Trump-backed candidate Herschel Walker criticized for 'saddest' campaign in 'recent political history'

On Monday, writing for The Daily Beast, columnist Michael Cohen tore into Donald Trump's hand-picked Georgia Senate candidate, former football star Herschel Walker as an "unqualified, lying buffoon" running the "saddest" campaign in "recent political history" — and expressed fear over the implications that despite all of that, he still finds himself in a competitive race against incumbent Democratic Sen. Rev. Raphael Warnock.

"Walker’s campaign is increasingly a train wreck, but one that emits sadness and wonderment — not only because those closest to Walker aren’t stepping in to rescue him, but because he has a 50/50 chance of actually getting elected," wrote Cohen. "Walker is a lousy candidate who is manifestly unqualified for the job he is seeking. Before announcing his candidacy last year he never evinced any interest in public policy or government service. The only reason he’s even in the running for a Senate seat is that he was a star running back at the University of Georgia and won the Heisman Trophy four decades ago. The last time Walker was relevant, the Soviet Union was still going strong. Of course, there’s also the fact that Donald Trump endorsed him for the job."

What's makes Walker different from other Trump-endorsed candidates whose campaigns have floundered, like Dr. Oz in Pennsylvania, wrote Cohen, are "the legitimate and increasingly awkward questions about whether years of playing football affected his mental acuity. Walker isn’t simply clueless about the issues he would have to tackle were he to be elected. He holds childlike views and struggles to communicate in even a semi-coherent manner."

For example, Walker attacked the Green New Deal by claiming, "since we don’t control the air, our good air decided to float over to China's bad air so when China gets our good air, their bad air got [sic] to move. So it moves over to our good air space." He also demanded to know why apes still exist if evolution occurs, and said he'd stop gun violence with "a department that can look at young men that's looking at women that's looking at social media."

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"Walker also famously got caught lying about the number of children he has sired — after years of preaching about the evils of absentee parenting. He claimed to have one child, but, in reality, he has four," wrote Cohen. "And that’s not the only time Walker has been caught telling untruths. He’s repeatedly and extravagantly lied about his business experience (he owes millions of dollars in unpaid loans), and his academic record (he falsely claimed to be his college valedictorian, even though he left college early to play in the NFL). Then there are the most ominous aspects of Walker’s past — like the allegation that he held a loaded gun to his wife’s head and threatened to blow her brains out" — and the fact that his own campaign staff thinks he's not mentally fit for the job.

"As sad as Walker’s campaign has become, what is even sadder is what it portends for the country," concluded Cohen. "A political party that is content with having someone like Herschel Walker in the U.S. Senate is not a political party that cares about the responsibility of governing America."