What Does Warnock’s’ Win Mean?

After several long and hard-fought campaigns and five elections in two years, Senator Raphael Warnock is now finally a full-fledged Senator for a term of six years. To refresh memories, first, he had to win the Democratic primary in 2020, then he had to win in the general election. However, he failed to get over 50% of the vote in that race, which forced him into a run-off election. On January 5, 2021, he won that election to fill the remaining two years left after the previous Senator resigned because of ill health. So, now in 2022, Warnock was running for his first try for a full six-year Senate seat from Georgia. His win will make the Senate 51-49 - Democrat/Republican and give the Democrats the upper hand in committees and the agenda.

The former president selected a University of Georgia football star and Georgia native, (Herschel Walker) who once played for his football team, and later the Dallas Cowboys. He was a handsome candidate who still looked like the athletic football player he once was. With MAGA support, he won the Republican primary, despite rumbling from other Republican candidates that there were some skeletons in his closet. Once on the campaign trail, where he often went off script, he soon showed that many of his claims were fabrications or exaggerations. He said he graduated from the University of Georgia; he did not. He said he had been an FBI agent and worked in law enforcement; nope. He said he was a major employer in the state; he had six employees. He said he lived in Georgia; his primary home was in Texas, according to tax records.

Those comments don’t even come close to the issues of domestic violence, claims that he paid for former girlfriends to have abortions, even though he ran on an anti-choice ticket and the revelation about several children he previously had not acknowledged. He never adequately addressed the abortion claims, nor the claims about children or his residences. These behaviors were behind him, according to the accounts in his book. He wrote a book about his illness, recovery and religious conversion that he said made him a new man. (Well, at least he was better than Dr. Oz; he seemed to know where his houses were, although, like Dr. Oz, wasn’t always certain where he really lived.)

Then there was the concern that he had little understanding of the issues. Some claimed that he was tackled too many times as a player and had signs of traumatic brain injury and just made-up stuff because he did not remember. He even said on the campaign trail he was not so smart. But then one day he went way off script and started discussing the difference between werewolves and vampires! (These comments made for great ads from his opponent.)

Although the former president was advised to not come to Georgia and campaign for Walker, many others did. Republican Senators and congressmen came to Georgia and went on the campaign trail with Walker. They emphasized his vote would be a faithful Republican vote and that he would stand with Mitch McConnell and help keep the Senate in play with a 50/50 split. In the general election, Walker trailed Republican Governor Kemp by approximately 200,000 votes in the General election, leading pundits to assume there was a lot of ticket-splitting or lost voters then, that they hoped to avoid in the run-off, by bringing Republican voters back home.

Now I’d like to compare the two candidates here for a bit. Senator Raphael Warnock is also a son of Georgia. He is one of twelve children and grew up in Savannah with a father who was also a preacher on the weekends but held another job to care for his family. Warnock graduated from Morehouse College in Georgia, where he was a member of the Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, and Union Theological Seminary in New York, where he received a Master of Divinity degree and finally a Doctorate in Philosophy in 2006. For several years, he was the head pastor at the Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, the church home for Dr. Martin Luther King.

In his campaign, he tried to emphasize positive themes and spoke of what he had done for Georgia; how he worked across the aisle with Senator Cruz on a vital highway and with Senator Rubio on issues for maternal health. (Despite that, Cruz campaigned with Walker.) He ran as a candidate for All Georgians. In the general election, he fell just shy of the necessary 50% of the vote required in Georgia. (Many believe that officials put this requirement in place to ensure that black candidates could not win in close races across the south.) He won 49.4% of the vote and Walker won 48.5% of the vote with a third-party candidate winning about 2% of the total votes.

In the Run-off Warnock prevailed–finally coming in victoriously with 51,4% of the vote to his opponent’s 48.6% total. He gave a gracious and grand acceptance speech where his rhetoric soared to the oratorical spheres common to the clergy. In his speech, Warnock spoke of his mother who had once picked other peoples’ cotton but who today could pick her son for Senator. Speaking of the racial history of his state, even recently still troubled, he praised Georgians for coming out to vote, standing in long lines, and through bad weather to cast their votes. He won with black voters, independents, and a diverse group of supporters. Democrats are concentrated in Georgia’s urban centers but live throughout the state. Maps of voters show most counties skewed red, while the cities were blue. Blacks account for only one-third of the voters in the state, so both candidates had to reach out to all voters. Metro areas in Georgia are becoming increasingly diverse and young and hold most of the AAPI and Hispanic voters in the state.

Why was the race so close? One candidate was so clearly qualified; the other is so obviously unqualified. Was Walker another of DJT’s jokes on the country? Republicans chose Walker because the MAGA folks wanted him and they thought it would be more of a contest between two Black candidates. However, they did Walker no favors and could ultimately only point to choosing him because he would support their side in the Senate. Although they refrained from saying so, their candidate was almost a figurehead who would ultimately be without free choice.

Caroline Randall Williams, (a poet and writer in residence at Vanderbilt University) writing in the Atlantic about the contest, called Herschel Walker an American tragedy. Consider her remarks seriously. I have and with her, I condemn the Republican Party for its cynical misuse of an American life. I have copied a few of her comments below, but read the entire article if you can.

“Commodity. Chattel. Contraband. Capital. What is a Black body in the South? What is a Black southern man, carted out to work a white-owned field?.....It’s impossible today to talk about Black men and white agendas without talking about Herschel Walker, the Republican candidate for Senate in the runoff election in Georgia. …..Walker’s candidacy is a fundamental assault by the Republican Party on the dignity of Black Americans. How dare they so cynically use this buffoon as a shield for their obvious failings to meet the needs and expectations of Black voters? They hold him up and say, “See, our voters don’t mind his race. We’re not a racist party. We have Black people on our side too.” Parading Walker at rallies like some kind of blue-ribbon livestock does not mean you have Black people on your side. What it means is that you are promoting a charlatan—a man morally and intellectually bereft enough, blithely egomaniacal enough, to sing and dance on the world stage against his own best interest. Is he in on the joke? Does he know they picked him to save money on boot black and burnt cork, this man who made his name by bringing the master glory on the master’s field, who got comfortable eating from the master’s table?

I’ll ask again: What does it mean to be a Black man in the South, working a white-owned field?.....I don’t particularly care that Herschel Walker doesn’t seem to know he’s being used. I care that America let it get this far, that this country has been wildly careless with Black bodies, Black stories, Black truths. I care that I’m watching the news every day with the foot of bigotry on my back and the noose of regression tightening around my throat.

Whoever wins today, Walker’s candidacy is an American tragedy.”

‘Til next week, Peace!