Warnock defeats Walker in Georgia Runoff

Commentary

Was this a glass half-full or half-empty moment?

Many readers who know me are aware that I’m really a “glass half-empty” kind of guy. So, while I watched the election results in the senatorial run-off in Georgia, I reveled in the fact that Senator Raphael Warnock defeated his Republican opponent, Herschel Walker, but lamented the fact that Mr. Walker garnered 48.7% of the vote.

Yes, that’s correct. almost 50% of Georgia voters cast their ballot for Herschel Walker, a man…

• Who said, “I was watching this movie called Fright Night. It was about vampires. I don’t know if you know, vampires are cool people, are they not? But I want to tell you something that I found out. A werewolf can kill a vampire, did you know that? I didn’t know that. So, I don’t want to be a vampire anymore, I wanted to be a werewolf.”
• Who said, regarding the border wall advocated by his political mentor Donald Trump, “A wall do work. When you got a wall around your house, people don’t… yeah, but they can get in. But, you know what? If they get in, it would be hard to get out because I got a dog that… well, my dog really won’t bite, but he’s pretty bad anyway.”
• Who said, regarding climate change, “But since we don’t control the air, our good air decide to float over to China, bad air. So when China gets our good air, their bad air got to move. So it moves over to our good air space.”
• Who said, despite the fact that he did not graduate from college, “Guys, I also was valedictorian of my class. I also was in the top 1% of my graduating class in college.”
• Who said, without any evidence, that he “supervise[d] six hospitals around the United States.”
• Who claimed, despite the fact that he’d never been in the military, “I’ve been very fortunate in my military, uh, career – that I was doing a lot of things in the military.”

Yes, my fellow half-empty glassers, almost 50% of Georgia voters cast their ballot for the man who said, or claimed, all those things.

But wonder of wonder, miracle of miracles, your “glass half-empty” correspondent actually had a “glass half-full” moment tonight.

When?

After listening to Raphael Warnock’s victory speech to his supporters.

Now, I didn’t expect you to view the entire Warnock video. But even if you didn’t watch the entire clip, I hope you watched enough to agree with me…agree with the idea…that tonight might have been a “glass half-full” moment. If you watched enough, I hope that you agree with me that 2022’s Barack Obama might very well be Raphael Warnock.

Raphael Warnock is 53 years old, somewhat older than Barack Obama’s 43 years when he delivered the keynote speech at the 2004 Democratic Convention that put him in the national spotlight, but still young compared to some Democratic pols. Obama was 47 years old when he ran for, and was elected president. In his speech tonight Warnock told his supporters, “You’ve got me for six more years.” My response: Is that all? Or, have we seen the future and is it Raphael Warnock…if not in 2024, then in 2028?

Despite the ridiculous closeness of this election, did Warnock turn me, a traditional pessimist, into someone who can finally celebrate that full glass? Did we, tonight, see the future? And, is that future, Raphael Warnock?