Herschel Walker's celebrity GOP candidacy is as cynical as it gets
In 2004, the Republican Party needed a candidate to run against a young up-and-coming state senator from Illinois running for the U.S. Senate. Barack Obama’s GOP opponent, Jack Ryan, had unexpectedly dropped out of the race after a sex scandal. After scouring the country and hearing “no” from former Illinois Gov. Jim Edgar, former Chicago Bears coach Mike Ditka and other people, Republicans somehow landed on former GOP presidential candidate Alan Keyes, a Harvard-educated former ambassador and assistant secretary of state during the Reagan years who happened to live in Maryland.
Consider the blatant political cynicism of the GOP’s recruiting an out-of-town, old-timey Black superstar with no political experience.
Last year, the Republican Party realized it would need a candidate to run against Raphael Warnock, the senior pastor of Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, who is now seeking a full six-year term as senator after having won the seat last year in a special election runoff. Republicans somehow landed Herschel Walker, a football legend and Heisman Trophy winner at the University of Georgia, who happened to live in Texas.
Consider the blatant political cynicism of the GOP’s recruiting an out-of-town, old-timey Black superstar with no political experience to come home and play upon white voters’ sense of nostalgia and football pride. Consider the awfulness of Georgia Republicans’ hoping that the color of Walker’s skin and memories of his touchdowns would peel off just enough Black voters to help white Republicans squeak out a victory over Warnock and the Democrats.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/herschel-walker-s-celebrity-gop-candidacy-is-as-cynical-as-it-gets/ar-AAXHaYv
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