Obama: Herschel Walker is a ‘celebrity who wants to be a politician’, you know

AP Photo/Akili-Casundria Ramsess

Desperate Democrats deployed former President Barack Obama to Georgia on Friday to try to energize the base to get out and vote for Stacey Abrams and Raphael Warnock. He focused on attacking Republican candidate for Senate Herschel Walker.

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Democrats are looking at a strong red wave coming ashore on November 8 and their grip on power in Congress will be over. Nancy Pelosi will be out as speaker of the house and Mitch McConnell will likely be Senate Majority Leader, shoving aside Chuck Schumer from that powerful position. Early voting is underway in Georgia and as of Friday night, a record 1,392,849 have cast their ballots.

A Washington correspondent for the Atlanta Journal Constitution (AJC) said on CNN that Obama is useful for Democrats to use to encourage people to get out and vote because he lends credibility and Democrats believe he tells the truth. That’s ironic, right, since Obama was fact-checked while he was in office and regularly was found to be lying. He was awarded the Lie of the Year for his whoppers about Obamacare in 2013. Nonetheless, he’s really the biggest name in Democrat politics and is still the most popular among Democrats even though he’s been out of office for six years. The Democrats’ bench is shallow – what other big gun do they have to send out on the campaign trail to get out the vote? Biden is as unpopular in Georgia as he is across America.

Obama drew a crowd of about 7,000 people packed into an arena just steps away from Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport. That’s a crowd Joe Biden can only dream about. Obama was appearing with both Stacey Abrams and Raphael Warnock. He encouraged the people to vote all the way down the ballot, not just for the top races. Obama focused on criticizing Herschel Walker because, well, what else was he to do? Stacey Abrams is about to be a two-time loser in her challenge against Republican incumbent Governor Brian Kemp. Kemp is popular for how he handled the coronavirus pandemic in Georgia and keeping businesses open when other states remained in lockdown mode. Senator Raphael Warnock has served an abbreviated term in office, thanks to being elected in a special election during a blue wave election cycle. Now he is running for a full term. He has no legislative accomplishments to point to. He votes for Biden’s agenda 100% of the time. He’s a back-bencher who has doubled his personal wealth in office but I don’t think that’s a winning message for him.

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David has a fun post up today about Stacey Abrams and her gigantic ego that refuses to accept defeat. You know who else has a huge ego? Barack Obama. That is why it’s so delicious to hear him accuse others of such things. He told the crowd that Herschel Walker is “a celebrity to who wants to be a politician.” The irony in that statement is that Barack Obama is a politician who wants to be a celebrity. He was elevated to celebrity status during his time in the White House and celebrities were regular guests at the Obama White House. Michelle Obama held regular live performances by musicians and singers to entertain the Obamas and their guests. Sports stars stopped by and we were even subjected to Obama’s annual picks during March Madness.

Now, though, Obama is criticizing Walker because he has never held political office yet is running for the Senate. He made a veiled attack on Trump, because, of course he did.

The former president noted that “Herschel Walker was a heck of a football player.. one of the best running backs of all time.”

“Does that make him the best person to represent you in the United States Senate?” Obama asked the crowd, which resoundingly responded “no.”

The former president charged that “in the case of Rev. Warnock’s opponent, there is very little evidence that he’s taken any interest, bothered to learn anything about, or displayed any kind of information towards public service, or volunteer work, or helping people in any way. At least we really don’t know about it. And that does make you suspect.”

And pointing to both Walker and his close friend former President Donald Trump – who was best known as a reality TV celebrity and real estate mogul before turning to politics and succeeding Obama in the White House, Obama argued “seems to me he’s a celebrity to who wants to be a politician, and we’ve seen how that goes.”

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Why, yes, Barack, we do know how that goes. Trump was a business man who brought in a lot of other business people who helped him produce an economy that was red hot and benefited every demographic of the population. Jobs were plentiful, inflation was historically low, small business creation was booming, and food and gas prices were low. America was energy independent for the first-time ever. Things were good until the pandemic, which had nothing to do with Trump’s performance as president. The ugly little secret is that it doesn’t necessarily take a politician to do the job of running the country. Trump was also able to not start any wars while he was president. Democrats are still obsessed with Trump because they have little else to run on. Joe Biden, a career politician, has pushed us into an abyss. Biden destroys everything he touches.

The Washington correspondent for the Atlanta Journal Constitution said, “Herschel Walker has the same kind of Teflon that former President Donald Trump has.’ She was referring to the fact that the voters the Democrats thought would turn on Walker haven’t done it, despite a new allegation from a client of Gloria Allred. The press is happy to make references to Trump to slam Republicans when they can.

Obama asked who would keep Georgians safe and tried to make a case for Warnock by using a gun-grabbing example.

Obama, pushing back against repeated GOP campaign trail attacks in recent months charging that Democrats are soft on crime, asked the audience “who will fight to keep you and your family safe?”

He touted that Warnock was someone “who worked with President Biden to pass the first major gun safety legislation in nearly 30 years,” and knocked Walker as “somebody who carries around a phony badge and says he’s in law enforcement.”

Walker has been criticized for overinflating his law enforcement credentials and was called out at his singular debate with Warnock two weeks ago for flashing an honorary police badge when the debate rules prohibited any props.

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The badges Walker carries are given to him as honorary badges from Georgia law enforcement departments. They aren’t “phony badges.” It was during the Obama administration that the Black Lives Matter movement took shape, starting with the death of Michael Brown in St. Louis in 2014. Obama regularly weighed in with criticism for law enforcement. Maybe he should skip that part of his rally speech.

Trump is not on the ballot and Democrats have nothing to run on. Barack Obama has to parachute into the states that may change the majority in the Senate because the House is already lost. The only hope for Democrats is to save their majority in the Senate and that is slipping away from them as election day approaches and voters focus on what is important. It’s the economy, stupid, to quote James Carville. Obama’s former vice-president has so botched everything that now he has to do what he can to turn things around. It’s too little, too late.

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David Strom 10:30 AM | November 15, 2024
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