Opinion: Staff leaks paint troubling picture of Herschel Walker's campaign

Photo by Brynn Anderson of The Associated Press / U.S. Senate candidate Herschel Walker speaks to supporters during an election night watch party on May 24, 2022, in Atlanta. Walker won the Republican nomination for U.S. Senate in Georgia's primary election.
Photo by Brynn Anderson of The Associated Press / U.S. Senate candidate Herschel Walker speaks to supporters during an election night watch party on May 24, 2022, in Atlanta. Walker won the Republican nomination for U.S. Senate in Georgia's primary election.

When I was a staffer in the U.S. Senate, I occasionally saw Sen. Strom Thurmond on his way to and from votes in the U.S. Capitol. Thurmond, by then, was a not-at-all-spry 96-year-old, but he was still the chairman of the legendary Senate Armed Services Committee.

If you're wondering how a man of such advanced age could still serve in the Senate, the answer is, not easily... and not without an enormous amount of staff to support him, literally.

The truth is that Thurmond should have left the Senate long before he did and there was no hiding his diminished capacity from anyone, least of all his own staff. But admitting that the senator wasn't up to the job didn't serve the purposes of anyone around him - his power was their power - and so he stayed. And they stayed, too.

The Daily Beast recently reported a bombshell story with echoes of that dynamic - that internal emails and texts between Herschel Walker's campaign staffers showed his team "ridicule his intelligence," "fear his mood swings and instability," and "worry he could embarrass himself at any moment."

After the story broke, manager Scott Paradise put out a statement calling it "pure gossip with anonymous sources from a left-leaning publication who has been obsessed with Herschel and his family."

This story alone is not likely to change the trajectory of the Walker campaign. The sole staffer spilling the beans, including sharing colleagues' texts and emails, did so anonymously.

Voters in Georgia don't know if this is coming from a well-connected aide or a summer intern. And very, very few will likely even read it in full.

But it's important to understand that the trajectory of the Walker campaign isn't what it once was. Unlike the days of the GOP primary, when Walker outpaced his GOP rivals by 50 points, he's essentially tied with Sen. Raphael Warnock in nearly all public polling.

The drip-drip-drip of reports about Walker's trouble telling the truth is costing him support, even among Republicans.

It's not a stampede of voters running away from the candidate, who remains beloved by the GOP base and nostalgic football fans everywhere.

My own hairdresser asked me last week why Walker would say he was in the Cobb County Police Department, which the AJC reported, when he was not. The worries about Walker among all but the die-hards are real.

The two things that can strengthen Republican voters' resolve for their candidate are Joe Biden's own infirmities, which tell voters that the president, too, may not be up for the job he's got, and Walker showing Georgia voters that he is fully competent and ready for the job he says he wants.

That includes agreeing to the three debates that Warnock has committed to but Walker has not, despite the Republican's own confident assurances, "I told him, name the place and the time, and we can get it on." Warnock has named the time and the place, but Walker's team says he's still evaluating many debate offers.

Walker could also sit down with the AJC for an interview, which he has not agreed to do, likely because we've written all sorts of articles that, though accurate, are not flattering. Those include details about his past violence against his ex-wife, his exaggerations about his chicken business, and the fact that his therapist also diagnoses gayness with crayons.

Walker, as voters are learning, is a complicated character. Aren't we all. But is he competent? They need to know that, too.

Walker's concerned, but anonymous, staffers should come forward if they know something voters ought to know. And if there's nothing to tell, Walker can easily show voters himself, standing on his own.

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

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