Herschel Walker’s candidacy for the U.S. Senate in Georgia is built on celebrity, but when he’s out on the campaign trail, he’s as likely to offer his success as a businessman as a qualification to serve in Washington as he is to reminisce about his days as a football star.
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Which is why new reporting from the Atlanta Journal-Constitution is so potentially damaging. It reveals not only that Walker has been dishonest about what a terrific job-creator he is, but that he has had “a string of defaults, settlements and lawsuits alleging that Walker and his businesses owed millions of dollars in unpaid loans.”
No wonder he and Donald Trump share such a bond.
The details are quite something. First, it seems Walker has been using the Trump technique of claiming that his companies are extraordinarily successful when the truth is far different — what ordinary people call “lying.”
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For instance, here’s a 2018 puff piece from Fox Business, apparently based on nothing but Walker’s word, that says he “has built three massive companies” and “currently employs more than 800 people in the South,” including 600 people at his chicken company.
But when he applied for two Paycheck Protection Program loans at the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic — like all good conservatives, seeking help from the federal government in times of need — Walker listed only eight employees at the chicken company, per the AJC report.
His chicken business is essentially a licensing operation, the AJC establishes: Other companies supply the chickens, which are then sold under Walker’s brand.
Which is a perfectly reasonable business venture on his part; the problem comes when he suggests people employed at those other companies work for him. Which he admitted in a lawsuit, clarifying his public suggestions of owning chicken plants by saying, “I don’t mean to speak of ‘own’ in a technical sense.”
That’s not to mention the lawsuits and alleged loan defaults and unpaid bills; the AJC reports that “Walker and various business partners have defaulted or fell behind in payments on at least eight loans totaling $9 million over the past two decades.”
While Walker may never equal Trump’s thousands of lawsuits and hundreds of people who say he stiffed them, the two do seem to share a similar approach to business.
But also like Trump, these revelations haven’t been disqualifying for Walker. Nor has his ex-wife’s allegation (denied by Walker) that he threatened to kill her.
While other Republicans are vying for this Senate seat, none has gotten much attention, and chances are good that Walker will coast to the nomination on Trump’s endorsement and the fame from his football days (the primary is in late May). He is refusing to debate his Republican rivals, and given his ignorance about politics and policy, that’s probably not a bad idea. Yet polls show him essentially even with the Democratic incumbent, Sen. Raphael G. Warnock, in a general election matchup.
The evidence suggests that Walker is at a minimum a businessman of questionable ethics, even if he cannot claim to have drained as many victims’ bank accounts as his mentor Trump has. But it would be too simplistic to say that Republicans just don’t care, that the Trump era has utterly obliterated any concerns they might once have had about character or morality.
That’s certainly true for many Republicans, but not all — and this race is likely to be close enough that even a small number of defections, or members of one party or the other who just decide to stay home, could be decisive.
Georgia politics are extremely complex right now. The Senate race is occurring alongside an intense governor’s race, with Gov. Brian Kemp fending off a primary challenge from Trump-endorsed former senator David Perdue; the winner will face Stacey Abrams in what is sure to be a furious general election. It isn’t hard to imagine that a few more revelations or stumbles could be the difference between victory and defeat for Walker.
This is a pattern that could repeat around the country, even amid extremely challenging conditions for Democrats. In race after race, some of the Republicans’ strongest potential candidates — such as governors Chris Sununu in New Hampshire, Larry Hogan in Maryland and Doug Ducey in Arizona — opted out of running for the Senate.
Which means that in many races, the Republican primary is about little more than which candidate can claim to be the most fanatical Trumpist. When all those primaries are over, voters will likely be presented with a collection of extremists and grifters on the GOP ticket.
If Democrats manage to hold the Senate, Trump’s influence in promoting people such as Herschel Walker — and the Republican base’s desire for just that kind of candidate — will be why.
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Which is why new reporting from the Atlanta Journal-Constitution is so potentially damaging. It reveals not only that Walker has been dishonest about what a terrific job-creator he is, but that he has had “a string of defaults, settlements and lawsuits alleging that Walker and his businesses owed millions of dollars in unpaid loans.”
No wonder he and Donald Trump share such a bond.
The details are quite something. First, it seems Walker has been using the Trump technique of claiming that his companies are extraordinarily successful when the truth is far different — what ordinary people call “lying.”
ADVERTISING
For instance, here’s a 2018 puff piece from Fox Business, apparently based on nothing but Walker’s word, that says he “has built three massive companies” and “currently employs more than 800 people in the South,” including 600 people at his chicken company.
But when he applied for two Paycheck Protection Program loans at the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic — like all good conservatives, seeking help from the federal government in times of need — Walker listed only eight employees at the chicken company, per the AJC report.
His chicken business is essentially a licensing operation, the AJC establishes: Other companies supply the chickens, which are then sold under Walker’s brand.
Which is a perfectly reasonable business venture on his part; the problem comes when he suggests people employed at those other companies work for him. Which he admitted in a lawsuit, clarifying his public suggestions of owning chicken plants by saying, “I don’t mean to speak of ‘own’ in a technical sense.”
That’s not to mention the lawsuits and alleged loan defaults and unpaid bills; the AJC reports that “Walker and various business partners have defaulted or fell behind in payments on at least eight loans totaling $9 million over the past two decades.”
While Walker may never equal Trump’s thousands of lawsuits and hundreds of people who say he stiffed them, the two do seem to share a similar approach to business.
But also like Trump, these revelations haven’t been disqualifying for Walker. Nor has his ex-wife’s allegation (denied by Walker) that he threatened to kill her.
While other Republicans are vying for this Senate seat, none has gotten much attention, and chances are good that Walker will coast to the nomination on Trump’s endorsement and the fame from his football days (the primary is in late May). He is refusing to debate his Republican rivals, and given his ignorance about politics and policy, that’s probably not a bad idea. Yet polls show him essentially even with the Democratic incumbent, Sen. Raphael G. Warnock, in a general election matchup.
The evidence suggests that Walker is at a minimum a businessman of questionable ethics, even if he cannot claim to have drained as many victims’ bank accounts as his mentor Trump has. But it would be too simplistic to say that Republicans just don’t care, that the Trump era has utterly obliterated any concerns they might once have had about character or morality.
That’s certainly true for many Republicans, but not all — and this race is likely to be close enough that even a small number of defections, or members of one party or the other who just decide to stay home, could be decisive.
Georgia politics are extremely complex right now. The Senate race is occurring alongside an intense governor’s race, with Gov. Brian Kemp fending off a primary challenge from Trump-endorsed former senator David Perdue; the winner will face Stacey Abrams in what is sure to be a furious general election. It isn’t hard to imagine that a few more revelations or stumbles could be the difference between victory and defeat for Walker.
This is a pattern that could repeat around the country, even amid extremely challenging conditions for Democrats. In race after race, some of the Republicans’ strongest potential candidates — such as governors Chris Sununu in New Hampshire, Larry Hogan in Maryland and Doug Ducey in Arizona — opted out of running for the Senate.
Which means that in many races, the Republican primary is about little more than which candidate can claim to be the most fanatical Trumpist. When all those primaries are over, voters will likely be presented with a collection of extremists and grifters on the GOP ticket.
If Democrats manage to hold the Senate, Trump’s influence in promoting people such as Herschel Walker — and the Republican base’s desire for just that kind of candidate — will be why.
