GA-SEN 2022 Megathread: Werewolves and Vampires

[GALeftist]

Cringe

[GALeftist]

If Vernon Jones, Herschel Walker, Stacey Abrams, and Raphael Warnock all win their primaries (perhaps the modal outcome at this point), all candidates for Governor and Senate will be black. Pretty incredible.

[GALeftist]

Would be interested to hear from GA posters... my uneducated guess is that he’s stronger than some random MAGA step rep?

I suspect that the vast majority of Georgia voters do not know who this person is. He was a tad bit stronger that most Georgia Republicans in 2018, and I think he's certainly not their worst pick, but I would not go with him if I was the GAGOP

[GALeftist]

Very smart to remind people that you do NOT currently live in Georgia and have lived in Texas *for decades* yet think you're entitled to represent Georgia in the Senate...

https://twitter.com/HerschelWalker/status/1405530018902511616?ref_src=twsrc%5Etf...

Walker was born and raised in Wrightsville, Georgia. He has played for the University of Georgia where he broke records. He has represented Georgia on the national spotlight as an athlete.

Ask me if I care

[GALeftist]

If Walker becomes a senator with that… as his son then there is no justice in America

Ever heard of Hunter Biden?

Say what you will about Hunter Biden, but he is astronomically cooler than Chr*stian.

[GALeftist]

Source?

https://www.ajc.com/politics/politics-blog/in-final-week-gop-resurfaces-warnock-dispute-with-then-wife/76IGPSTIIJBDRMRBV4GKW7IMA4/

An examination of hours of police bodycam video reviewed by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution shows that three Atlanta investigators who responded to Ouleye Warnock’s 911 call said they found no evidence her husband did anything wrong.

The footage shows one Atlanta police officer saying that “I don’t think any intent is there” and a second officer saying “I don’t think he did it.” An official who inspected Ouleye Warnock’s foot said she didn’t see any visible signs of injury and expressed skepticism about her accusations.

Ah yes, that 100% disprove her beyond reasonable doubt. If an officer has a bad hunch about domestic violence and see no visible signs on her foot, that means it's "thoroughly debunked" and she isn't worth being listened to.

Interesting that for Warnock the burden of proof is completely reversed, meaning that people have to prove a negative or else the uncorroborated and somewhat dubious testimony of one individual is gospel, but for Herschel Walker a history of violent and unstable behavior corroborated by many people (including himself) is completely irrelevant. If you want someone with that sort of history to be half of your representation in the Senate, Woodbury, why don't you ask Walker to move to Virginia? He clearly isn't that attached to Georgia or Texas so you might have a chance.

[GALeftist]

https://twitter.com/FreeBeacon/status/1511417168633683972

Damn that's crazy. I wonder what Herschel Walker's wife has accused him of. Nothing that would make me want to invest in a knifeproof turtleneck I'd have to imagine

[GALeftist]

Ridiculously over inflated charges. Pathetic smear attempts.

The Church camp- Some teenage camp counselors acted badly, throwing urine on a camper. There is no indication Warnock knew about or condoned their actions. Warnock was arrested when he insisted the camp counselors, who were minors,  have either a parent or lawyer present when they were interviewed. When the prosecutor dismissed the charges he said "What we decided was there was some miscommunication that had occurred with them. They were very helpful with the continued investigation. It would not have been a prudent use of resources to have prosecuted them."

"Running over his Ex wife"-

Warnock was married to Oulèye Ndoye; they divorced in May. Until July, Ndoye served on Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms' executive team as the city’s senior human trafficking fellow.

Warnock called police to Ndoye’s Atlanta home shortly before 8:30 a.m. on March 2. According to a police report:  

Warnock said Ndoye accused him of running over her left foot with his 2014 Tesla while they were arguing in her driveway. Ndoye was reluctant to show her foot to the officer, who wrote: "I did not see any signs that Ms. Ouleye’s foot was ran over." Medical personnel arrived and were "not able to locate any swelling, redness, or bruising or broken bones on Ms. Ouleye’s left foot."

https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2020/nov/16/erick-erickson/no-proof-warnock-ran-over-wife-obstruction-case-dr/

The Plaintiff gave an interview to the Beacon that detailed Warnock's involvement in the abuse.  It's posted.  I don't ned you to post a fake fact-checker.  

The part you quote doesn't even disprove anything.  I've had my foot run-over and sustained zero damage.  The part about Ndoye, "Was reluctant to show her foot to the audience" is opinion.  All you did was repost Warnock's arguments.   That isn't fact.  

They were arguing.  It got heated.  He probably did run over her foot, and she may have thought it was an intentional attack.  She said she has been constantly abused by this Pastor, who had a history of running a camp in which he and the counselors under his supervision abused kids.  I saw the video of the police interaction.  I have no reason not to believe this lady cause I don't know her, but someone took those documents out of the records office on behalf of Warnock.  

You're probably not going to listen to me here, but please, for your own good and the good of those you love, try to look at this objectively.

If someone came in here waving a piece from the Palmer Report claiming that Ron DeSantis had assaulted a woman, you would rightly ask for some corroborating evidence. If someone were to say that they "have no reason not to believe this lady cause [they] don't know her," you'd rightly call that a patently ridiculous example of motivated reasoning cloaking itself in social justice. After all, if I were to believe every woman I didn't know, I'd be forced to conclude that Donald Trump is a pedophile! So ask yourself, what is the difference here?

The difference, I think you'll agree, is that in this case you dislike Warnock, so it seems plausible to you that he's capable of all this stuff, and you are therefore placing the burden on his supporters to disprove your account, rather than seeking to draw an account from the evidence. This is dangerous stuff! It's how people get roped into stop the steal nonsense, QAnon, or even conspiracy theories about how McConnell actually lost his Senate seat on the left.

Example: you wrote that "The Plaintiff gave an interview to the Beacon that detailed Warnock's involvement in the abuse." This is so false it actually makes me question whether you read the article. The article actually explicitly steers clear of saying anything of the sort, because they would probably be committing libel if they didn't. What they do do is detail abuse that happened at a camp run by a church where Warnock was the senior pastor at the time. However, in literally the subtitle of the article, they say that it was counselors who perpetrated this abuse. Warnock is not identified as a counselor in this or any other article on the camp. The piece also repeatedly implies that Warnock was in charge of the camp, since he was senior pastor, but never once explains to what extent he controlled what aspects of it. This is because they want to create a link between Warnock and the camp, and that link might be compromised if they actually provided any details on Warnock's involvement with the investigation, such as when Deputy State’s Attorney Tracy A. Gilmore stated that his arrest was the result of "some miscommunication" and that he was "very helpful with the continued investigation" (source). How exactly am I supposed to believe that he was guilty of anything other than the aforementioned miscommunication if all charges were dropped and he helped with the investigation? Because the WFB called it a "Warnock Church Camp" in their clickbait title? Do you see the problem here yet?

It's OK to be a conservative. There are lots of conservatives out there. But if you're discussing this stuff with other people who are by all accounts acting in good faith, please at least grant them the respect of being honest and forthright with them. You dislike Warnock because he is a Democrat; you like Walker because he is a Republican; even if a magical genie came to you and confirmed beyond all doubt that Walker really did threaten to kill his wife while Warnock never so much as ran over his wife's foot, that wouldn't change these opinions. I think this is a perfectly defensible position to hold if you axiomatically believe that the entire country will be better off with conservatives at the helm, which I assume you do. But you need to actually defend it. Please stop insulting the intelligence of others by repeatedly insisting that there's some equivalence here. Talk about what you actually care about.

[GALeftist]

I have maintained for a while that Walker is an awful candidate and the GOP would do better with literally anyone else. I guess now we'll see if I'm right!

[GALeftist]

inb4 "Heh, yet another thread full of elitist liberals in coastal major metro areas stuck so far in their own bubble they are unlikely to ever again see the light of day. Real Americans don't care one iota whether their candidate's brains have obviously been pulverized into a fine mist by years of college football. In fact, to these people, it is likely a greatly attractive feature of a politician to be utterly unable to produce a thought as or more complex than a grocery list."

[GALeftist]

Anecdotally I am hearing a disheartening amount of Kemp-curiousness from suburbanites who are grateful that he "stood up to Trump" but should know better, but an encouraging amount of people uncomfortable with electing some unhinged football player. I think there might be a wider gulf between GOV and SEN than I initially thought. Voters have the memory of goldfish .

[GALeftist]

We are all Herschel Walker's secret son on this blessed day

[GALeftist]

Am I the only one who doesn't see a problem with Walker having these other children? They weren't "secret", they just weren't publicized during the campaign, which is completely fine to do.

Isn't he, like, not in their lives?

[GALeftist]

Why is it that in 3 of the most key Senate races races, the GOP is nominating complete nuts that had clear problems even before the primary (GA, PA, and AZ)? Obviously, the GOP may still win all 3 of these races and one can argued their favored too, but they seem likely to run behind the baseline.

Some may argue that Ds holding the Senate doesn't matter if Rs still win the House (which they favored to do), and while there would be a brick wall in terms of policy, it would allow Biden 2 more years of appointments for things such as courts which is powerful.

Also RoJo really isn't acting like a Senator who's up for re-election in a swing state; he's heavily relying on the year carrying him. In 2018, sure people like Stabenow and Baldwin weren't particuarly being moderate heros, but at least they stayed on the downlow.

It is really very strange. My initial inclination would be to say that it's weird that better candidates didn't bite, but we all thought Brnovich was a favorite for the seat a couple years back and he's getting smoked. I think the more likely culprit is that the two forces which dominate Republican primaries are base fanaticism and personal loyalty to Trump, neither of which is particularly aligned with electability concerns.

This isn't necessarily a good explanation for Georgia specifically, though; as can be seen in the gubernatorial primary, the party here seems to be more less fanatical and less Trump dominated. I think a couple of factors came into play here: 1. A number of state figures who probably would have been great recruits otherwise, particularly Raff, Geoff Duncan, and Chris Carr, are now known primarily as RINOs after the 2020 hullabaloo, which would probably not help them in a primary, *especially* one where they don't benefit from incumbency; 2. Walker's name rec and Trump cred is a potent combination even in a state like Georgia; and 3. People didn't realize the extent of that influence when weighing whether or not to jump in; if you told people at the beginning of the campaign that Kemp would smash Perdue by north of 50 points and Raff would avoid a runoff, I think you'd have a lot more candidates taking a serious look at the race.

[GALeftist]

Honestly, I think attacking Walker has to be done strategically because otherwise it may come across as bullying to some.

Walker is, of course, a pitiable individual, even if that doesn't make him any more worthy of being in the US Senate; football was horrendously unsafe when he played, and given his mental issues he really shouldn't have been allowed to play. He definitely shouldn't have been put in a position where that was his most viable path to success in life. As such, I don't really think it makes sense to "bully" him. What would you even say? Everyone knows it isn't his fault, but it's still relevant when thinking about who should be our Senator.

The people who should really be bullied, imho, are the Georgia voters who want to unseat a perfectly good incumbent for a man clearly in need of serious mental help because partisanship so fully controls their thought at this point. Most of them have no excuse.

[GALeftist]

I think Herschel Walker will win 25% of blacks.

You didn't by any chance come to this conclusion after a long and thoughtful discussion with your family friend's nephew's roomate's distant cousin, did you?

[GALeftist]

https://twitter.com/HenryJGomez/status/1564940868737433602

FINALLY. Pull no punches

[GALeftist]

Whatever you think of Herschel Walker, this is sad to see. No family deserves to go through this sort of turmoil as there's a drive into deep left field by Castellanos and that'll be a home run. And so that'll make it a 4-0 ballgame.

[GALeftist]

So... no debate now?

Please please please please please debate please please please please please

[GALeftist]

Whatever you think of Herschel Walker, this is sad to see. No family deserves to go through this sort of turmoil as there's a drive into deep left field by Castellanos and that'll be a home run. And so that'll make it a 4-0 ballgame.

I think this was a little flippant, so I'd like to offer an apology. I had thought that Christian Walker was willfully ignorant of the abuse Herschel Walker had put so many women through; now, it is clear that Christian, too, was a victim. I hope he finds justice and peace for himself and his mother. I also hope that Herschel Walker finds help to deal with his issues; at the same time, it is unfortunately quite clear that he is not worthy or capable of serving as our Senator, a fact which I would hope both parties would be able to see but which I know that only one will.

[GALeftist]

You see the GOP having 60+ senate seats along with a house majority and president? I sure as hell do not. They would need at least 62 seats. Collins and Murkowski would not vote for it and even in their wildest dreams if that were to ever happen I do not see any form of national ban taking place. State bans are much more likely which is why I would think someone from GA who is more concerned about abortion would vote against R's in the governors race and not the senate race.

You don't think the Republicans would nuke the filibuster for this? I agree it's unlikely that the Republicans get to be in a position for a national ban in the foreseeable future but it's way greater than the likelihood that Abrams can do anything about our restriction on her own, sadly. If anything I think this is a point in favor of voting D for AG, Jen Jordan could probably do more on the abortion front than Abrams.

[GALeftist]

That is such a coincidence, because I just spoke with God and He told me that He in His grace forgives any perceived slights against any extant form of Christianity by Warnock or indeed any Democrat notwithstanding their lack of contrition, so there's no need to whine about abortion or prayer in schools or whatnot anymore, I assume.

[GALeftist]

Tactical nuke. Good lord

[GALeftist]

Remember when Herschel Walker was a surprisingly good, down-to-earth candidate who coastal elitist liberals were underestimating according to online conservatives? Pepperidge Farm remembers.

[GALeftist]

This is going from bad to worse

Reporter: You said that if this did happen, there's nothing to be ashamed of.

Walker: Wait, I never said it.

Reporter: You said it this morning on Hugh Hewitt's show.

Republicans should cut Walker loose at this point, but they will not. Many of them are doubling down on their support for him, as they see Walker as a reliable vote for their policy priorities. This is precisely the reason why Trump overwhelmingly won the white evangelical vote, and the votes of most Republicans who did not like him personally.

They believed that policy was more important than morality. And this is why Walker will still garner ~45% or more of the vote in Georgia, and why the race could still be headed to a runoff. Why would a Republican voter abandon Walker for this scandal when they see Warnock and Democrats as promoting abortion on demand with taxpayer dollars?

This kind of goes to show that many of the most annoying pro-lifers like baseballcrank and his ilk at the National Review/Federalist are straight up lying when they say they think abortion is murdering a baby. I should know, I know many people who genuinely believe this. Like, I believe they think it's bad, but it is simply not the case that they genuinely believe that a zygote is equivalent to a baby.

The reason I know this is that they find it exceedingly easy to vote for someone who they ostensibly believe financed the murder of his infant child and is pretty transparently not repentant. Like, you can justify it if you believe that Warnock will kill more babies indirectly, but none of them seem particularly concerned about wrestling with this at all. I mean, check out this quote from David Harsanyi for the Federalist:

"Without the slightest hesitation, I would support a sociopathic constitutionalist, prone to debauchery and lying, over a chaste family man who believes in a collectivist or authoritarian philosophy. The latter’s bad ideas have generational consequences. I don’t care if he takes his kids to soccer practice every day."

This is the type of argument you make to justify, like, voting for Bob Menendez despite his corruption or voting for David Vitter despite his soliciting a prostitute. Comparing infanticide to not taking your kids to soccer practice is completely insane if, in fact, you genuinely believe that abortion is murder, which Harsanyi does not, no matter what he says or even thinks.