Herschel Walker.
The Herschel Walker story is not about the abortion - whether there was one and if so, who paid with purported receipts or whether rape was involved. The Walker story is really none of those things.
The real Herschel Walker story is how in hell someone who apparently is totally unfit, morally bankrupt, intellectually challenged ever got to be a major political party’s nominee for the U.S. Senate!
There have been many other unqualified folks nominated for various elective public jobs over the years but, to my recollection, none so much as Walker. The man cannot tie together two complete sentences on any subject. Watch him - listen to him on CSPAN, Fox or in any other forum - it’s painful to your ears. And completely nonsensical. Just gibberish.
Republicans in Georgia are relentless in their zeal to prop him up from whatever his latest public pratfall. And there’ve been dozens. They’re working overtime to tell reporters Walker didn’t mean what they just heard him say - buying up all the advertising space they can to paint some flattering-but-unreal images of a guy who couldn’t be flattering under any condition.
The GOP is stuck with the most outrageously, demonstrably wrong and totally dim-witted candidate since - since - well, since the first public election for anything.
While Walker may be all those things and more, it’s not his fault he’s under the bright lights of media and public scrutiny. Rather, he’s the result of right-wing inbreeding in a political party that’s been closed to honest intellectualism, deep thought about any subject and which has repeatedly rejected anyone not adhering to political thinking just to the right of Attila The Hun.
In short, Walker - with the blessing of one D. Trump - is the one Georgia Republicans “brung to the dance†and they’re stuck with him.
Republicans have done this to themselves. Any attempt, post-election, by that Party to downplay what happened if Walker loses will be just so much B.S.. They created his candidacy - they and they alone.
But, here’s what’s truly outrageous in the Walker story. Nearly all polling - nearly ALL - shows Walker and Democrat Rev. Raphael Warnock tied or within the margin of error. It’s astounding that Walker, and what he represents as the future of Georgian Republicanism, could be perceived to be the political - much less moral - equal of Warnock.
Warnock is the polar opposite or all things Walker. He’s a man of God with no stories of abortions, payoffs or other hidden behaviors. He’s an intellectual. He’s articulate in both public and private settings. He got through college with no athletic scholarship.
I mean, c’mon here. We’re talking apples and oranges.
The Walker candidacy is, by no means, the only one of significant unsuitability. There are others. Many others. Legislative, statewide offices, dog catcher, etc.. Like Walker, many reflect what has become of the close-minded, far-right side of Republicanism.
In several states, candidates for Secretary of State openings are election-deniers of our last national free-for-all in 2020. And, winners of those SoS contests will be the vote counters of the 2024 election. The likely next governor of Arizona also rejects the official outcome of our last presidential election. And she ain’t alone!
It’s taken about 65 years for local John Birth Societies, Liberty Lobbyists and other splinter, far-right groups to extend their grasp of Republican machinery to the national party. They’ve been in the trenches, doing the grunt work and pushing, pushing, pushing Party regulars to the sidelines all this time. And now, the GOP is theirs.
Their dominance won’t end with our next election. Or, the next. It will take far longer for those of responsible Republican thought to wrest back control. It’ll be a tough slog for awhile. The extent of the far-right culture is top-to-bottom in a lot of places. It took many years - and many elections - for that control to change hands. So, it will take many subsequent years - and many subsequent elections - to get things back to some moderation.
We need that to happen. Call it a “purge,†if you will. A healthy, viable, responsible Republican Party is needed by all of us. We’ve lost the honest pull-and-tug of ideas in our political marketplace. We’ve allowed ourselves to be splintered by the “my-way-or-the-highway†politics of what the GOP has become.
I’m sure there are Republicans in Georgia for whom a Herschel Walker Senate candidacy is an embarrassment. There have to be. And those of similar GOP “Herschels†in other races in other states, up and down the ballot.
It’s up to those Republicans - in Georgia and elsewhere - to take back control. If they’re not successful, the likes of a Herschel Walker will have to be referred to as “Senator Walker†in the future.