The 2022 midterms are finally over. Last week, in the Georgia runoff, Democratic U.S. Senator Raphael Warnock won a full six-year term against Republican challenger Herschel Walker. Warnock's victory gives the Democrats a solid majority (including Kyrsten Sinema, who just became an independent - more on that later) that doesn't have to share committee seats equally with Republicans, doesn't need Republican permission for subpoena power, and doesn't have to rely on Kamala Harris casting a tie-breaking vote over and over.
It also gives the Republicans a valuable lesson in the fact that putting up a guy against a black Democratic candidate just because the GOP candidate is also black does not endear you to black voters, who were offended at the idea that they were expected to vote for Walker on the basis of his race while white Republican voters voted for him on the basis of his political affiliation.
It makes since that Warnock, as pastor of Atlanta's Ebenezer Baptist Church, was elected primarily because people judged him on the standard a guy who had Warnock's job - Martin Luther King, Jr. - elevated . . . the content of one's character, not the color of one's skin.
It turns out that Herschel Walker had a bit of character himself, in that he conceded graciously and that he said he saw himself and his supporters as winners because they participated in the democratic process. (Only an athlete could say that the most important thing about politics is not winning but taking part.) Still, I don't know why Donald Trump recruited his old United States Football League pal to run for the Senate. If Trump wanted to foil Warnock with a black opponent, couldn't he have found a black Republican in Georgia who at least looked - and sounded - the part of a U.S. Senator?
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