One week from tomorrow, December 12, Alabama voters go to the polls to vote for a replacement for Senator Jeff Sessions who was appointed U.S. attorney general. According to a CBS News poll, Republican Roy Moore is leading Democrat Doug Jones by 6 percentage points — 49 percent to Jones’s 43 among likely voters.  In the same poll, 71 percent of Republican voters say that the allegations against Moore are false.  This, despite all three major Alabama newspapers speaking out against Moore and supporting Jones.

However, it’s time to remember the rich and positive history of Alabama:

Beginning with Harper Lee’s ethical hero Atticus Finch in “To Kill a Mockingbird,” followed by Hall of Fame baseball players Hank Aaron and Willie Mays; civil rights leader Ralph Abernathy; singer/entertainer Nat “King” Cole; author/teacher Helen Keller; jazz great Lionel Hampton, heavyweight boxing champ Joe Louis and Supreme Court Justice Hugo Black.

Alabaman William Crawford Gorgas was Surgeon General of the U.S. Army (1914-1918) and best known for his work in abating the transmission of yellow fever and malaria.

And when it comes to football: 17 national champions – 15 for the University of Alabama, 2 for Auburn, including four in a row from 2009-2012.

Let’s not forget the space program, led in the 60’s by Werner von Braun’s team. “The engines that carried Americans to the moon,” writes AL.com, “were designed and tested in Huntsville. And when United Launch Alliance was looking for a place to put its rocket assembly plant, where engines are integrated with the rest of the rocket, they chose Decatur.”

The three black, female mathematicians, Katherine Goble, Mary Jackson and Dorothy Vaughan – the subject of the film Hidden Figures – successfully handled the complex calculations that sent and returned the first astronauts from space.

“With Alabama’s great space heritage,” AL.com points out, “it shouldn’t be surprising we know how to train astronauts. Among this small, elite group of professionals, six astronauts and six past directors of Kennedy Space Center have graduated from Auburn University, two from Troy University and another astronaut graduated from the University of Alabama. Auburn astronauts include Ken Mattingly, C.C. Williams, Jan Davis, Kathryn Thornton, Hank Hartsfield and Jim Voss, while James Kelly graduated from Alabama. William Gregory and Kevin Kregel received advanced degrees from Troy University.”

With such a rich history of individuals and accomplishments, citizens of Alabama are better than Roy Moore.

Save your passion, Alabamans, for someone who deserves it; for someone who represents the best in your state, not the questionable, not someone who places their own judgments above federal laws, common sense, and allegations of misconduct from multiple women.