At this point, there's no conceivable rumor about Alabama Senate candidate Roy Moore that can be dismissed as too far-fetched. If asked if he was a vampire during his early 30s, Moore would likely answer "not generally, no," and claim innocence because he asked permission from the parents of his victims before he dined on their flesh.But the Moore imbroglio has set up an interesting contradiction for Republicans nationally: Their best-case scenario if Moore refuses to exit the race actually demands that Alabamans vote for an alleged pedophile. In fact, the worse things get for Moore, the better the chance that incumbent Republican senators can escape this horrific episode with dignity.
Moore's evident predilections for young girls have put Republicans around the nation in an untenable position. If Moore were to lose the seat to Democratic challenger Doug Jones, the GOP majority would slip to 51, making it tougher to keep promises like tax reform. But if Moore were to win, the Republican Party would be saddled with a likely pedophile within its ranks — typically a sub-optimal message for a party facing crucial midterm elections next year.There is one thing certain about the Alabama election coming up Dec. 12: Moore's name will be on the ballot, as it is too late to reprint all the materials and early votes already have been cast. Further, his recent statements have gotten more defiant, suggesting he will not drop out of the race. Perhaps Moore soon feels enough heat and ends his campaign in time for Republicans to field a plausible alternative, but even if he does, his name will remain on the ballot and likely suck away enough protest votes to doom any GOP alternative.
Thus we have the "Moore Paradox:" If he refuses to quit the race, the best way for Republicans to get rid of Roy Moore requires voting for him.If Moore were to win, the Senate could then move to from the 100-member chamber, which takes a two-thirds majority . If all 48 non-Republicans (including independents Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Angus King of Maine) supported Moore's expulsion, only 19 Republicans would be needed to send Moore packing. At that point his temporary replacement could be chosen by Alabama's Republican governor, Kay Ivey.Thus, the seat would remain in Republican hands, while Republican senators could claim the high road in expelling someone so unfit to hold such an important office. And if things got even worse for Moore in the upcoming weeks (for instance, incontrovertible evidence of his vampirism or that his campaign had been secretly funded by Harvey Weinstein), the Senate would have even more cover to toss him out.But this strategy isn't without risk. For one thing, it would require Republican senators to show they possess backbones, never a safe bet when an internecine GOP struggle bubbles up. Further, expulsion is almost never used; it was when a group of senators pledged allegiance to the Confederacy. Finally, it would be more difficult to make the case for overturning the results of a recent election when Moore's faults were known before voters went to the polls. As Jonathan have noted, expelling a U.S. senator over decades-old allegations would be unprecedented.Yet we are already in uncharted territory, and Senate removal seems like the last card Republicans have to play to escape this morass. On Thursday, Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., suggested that there were enough GOP votes to expel Moore should he win the election. “I really seriously doubt that Judge Roy Moore would be serving as the United States senator for very long,” Johnson told CNN, “so he just needs to ."Sure, Republicans could try to launch a last-minute write-in campaign on Election Day, but such an effort would require more coordination than is possible in the span of a few weeks. Importantly, voting began on Oct. 18, so a large slice of the vote is already in, which puts a last-minute write-in at a large disadvantage. But the early start to voting actually bolsters the case for Senate expulsion, as the Moore allegations became known three weeks after voters had begun casting early ballots.As I argued last week, Republicans are in this predicament because they 
; but now that they're here, the GOP might as well go all-in. As journalist Peter Arnett expressed in quote he attributed to an unnamed American soldier in Vietnam, "we had to destroy a village to save it."If Republicans want to make Roy Moore a distant memory and save the party, they better get out their torches and burn this sucker to the ground.