The speculation began immediately after the U.S. Senate special election ended the night of Dec. 12.

Would Roy Moore run for governor?

He's done it before and he would theoretically have time to make his case before the June 5 Republican primary that will not feature an incumbent.

But just as the speculation began and fostered inevitable rumors, there has been no indication whatsoever that Moore is planning to jump back into a high-profile political campaign.

The only certainty is that the final decision time is hours away.

The qualifying window to be placed on the ballot for the Democratic and Republican primaries closes at 5 p.m. on Friday. After that, a candidate's only option to land on the ballot would be to run as an independent - a daunting task that would require thousands of signatures on a petition.

Efforts to reach Moore for this story were not successful.

While the speculation has centered on Moore running for governor, that's in part because he is not eligible to run for judicial office. He has twice been elected chief justice of the Alabama Supreme Court, including most recently in 2012. But Alabama law prevents anyone over the age of 70 being elected to a judicial position. Moore turns 71 on Sunday.

Moore, of course, is not just any political candidate and even if he remains silent and the qualifying window closes, it will be news that he indeed will not be running for public office in the 2018 election cycle.

He emerged from a crowded field of 10 GOP candidates to win the Republican nomination in the special Senate election last year to fill the seat vacated when Jeff Sessions became U.S. attorney general. That nomination included a Sept. 26 runoff victory over Luther Strange - nominated to fill Sessions' seat until the special election - by 10 points.

And Moore immediately was considered the favorite to defeat Democrat Doug Jones in the general election on Dec. 12 in a contest between two candidates who not only were polar opposites in their political views but in how they ran their campaigns.

Of course, Moore is also not the same candidate as the one who won the GOP nomination - his public image forever changed in November by the accusations of sexual misconduct that fatally wounded his bid for the Senate.

Moore has repeatedly denied the allegations, saying he didn't even know the women.

Even with that scandal and a largely absentee campaign, Moore still received 48 percent of the votes from the more than 1.3 million ballots that were cast. In fact, there were more write-in votes cast (22,852) than was the difference between Jones and Moore's votes (21,924).

Those numbers might suggest that if Moore jumped into the governor's race, he would be a formidable opponent.

Is there a chance he's planning a dramatic, last-minute announcement?

Moore appears to still have a taste for politics. His Senate Facebook page is still active and Moore hasn't shied from sharing his views. On Jan. 29, he posted a link to a National Review story about the Senate voting down a bill to pass a 20-week abortion ban.

"A shame and a disgrace for a great majority of people in Alabama who believe in the right to life as stated in our Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States!" Moore commented on the link.

Jones was among the Democrats who voted down the bill.

He also posted his opposition last month to a bill in the Alabama legislature calling for the end of marriage licenses.

"We need to take a stand for holy matrimony and defend our laws as defined by God and the Constitution of Alabama," Moore posted on Facebook.

But while Moore's political stances may not have faded, there are other indicators - beyond the fact that he hasn't launched a campaign yet - that suggest Moore has no appetite to run for office again.

First is money, or lack thereof. Moore has sent emails to supporters in recent weeks asking for money to help fight a defamation lawsuit brought by one of his accusers, Leigh Corfman. The email, sent in late January, said that Moore had "very minimal" resources and is needs at least $250,000 for his lawsuit defense, according to The Associated Press.

That lawsuit would seemingly be another reason Moore may choose to shun the public spotlight and avoid a gubernatorial campaign. His lawyers have asked the judge for a hearing on a series of court filings and, should that hearing be granted, it would likely be a media spectacle.

Finally, it appears that Moore's band is breaking up. Longtime aide Rich Hobson, the campaign manager in the Senate race, has announced a bid to run for Congress.

Either way, the answer will be known by 5 p.m. Friday. The news may come in silence as the qualifying deadline comes and goes. But the silence will say a lot.