Roy Moore still has a brand.

Mistake

The Roy Moore situation shows what happens when you damage your brand.

But he may be OK.  He didn't totally break it.

The political world of the past two years is an extended case study on branding.

Donald Trump entered the race with a brand established.  He was a rich New York real estate mogul, a high living playboy business tycoon with beautiful wives, and a decisive manner willing to make decisive changes.  "You're fired!"   He added to his brand the birther insult of Obama, which endeared him to Republicans.  Then, when he announced, he fleshed out his anti-immigrant, pro-native born American base by insulting Mexican immigrants (Mexico doesn't send its best.  Drugs. Rapists. Criminals.)  

Trump had his brand.

When he did "bad" things that caused Republicans officeholders to shudder, it didn't hurt him. They actually helped him.  In the Judge Curiel incident, his having said judges of Mexican heritage could not be fair to him confirmed his brand as a spokesman for white grievance against outsiders having been given status and power.  In the Access Hollywood tape of sexual entitlement he was confirming his brand as a person with power, unconstrained by political correctness.  If he could do that to women, just think what he could do to Mexico or maybe even China.

Inconsistent with brand as one "Fighting For Us."

Hillary damaged her own brand.  Hillary's own actions--speeches to Goldman, crony gifts to the Clinton Foundation, the special email server--all tended to undermine the brand she had worked to develop for 40 years, that of the dedicated liberal advocate for the underprivileged.  Sanders and Trump pointed out the inconsistency.  The notion of "Crooked" stuck.  She and her opponents broke her brand.

Roy Moore was removed from office twice for offenses against his public duty, a major offense and a major penalty. He openly did an unconstitutional act of establishing a religion by putting a granite statue of the Ten Commandments in his courthouse, and he openly defied federal law regarding same sex marriage.  These acts--and his getting punished for them--helped him politically.  He didn't hide his actions.  He celebrated them. They confirmed his brand as a Christian cultural warrior.  People liked him for it.  The punishment he endured proved his sincerity.

Does his dating and and allegations of assaulting young women destroy his brand?  

No, not quite.

It reduces his brand but does not destroy it.  His brand had been to be a good man who was a fearless fighter for traditional cultural and religious values.   Now he is like Trump, a flawed man who is a fearless fighter for those values.  Moore, unlike Trump, had claimed to be virtuous  The new revelations hurt Moore because it shows hypocrisy, and a change in brand.  But that is only half his brand, and his base is familiar with Christian hypocrites.  Everyone is a sinner.  People can avert their eyes.  However, the Christian warrior part of his brand is intact, perhaps stronger than ever, since he is set upon by outsiders who presumably don't share Christian values, Alabama values.

Someone presumably hoping to help him has seen up a false flag opponent, by revealing robot-calls purportedly from the Washington Post.  The calls are fake, claiming to be "Bernie Bernstein," outsiders cynically offering to pay women to come forward for $5,000 in cash.  It fits the Moore narrative: Jewish yankees, paying people to lie about him.  In the face of angry opposition from secularists and "establishment" people and from political enemies on the political and cultural left, he remains a warrior for Christian values.  The choice is between him and an abortion-tolerating Democrat, and between an Alabama Christian and a liberal Jew.   

It is not just "who do you believe?"  It is also, "who wears your jersey and who wears the opposition jersey?"

Here are three predictions.

1.  Sean Hannity will call for Moore to drop out, but he will not.  This will exacerbate the difference between Fox News and Breitbart.   Moore will seek vindication at the ballot box.. 

2.  Donald Trump will essentially defend Roy Moore by saying that it is up to the people of Alabama to decide who they believe and that if they want to send a good Republican vote  to the Senate it is their choice.  

3.  Roy Moore will win the election and Republicans like Mitch McConnell will stop talking about it and quietly accept him as an erratic gadfly who votes with them on nearly everything important to them.  Republicans need his vote.