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Article snippet: MONTGOMERY, Ala. — The first public whiff of the drama came two years ago, with a surprise divorce filing by the governor’s wife of more than 50 years. A surreptitious, salacious recording surfaced months later. Then, this past April, Gov. Robert Bentley of Alabama, a Republican, resigned under the threat of impeachment over his relationship with a close aide. It was only this week, though, that Alabama’s in-house sex scandal made its mark on national politics, convulsing the Republican Party and shutting down the Senate career of Luther Strange, a former state attorney general who many here once believed would become a Capitol Hill fixture. Instead, Mr. Strange may be little more than a historical footnote, his tenure derailed, in part, because he accepted Mr. Bentley’s appointment to an open Senate seat while he oversaw an investigation into the governor’s office. Although some of Mr. Strange’s defeat in Tuesday’s Republican primary runoff, at the hands of the evangelical jurist Roy S. Moore, can be traced to frustration and fury about the machinations of Washington, the senator struggled mightily to move beyond unproven suspicions that he and Mr. Bentley had cut some kind of corrupt deal. “The Bentley controversy shook the people of Alabama at their very core,” said Angi Stalnaker, who managed one of Mr. Bentley’s campaigns for governor. “All of our corruption up until now had been our own private family embarrassment,” she said. “Unfortunately for Senator St... Link to the full article to read more