Ah-hoo, Werewolves of Georgia

You really have to hand it to Republicans.  They went all out on Herschel Walker the past four weeks with many prominent GOP senators visiting Georgia in an effort to bolster his candidacy.  In the end, he will be remembered most for his werewolf meme.  While such comments are comedic gold, they only served to prove how incredibly unfit the former football player is for public office.  

It goes without saying that the Republican Party finds a new bottom in each election cycle. This is what happens when you let Donald Trump call the shots.  Any other Republican probably would have unseated Raphael Warnock.  Kemp won the governor race by a relative landslide back in November, but it wasn't enough to drag Walker over the goal line, as Chris Christie put it.  Just enough Republicans couldn't bring themselves to vote for Walker, including the state's Lt. Governor, who called Herschel "one of the worst candidates in our party's history."  I suppose he meant Georgia, as there were plenty other very bad candidates on the GOP national slate this time around.

Not that long ago, the Republican Party was seen as the smartest of the two American political parties with more college-educated voters, but they have slipped considerably over the last 25 years and now only 39% of GOP voters have college educations.  No matter.  Louisiana Senator John Neely Kennedy says not to vote for those "High IQ people."  

It seems the intellectual tide turned for Republicans when Dixiecrats jumped the Democratic ship during the Reagan era.  These former Southern Democrats have literally dumbed down the GOP to the point it now openly embraces its ignorance on everything from global warming to reproductive rights.  

It wasn't just Herschel's low intellect that was at stake in this run-off election.  He carried a hefty load of baggage that was dragged out on the campaign trail for all to see, and it wasn't pretty.  Of course, Republicans tried to counter by making the Rev. Raphael Warnock look like a philandering priest who would set his Bible down for any woman with long legs, but it didn't work because they had nothing to show for it.  By contrast, Walker's former paramours pulled out check stubs and greeting cards that proved he had paid for their abortions, which Walker was eventually forced to admit.  

Still, the guy came within three percentage points of beating Rev. Warnock.  This shows that the overwhelming majority of Republicans would vote for a fetus before they would vote for a Democrat. 

The amazing part is that these Republicans have done nothing to earn any respect in Congress.  Look at Tommy Tuberville, the Alabama Senator who unseated the Democrat Doug Jones in 2020.  He's done virtually nothing the past two years except pad his investment portfolio.  He was the former football coach at Auburn.  He had no record of civil service of any kind.  He was just a proxy for Republicans hoping to regain the seat they lost in 2017 when Doug Jones beat the notorious Judge Roy Moore for Jeff Sessions open seat after he went to serve as Trump's Attorney General.  Moore as an assistant attorney general trolled shopping malls for teenage girls.

Congress is littered with such cretins, especially in the House, which Republicans have turned into a mosh pit.  You have trailer trash like Marjorie Taylor Greene and Lauren Boebert heckling Democrats at every turn.  Pedophiles like Matt Gaetz and dumb Crackers like Louie Gohmert that really make you wonder how the Republican Party could have sunk so low.  The Senate was once seen as a step above this riff raff, but here too you have unsavory characters like John N. Kennedy and Tommy Tuberville, who were among the seven GOP Senators to vote against certification of the 2020 electoral college after the attempted insurrection.  Almost all of them from the South.

In the past, such persons would have been thrown out of Congress, but we are much too lenient these days.  The pedophile case against Rep. Gaetz is still pending, as is the investigation into how many Republican Congresspersons actively encouraged the insurrection.  There is no attempt within the party to rebuke these rogue members.  Hell, the GOP won't even admonish Donald Trump who recently called for parts of the Constitution to be "terminated" so that he could be reinstated as President.  

Walker is perhaps the most biting loss for Trump, as he had been pitching the former NFL running back ever since Warnock won the special election in 2020.  Trump and Walker go back to the time Donald owned the New Jersey Generals USFL team.  The Generals drafted Heisman trophy winner Walker out of college and hoped that he and a few other marquee players would allow the upstart league to challenge the NFL.  Like everything else Trump touched the USFL turned to shit. The football league was finished within three seasons. Walker eventually landed in Dallas, where he had a good career.  He even made his home in Texas, claiming it as his primary residence on his tax records this year, which called his Georgia candidacy into question.  Election officials chose to look the other way.  They didn't want to upset Trump after his stinging defeat in 2020.

So many Congressional elections have become nationalized.  We saw the same thing in Pennsylvania, where long-time New Jersey resident Dr. Oz ran for the open Senate seat against John Fetterman.  At least Oz was smart enough to register his primary home in Pennsylvania.  The hope was that these high profile candidates would overshadow homegrown candidates but that didn't turn out to be the case.  Oz suffered a humiliating defeat despite his nationally recognizable name brand.

The worst part about it is the incredible sums of money that are poured into these campaigns.  $400 million was spent on the Georgia Senate election, even after there was no chance the Republicans would retake the Senate. Their hope was to split the chamber so that they could evenly split the committees, wanting to stall Biden's judicial appointments.  For the cadaverous Mitch McConnell this is his number one priority.  He doesn't care who fills the Republican seats as long as they vote no.

It really is like something out of a horror movie.  Republicans go out of their way to restrict civil liberties by using their appointed conservative federal judges to undermine the Constitution and give more power to corporations than to people.  Democrats manage to beat back the most profane GOP candidates but there are plenty others who slide through like slithery little eels. Rick Scott is a prime example.  This guy was in charge of the Senate elections this year and tried to make it about his proposed Social Security and Medicare restructuring only to suffer ignominious losses. Walker was just a sideshow. One used to take our minds off the much more nefarious schemes the Republicans have in mind.

At least Georgians can breathe a sigh of relief.  One less werewolf to worry about.  It's also nice having Rev. Warnock back in Congress.  A fine upstanding man who will make the state proud.  Every once in a while decency prevails.