"Just Win, Baby!"
Immorality, ignorance, lying, and hypocrisy no longer disqualify Republican candidates for electoral office.
“Just win, Baby,” a phrase originated by Al Davis, the late NFL coach and executive, has become the slogan of the Republican Party. Or, perhaps, Republicans would prefer Vince Lombardi’s “Winning isn’t everything; it’s the only thing.” (The legendary NFL coach was not the first to utter the motto, but it is identified with him.) Not for the contemporary GOP is the dictum of Grantland Rice, the early 20th century sports writer, who declared that winning or losing was not important; what counted was “how you played the game.”
How else to interpret Republican electoral machinations geared to suppressing the vote of groups likely to cast ballots for Democrats? Or, Republican adoption of the controversial “independent state legislature theory,” which, if implemented, would allow state legislatures to overturn the will of the electorate and chose their own slate of presidential electors? Or, the large number of Republican candidates for senator and governor who refuse to pledge to accept the results of the 2022 midterms? Or, the majority of Republican nominees in this electoral cycle who continue to deny the 2020 presidential election results, despite the lack of any proof that the election was not free and fair?
Or, the flip-flopping by Republican senatorial candidate Dan Bolduc on the straight-forward issue of who won the 2020 presidential election? During the primary season, Bolduc earned Donald Trump’s endorsement by saying the former president “won the election, and, damn it, I stand by” that belief. Apparently, Bolduc did not have his feet firmly on the ground, because two days after eking out a primary victory, Bolduc said, with a straight face, on Fox News, “I’ve done a lot of research on this, and I’ve spent the past couple of weeks talking to Granite Staters all over the state from every party, and I have come to the conclusion — and I want to be definitive on this — the election was NOT [emphasis added] stolen.” Evidently, definitive was the wrong word, because earlier this week, the Republican nominee flipped his flop: “I can’t say that it was stolen or not. I don’t have enough information.” Obviously, Bolduc did not talk to enough “Granite Staters!”
No one, of course, expects 100-percent consistency from politicians. But, to hold three diametrically opposed positions on one clear-cut issue within a week is breathtaking! Even Mitt Romney’s “Etch A Sketch” 2012 Republican presidential campaign was not that brazen in pivoting from one political stance to another.
Nor does anyone expect politicians to be saints. But, once upon a time, not too long ago, scandals sank political aspirations. As recently as 2018, 25 candidates for political office ended their political campaigns over allegations of sexual improprieties. In 1998, House Speaker-designate Bob Livingston resigned because of past extramarital affairs just as the House voted articles of impeachment against President Bill Clinton for lying about his relationship with a White House intern.
Now, even sexual scandals that expose blatant political hypocrisy do not matter in politics, at least not to Republicans. Americans learned that lesson in 2016 when Donald Trump survived the explosive revelations, one month before election day, contained in the “Access Hollywood” tape — “Grab them by the pussy” — to win the presidency. The reaction of most Republicans to this week’s disclosure that Georgia Republican senatorial candidate Herschel Walker, in 2009, paid for an abortion that an unnamed woman and Walker conceived seemingly proves that Trump’s near-death political experience was no fluke. Maybe Trump is not the only Republican who “could stand in the middle of 5th Avenue and shoot somebody, and… [not] lose any voters, OK?”
Walker maintains his innocence; given the high stakes in the Georgia Senate race (the victor may determine which party controls the Senate), it is possible that the accuser is a political partisan determined to torpedo Walker’s electoral chances. Possible, but not likely! The Daily Beast, which broke the story (it has not been confirmed by any other media outlet), supported the allegation with a receipt from the abortion clinic, a get-well card with what purports to be Walker’s signature, and a check from the former football star, who on the campaign trail has asserted his opposition to abortion in all circumstances, including the life of the mother.
Moreover, Walker is not the most believable of political candidates. He has embellished or misrepresented his life story, claiming he worked in law enforcement when he did not, asserting that his food-distribution company donated a portion of its profits to charity when it did not, and declaring he graduated from the University of Georgia when he left school after his junior season to play professionally. (Walker later claimed he returned to UGA to finish his studies, but after being asked about that assertion, his campaign deleted a reference to it from its website.)
Walker is damaged goods in other ways, as well. He has not denied the allegation that he once held a gun to his former wife’s head, explaining that he struggled with mental illness in the past. Walker, who has chided absentee Black fathers, has been forced to admit he had children with multiple women to whom he was not married. The woman who claims Walker paid for her abortion has told The Daily Beast that she is the mother of one of those children. Christian Walker, one of the candidate’s sons, himself a devoted Trumpista, has criticized his father. “You’re not a ‘family man’ when you left us to bang a bunch of women,” Christian Walker wrote on Twitter. Then there are Walker’s absurd and ignorant political statements, which alone could fill a good-sized book. Suffice it to say here that if Walker gets to the Senate and Wisconsin Republican Ron Johnson wins his reelection bid, the latter will no longer be the dumbest member of the upper chamber.
Some Georgia Republicans are having second thoughts about Walker. Lieutenant Governor Geoff Duncan — who is not seeking reelection and who has denied Trump’s claims of electoral fraud — says “the weight of [Walker’s] baggage is starting to feel a little closer to unbearable at this point.” And, Governor Brian Kemp, who IS running for reelection, has dodged questions on whether he would campaign with Walker.
But, none of this “baggage” fazes MAGA Republicans. Ralph Reed, a prominent social conservative, said, “We’ve seen this movie before.” Reed added that the abortion accusation might benefit Walker by rallying social conservatives to him, despite the obvious hypocrisy of the anti-abortion candidate paying for a girlfriend’s abortion. As if to prove Reed’s point, Georgia Baptists welcomed Walker at a prayer luncheon. Donald Trump, unsurprisingly, blamed the messenger not the message. “Herschel Walker is being slandered and maligned by the Fake News Media and obviously, the Democrats,” said the former president in a statement. Rick Scott, head of the Senate Republican campaign committee, said “Republicans stand with him.” And, Ronna McDaniel, chair of the Republican National Committee, added: “Georgia could decide the Senate majority, so desperate Democrats and liberal media have turned to anonymous sources and character assassination.”
“Georgia could decide the Senate majority” is the key to understanding Republican willingness to ignore anything and everything distasteful in their candidates. Many Republicans believe Democrats are evil, who are taking the nation down the path to socialism and that they are also pedophiles. If you believe your opponents are against everything for which you stand, you can justify almost anything in the quest for victory. Winning-at-any-cost becomes a moral imperative, lest the Constitution and the Republic fall and children be violated. In that moral environment, Republicans easily can justify voting for someone as deeply flawed as Herschel Walker. And, for that matter, Christian evangelicals can look at Donald Trump and not see, what is self-evident to many others, his deep moral flaws.
“Just win, baby!”
Posted October 7, 2022