The Maine Senate race is far from the first time that an American political party has had to choose between character and power. In 2017, Alabama Republicans nominated a state supreme court judge named Roy Moore for U.S. Senate. A month before election day, The Washington Post published a report that when Moore was a 32-year-old assistant district attorney, he initiated sexual contact with a 14-year-old girl. Three other women alleged that Moore had also pursued them while they, too, were underage.