This is a Victory Today.

 

Thank you, Georgia. We did it again. pic.twitter.com/jikuO5Kt8S

— Reverend Raphael Warnock (@ReverendWarnock) December 7, 2022

I am so pleased that the good people of Georgia saw their way through and voted for a good man over whatever Herschel Walker is. You have a good senator and escaped a whole strata of nonsense. It's a triumph of competence over heavy partisan promotion.

UPDATE: Here's a pretty good recap of the 2022 Georgia Senate race, but I do have a bone to pick:

Mr. Walker’s loss will almost certainly lead to soul-searching for a Republican Party that must decide heading into the 2024 election how firmly to tether itself to a former president who has now absorbed powerful political blows in three successive campaign cycles. 

"Almost certain"?  You would think so, you really would, but counterpoint, even if they do, how honest is the party willing to be about their messaging and their appetite for "Celebrity Apprentice" candidates like Walker and Dr. Oz? 

In other things the GOP should re-think: prioritize getting people to vote over complaining about voter fraud. (After all--where has election-denial gotten them?)

As for Democrats--the takeaway should be to run as Democrats and form coalitions of voters who are motivated by the promise of good government and dedication. But Warnock's still-close win feels like it is in many ways more attributable to an impossibly awful Republican candidate in a state which, even with two Democratic senators, is still so red.  

Herschel Walker in the House

 

Sometimes when we want to define a thing, we ask "What do you call it when it is at home?" If you wanted to define Herschel Walker (recognizing his pronoun is not that of a "thing" even if he proclaims no understanding of what a pronoun is) , I can tell you readily what to call Herschel Walker when he is at home:

A Texan. 

But the real reason I'm envisioning Walker in his house is because that is where he seems to be envisioning himself. In the basically tied US House (or Senate--hard to say):

In a brief interview with POLITICO on Saturday, Walker seemed to mistake which chamber of Congress he was running for and also appeared to think the outcome of his race would determine control of the Senate.

“They’re not [less motivated] because they know right now that the House will be even so they don’t want to understand what is happening right now,” he said of voters. “You get the House, you get the committees. You get all the committees even, they just stall things within there. So if we keep a check on Joe Biden, we just going to keep a check on him.”

This is a C- effort on a Civics quiz. It's a whole F as far as someone actually running for the Senate goes. As in W. T. F.

 He really does not seem to know what he's running for. And yet, I still think (while I'm optimistic for Warnock) this will be close and it's a shame that Warnock has to be purely exemplary, and a Republican can go ahead and be...this. 

Herschel Walker's Final Pitches

 

As we get closer to run-off erection day in Georgia, I think it behooves us to consider the man, the candidate, the father, the phenomenon, that is Herschel Walker, who said out loud where people could hear that young voters (those under 31) are like immigrants and have no business voting to try and affect things.  That's a weird message to have when young voters could be deciding this election.  

But then again, he's also the person whose campaign decided right on the heels of a shooting at an LGBT nightclub that a transphobic ad was entirely on point. 

The problem I have with all of this isn't that he will probably lose--but that he's a candidate at all and I am forced to say "probably". The Republican party, as currently constituted, gives absolutely no fucks whatsoever about the quality of their candidates, only having the quantity to retain some kind of power.

They could run a cardboard standee. It would be less trouble than the actual Herschel. 

The guy lives in Texas, he's got a series of broken homes behind him, and he wants to be a werewolf. 

I am not sure I can even WT enough AFs about this candidacy. I will say the RNC is weak and useless and can't vet or influence winners and lets capricious monied arseholes run weird dark horse bets because why the hell not? Who cares? It's only our democracy. 

It's tragic.

UPDATE: Also, he lives in Texas if I didn't mention it (I mentioned it). He isn't so daft he doesn't know where he lives, right? He just doesn't live where he is running for office. 

Somehow, the RNC and the former president who endorsed him did not pick up on that. Or care. Either/or.

The GOP Are Who We Think They Are

 

So, when news broke that Herschel Walker was accused of having paid for an abortion and there were receipts, I knew instantly: that wouldn't move the needle. After all, Walker has been rambling in public with sentence fragments that make no sense at all, has claimed multiple personality syndrome, has admitted to holding a gun on his ex and even playing Russian roulette, and has make various statement about his college career, sports, his charity, and what he even does for a living, that are frankly, just not true. 

And the polls vs. current GA. Sen. Raphael Warnock are still awfully close. Republicans have a very high tolerance for fuckery when it comes to people with an "R" after their name. 

I mean, you could look at Roy Moore as an example, or Trump after the TMZ video and multiple allegations of sexual harassment or assault. But it isn't just about sexual allegations. I mean, Steve Bannon conned anti-immigration conservatives out of their money over "Build the Wall" and he still has support. Alex Jones is lying grifter, and he has support. The GOP still has a big tent, it's just really looking a lot like a sideshow. 

So, the image about is from a prayer held over Herschel Walker the very next day wishing him protection and support. The GOP circled the wagons at once and his campaign had record fund-raising. He was clearly a VICTIM! of a vicious left-wing smear of the kind that was entirely true but why did anyone have to be a bastard and TALK about it? Including his conservative son, who had finally reached his limit on discussing his father's messy as hell personal life, and understandably so. 

Dana Loesch probably put it best when she said:

"I don’t care if Herschel Walker paid to abort endangered baby eagles," she said. "I want control of the Senate!"

Loesch went on to dismiss the significance of the Walker abortion claims in even starker terms.

"If the Daily Beast story is true, you're telling me Walker used his money to reportedly pay some skank for an abortion, and [Sen. Raphael Warnock] wants to use all of our moneys to pay a whole bunch of skanks for abortions," she said. "So, it doesn't change anything for me!"

It doesn't matter what kind of person Walker is, he's a Republican. And even if he was fucking around and paid for an abortion, it's the girlfriend who is the skank (that feels revealing). And "all of our moneys" to fund abortion--she isn't really considering abortion murder so much as the kind of health care she would rather not fund. Not that conservatives ever want to fund medical care. 

Eric Greitens is a Sociopath, and Sociopaths Should Not be in Office

 

None of us are brand-new here, so Eric Greitens' game of doing a big shooty-shoot ad is definitely for the signifying: he gets to get free media because it will be covered extensively, he gets CANCELLED BY THE SOCIAL MEDIA because there is a disclaimer on his post now, and he gets to turn around with a shit-eating grin and say "Aw shucks folks, why are you so heated? Can't you grasp a metaphor?" 

Which is good for him and all, except that he actually is a sociopath. Like, the documentation on this guy being a person who should not have custody of guns, kids, or like a whole state is very out there. He literally bound a woman up in a basement and took blackmail porn of her. He had to vacate the office of the Governor of the state he is now trying to run for US Senate in. He allegedly beat his wife and children. But there is just so much more to the Eric Greitens story. 

If other people want to play this game, hey. it's free speech, even if it's a bit despicable to encourage violence. Especially in today's climate, when elected officials are receiving death threats and paying for increased security. If you are Eric Greitens and people know you are a shabby person with violent tendencies, wow. great job highlighting that. Except we've gone through the looking glass on the right, haven't we? Encouraging violence isn't the bugbear it used to be in the olden days. And even being an admitted domestic violence practitioner doesn't seem to be a barrier to one's poll numbers.  

And apparently, a certain type of woman has no problem backing him. A low-quality sort who associates with obviously deranged people, you might say.

"What I like to do is see it...."

 

Asked if he believes there should be new gun laws in the wake of the Texas shooting, Georgia Senate GOP nominee Herschel Walker told me in ATL: “What I like to do is see it and everything and stuff.” He didn’t engage further. pic.twitter.com/wpsAZ7yKP5

— Manu Raju (@mkraju) May 25, 2022

There are some people who aren't especially good with their words, but do actually have a grasp of the issues and will do something about them, and Herschel Walker is not one of them. I genuinely feel like the people who are working on his campaign are committing some kind of political malpractice. This man lies about things he's actually said and it almost feels like he does not remember either what he said or details of his own life. So how is he going to honestly do anything for anyone else?