Assuming Moore stays in the race, however, his candidacy may have a clarifying effect on the GOP. Having ignored their former insistence on the importance of personal character and nominated an unprincipled hooligan to be president of the United States, Republicans—Alabama GOP voters and Washington’s Republican commentators and politicos—will have to decide if they still think character doesn’t matter as long as you cast the right votes and make the right enemies…

Moore’s support among GOP commentators and officeholders looks tenuous, too. The GOP’s Senate campaign arm has severed ties with the Moore campaign, a great many Republican and conservative observers have called on Moore to withdraw, and members of the Senate GOP caucus have endorsed the idea of running a write-in candidate. True, some reliable defenders of anything thought to be anathema to the GOP “establishment,” whatever that is, still seem conflicted on the subject: Hannity expresses ambivalence, and his Fox colleague Laura Ingraham says Democrats have done worse, which is true though irrelevant. But by and large Republicans seem decided: Roy Moore should spend his remaining years doing something other than pursuing a career in politics.