Moore take his show on the road and run for president in 2004.
Moore, of course, became a household name after he erected a two-and-a-half ton monument of the Ten Commandments on public property (the rotunda of the Alabama state judicial building) and then last year defied a federal judge's order to remove it.
Earlier this month, the Wall Street Journal's John Fund dedicated a column to the possibility of a Moore candidacy on the ticket of Howard Phillips's Constitution party. The Constitution party has the third-largest number of registered voters in the United States and was on the ballot in 41 states in 2000. If Moore gets "on the talk shows and stir[s] up conservative voters," Fund wondered, could he pose a threat to Bush in a close race, as Ralph Nader did to Al Gore in 2000?
Alas, the world will never know. Moore emphatically denies that he will challenge Bush this year, "period." Constitution party bigwig and sometime presidential candidate Phillips is an "old friend," says Moore. But the party's candidate for this cycle has already been selected, Phillips says. In fact, he "personally counseled [Moore] not to declare for office at this time."
Instead, Moore tells me, ...
