Posted on 05/21/2022 9:37:44 AM PDT by Kaslin
On Tuesday, Georgia’s voters will vote in their state’s primary contests, and on the GOP side, NFL legend Herschel Walker still seems to be a solid favorite in the polls to be the Senate nominee. Predictably, the media has been lining up stories to undermine Walker’s chances for a seat in the upper chamber. And to be fair, Walker has made it fairly easy for them to hit him because of a series of rookie mistakes. The latest target selected by the Associated Press is his long relationship with a group named Patriot Support. Walker has brought up his role in the organization many times on the campaign trail, describing it as a charity that helps thousands of veterans who are dealing with mental health and substance abuse issues. And that is indeed the stated mission of the organization. But the reality is a bit more complicated.
Herschel Walker, the football legend and leading Republican Senate candidate in Georgia, often boasts of his work helping service members and veterans struggling with mental health.
In interviews and campaign appearances, the former Dallas Cowboy and Heisman Trophy winner takes credit for founding, co-founding and sometimes operating a program called Patriot Support. The program, he says, has taken him to military bases all over the world.
“About fifteen years ago, I started a program called Patriot Support,” Walker said in an interview with conservative commentator Hugh Hewitt last October. “People need to know I started a military program, a military program that treats (thousands) of soldiers a year,” he told Savannah TV station WTGS in February.
Walker frequently says that he either “founded” or “co-founded” Patriot Support, but that’s not remotely close to being true. The group was around for eleven years before he was hired by Universal Health Services Incorporated to be their celebrity spokesperson. He has traveled to many military bases to bolster support for the troops, but that was his primary role. He was not an actual executive responsible for the operation of the group. And he is paid more than $300,000 per year for his services.
Further, Patriot support is not a charity. It’s a for-profit organization that isn’t even rated by Charity Navigator and it’s faced accusations of actually ripping off veterans and overcharging the government. These are all facts that the media was able to suss out in a matter of minutes. A candidate with a more experienced staff would have warned Walker away from playing up his involvement with the group and told him to stick to just doing troop support appearances at military bases.
As the AP notes, this claim of having founded Patriot support wasn’t Walker’s first rookie mistake on the campaign trail. He has made claims about his success as a businessman in the private sector that were significantly exaggerated, to put it charitably. He has also repeatedly claimed to have graduated at the “top of his class” at the University of Georgia when, in reality, he never completed his degree or graduated.
Much like the claims about Patriot Support, all of these things were childishly easy for reporters to check and confront him with as a candidate. Pretty much every political candidate tries to fluff up their record as much as possible, but it’s generally through exaggerations, not outright falsehoods. And they need to have staffers who are capable of carefully vetting all of the people, organizations, and donors that are attached to the candidate’s name. If you don’t take those steps, your opponent will happily do it for you and feed that information to the media, particularly if you are running as a Republican.
With all of that said, the media’s overall treatment of Herschel Walker as a political candidate is worth noting, particularly compared to the sort of coverage he received as a football player and celebrity spokesman. Notice how nobody is talking about the “historic” nature of a successful Black man having a chance at a Senate seat. It’s not that Walker’s record and claims shouldn’t be examined. Since he decided to put himself forward as a Senate candidate, that has to be done. But the press is noticeably silent regarding Walker’s race compared to the way they celebrate whenever a minority Democrat starts rising in the polls or winning elections. To most reporters, Walker is just another Trump-endorsed Republican and they are on a mission to dig up as much dirt on him as they can.
Herschel is not the right type of a Black person so he is not of the protected class.
Charlayne Hunter might have desegregated the University of Georgia, but Herschel Walker made integration work.
Too bad the Republican party can’t (won’t) provide him any backup or advisors.
Oh. He’s backed by PDJT. What was I thinking. How silly.
The Republican leaders keep saying the party needs to attract minorities and what do they do? They move out of the way for the media to step all over folks like Walker. I don’t see where the RNC is standing behind Walker and if they are I haven’t read about it.
I PROUDLY voted for him last week....
At this point Walkers biggest problem is the rat mole SOS who will still be there even if he loses his primary
Was that your Election Day or did you vote early?
Go Herschel. 👍
When is the last time in American history that we actually had a neutral unbiased media? The founders didn’t think that the media would become a propaganda tool to be used by enemies of America. It was a soft target for those hate us.
I will definitely be voting for Herschel Walker this Tuesday! I am confident he will be the nominee and will go on to take out Warnock.
I will definitely be voting for Herschel Walker this Tuesday! I am confident he will be the nominee and will go on to take out Warnock.
Ignore that - I answered my own question.
Next question: Why did you vote early? Doesn’t that just give cheaters more time to cheat?
I happened to catch a few minutes of Erick Erickson on his radio show the other day. As I reached to change the station I heard him mention Herschel Walker, so I paused to listen what he had to say. He spent five minutes vilifying Walker. Not because of any of Walker’s policies, but because he thought Walker was stupid and couldn’t speak eloquently. Those weren’t his exact words, but that’s basically what he was saying. It was simply awful. With “Republicans” such as Erickson, why do we need democrats? The GOPe is so good at shooting itself in the foot.
It’s obviously Walker will win the nomination on Tuesday so why is the GOP putting out statements that will only be used against Walker and hurt the GOP in the fall? Would they prefer Warnock be re-elected?
Kelvin king
Better candidate. Better conservative
“why is the GOP putting out statements”
They aren’t. The AP is putting out the attack.
And you're woke for referring to him as a "Black" person instead of a "black" person.
Come back. Come back. Come back from the woke side!
Delete me administrator
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