Ten Commandments Judge To Lose Race for Governor

I'll go ahead and call this one right now - Judge Roy Moore will lose his bid for governor of Alabama:

Roy Moore, who became a hero to the religious right (but not to me-HC) after being ousted as Alabama's chief justice for refusing to remove a monument of the Ten Commandments from the courthouse, announced Monday that he is running for governor in 2006.

Moore's candidacy could set up a showdown with Gov. Bob Riley, a fellow Republican, and turn the Ten Commandments dispute into a central campaign issue in this Bible Belt state.

One issue candidates are rarely successful, and this one issue is not going to persuade voters to throw out the sitting Republican governor - especially a governor who handled the recent hurricane disaster fairly well. People are a lot more concerned about whether the government can help them in a disaster than whether they can put the Ten Commandments in their local park.

I can't help but think this is kind of a vanity candidacy which was probably caused by too many people telling him how important he is. His main campaign problem is going to be the fact that on TV (as was the case in his news conference announcing his decision to run) he comes across as the most rigid of rigid fundamentalists. I just can't believe that's going to play well with all but a small part of the electorate.