One measure of how concerned the Republican party leadership is about the possibility of wacko judge Roy Moore winning the Alabama primary today is that they have decided to go flat out in support of their man Luther Strange.

The White House and senior Republicans are deeply worried about Sen. Luther Strange’s chances in Tuesday’s GOP runoff here — even after unleashing the full weight of the party machinery to stop his opponent, flame-throwing conservative Roy Moore.

With Strange on the ropes and time running out, the party has launched a coordinated, scorched-earth campaign to take down Moore. The sheer breadth of the anti-Moore campaign has stunned Alabama’s political class: It includes non-stop TV ads, a meticulously-crafted get-out-the-vote effort, and detailed, oppo-research-filled debate prep sessions for Strange.
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Much of the assault has played out on the air. During the final week of the contest, a trifecta of pro-Strange GOP groups — the Senate Leadership Fund, U.S. Chamber of Commerce, and National Rifle Association — flooded the state with about $2.5 million in TV and radio ads. The barrage against the underfunded Moore went straight at his character: One Senate Leadership Fund spot portrayed Moore as a lifelong politician who had used his prominence as a former judge to cash in for himself.

The NRA has put out ads suggesting that Moore is ‘weak on gun rights’, a potent allegation in a state like Alabama. So naturally in response Moore dressed up like a cowboy and brandished a gun at his rally. Yes, folks, American politics at its finest.

At the same rally Steve Bannon, who was a close Trump advisor until recently, blasted the Republican leadership and the party establishment.

In a thundering 20-minute speech Monday night that was partly a rally for insurgent Senate candidate Roy Moore but equally a declaration of war on the Republican Party hierarchy, Bannon made clear that this next act of his political career could make the Republican civil war of recent years look tame.

“For Mitch McConnell and Ward Baker and Karl Rove and Steven Law — all the instruments that tried to destroy Judge Moore and his family — your day of reckoning is coming,” Bannon said, referring to the Republican Senate leader and a trio of prominent GOP strategists backing incumbent Sen. Luther Strange. “But more important, for the donors who put up the [campaign] money and the corporatists that put up the money, your day of reckoning is coming, too.”
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Bannon said mainstream Republicans behind Strange’s campaign regard Alabama voters as “a pack of morons. They think you’re nothing but rubes. They have no interest at all in what you have to say, what you have to think or what you want to do. And tomorrow, you’re gonna get an opportunity to tell them what you think of the elites who run this country!”

“Mitch McConnell and his permanent political class is the most corrupt, incompetent group of individuals in this country!” Bannon said to loud applause.

The Republican leadership and Donald Trump are running some risks is coming out so strongly for Strange and against Moore. If Moore does win the primary despite the onslaught and ends up in the senate, he will have even less loyalty to the party leadership than he had before and may relish the opportunity to thumb his nose at them, because behavior in Congress is more and more like that of a children’s playground, only less polite. Moore is a neophyte when it comes to national political issues that do not involve religion and he is likely to depend on people like Bannon.

Moore will be as extreme as the rest of the Republicans but also someone who says incendiary things all the time. In short, he will be the senate counterpart of Texas congressman Louie Gohmert.