The judge who hit the headlines by refusing to remove a monument of the Ten Commandments from his Alabama courtroom is planning a run for the White House.
Republican Roy Moore, who was removed from his post as chief justice of the Alabama Supreme Court by an ethics panel in 2003, confirmed the move in a series of interviews, the
Des Moines Register reports.
"I've been asked by many people, for years, about running for president, and I have not done so. I think that it's time to explore that possibility," Moore told Reuters news agency.
Moore, 64, joins a crowded race of potential GOP candidates all hoping for a shot at taking down President Barack Obama in the 2012 election. He has visited Iowa four times in recent months and is in the middle of a six-day tour of the first-in-the-nation caucus state.
Moore, a West Point graduate who served in Vietnam, will be considered a long shot in the Republican race for the nomination but says his family values stance — anti-gay marriage, against repealing don’t ask, don’t tell — hits a nerve with conservatives. On don’t ask, don’t tell, he said: “I know that homosexuality is not conducive to the military mission and I have no qualms about that.”
Moore's
website proclaims: “Strong national defense, smaller government, lower taxes, and personal responsibility are key components of a successful and prosperous society.”
Moore became a cause celebre in 2003 when he was ordered by a Federal Court to remove the granite monument from the state Supreme Court’s central rotunda. When he refused, a state ethics court unanimously removed him from his post. Since then, he has lost two attempts for the Republican nomination for Alabama governor.
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