The race for Senate in Georgia is center stage with two black men running

“23andMe has screwed us all up,” Walker told reporters at a large rallies outside Atlanta, a day after his father died

The leading candidates for U.S. Senate from Georgia were born just 115 miles and seven years apart, both the children of poor Black families who had lived in the state for generations.

Georgia’s first African American and Jewish senators were elected within 24 hours, according to the Senate floor. “Hours later, the Capitol was assaulted. We see in just a few precious hours the tension very much alive in the soul of America. And the question before all of us at every moment is what will we do to push us in the right direction?”

“23andMe has screwed us all up,” Walker said at a recent rally outside Atlanta, referring to the brand of home genetic tests often used to determine a person’s country or region of origin. It doesn’t matter about your color. A house divided cannot stand, so I want us to come together.”

Walker has come under scrutiny after being accused of domestic abuse and violence as well as reports that he paid for an ex-girlfriend’s abortion even though he supports a ban on abortion with no exceptions.

How Two Black Men Ranked For Senate in Georgia Takes Center Stage: The Case of A Knock at Midnight, Revisited

The two most important institutions for questions of democracy and equality are the College of William and Mary and the National Archives, according to a political historian.

The church is a crucial link for many Black communities. It is an organizing space. Certainly sports becomes a site of resistance, in terms of African Americans desegregating teams, African Americans using sports to grasp some measure of social mobility.”

“I was just coming out to be a great athlete,” he told rapper Killer Mike in an interview on WABE. “And I think my high school was probably 50-50 white-Black.”

Walker wrote about the fear of the Klan in his memoir. He remembered the members of their group yanking Black kids into the woods to make mock lynchings.

There was a broad misconception about life in the South during the 1980s. There is still a very divide between the black and white population.

The public housing complex in Georgia was where he grew up. As a teen, he would go to the nearby library to listen to the recordings from the civil rights movement.

“There are men who stand up in the pulpit and preach every Sunday, and yet they can look at racial injustice and never open their mouths against it,” King bellowed in a particularly influential sermon for Warnock – “A Knock at Midnight.”

Warnock continued to be influenced by King as he selected his university: Morehouse College, the historically Black school in Atlanta attended by King four decades earlier. Warnock signed up to serve as an assistant at the King Memorial Chapel on campus. The mentor was the dean, Lawrence Carter.

“Supremely confident, mature beyond his years,” Carter remembered Warnock in an interview. He was all alone and seemed to be in control. He would go to the chapel library and do not have anyone else to study with.

“When our chapel is packed and our 6,000 pipe organ is sounding in their ears, surrounded by people doing bold things, that pours iron into your spine,” Carter says. “And when you see injustice, you want to do something about it.”

Source: https://www.npr.org/2022/10/13/1128694481/with-two-black-men-running-for-senate-in-georgia-race-takes-center-stage

‘Uncle Tom’ Walker: A black man running for senator in the state of Georgia at a track meet marching in Wrightsville

Walker had just led Johnson County High School to the 1980 state football championship. Walker accepted a full-ride to the University of Georgia and it was national news. Wrightsville attracted the country’s attention again.

Protests against racial injustice had broken out, directed at the county’s white sheriff. They were met with violence as they gathered. The Klan mobilized and the governor called in state troopers, while schools and factories closed. Local residents and out-of-town civil rights leaders pleaded for Wrightsville’s most famous resident to speak out.

Walker’s track coach and early mentor said in an interview that he had black people call him “Uncle Tom” after he used the N word. “And he was just searching for his spot.”

“I called a team meeting,” remembered track coach Tom Jordan. “I said, ‘Look, guys, you can’t get in shape for a track meet marching. You have to run. Practice is at three and you know I don’t tolerate missing.”

Source: https://www.npr.org/2022/10/13/1128694481/with-two-black-men-running-for-senate-in-georgia-race-takes-center-stage

What if I Had Left The Other Way, or What Would I Do If I Had Done the Other Way?” Commentary of Raphael Warnock

“What would have happened if I had went the other way?” Walker said something to Killer Mike. “Where would I be today? I have an opportunity where I can sit at a table.

He doesn’t represent African American viewers due to his political views and rejection of race. “It is the perspective of the majority of working class white voters in the state of Georgia.”

Clarence Thomas, one of the most conservative Supreme Court justices, is also cited by Rigueur as an example of theLoneliness of the Black Republican. Rigueur says these perspectives should not be ignored or treated as a fringe viewpoint, particularly when coming from people with immense influence to shape American life.

“We should want to understand that because of what it tells us about the very nature of Black politics, but also questions of American democracy,” Rigueur says.

The two men are competing in a Senate race that is too close to call and could determine control of the Senate.

Walker stated at a recent rally that we are not a racist country. “The United States is the greatest country in the world today and it’s time we get leaders that know that.”

Editor’s Note: Fredrick Hicks is a political strategist and campaign expert. He served as a debate preparation partner for then-candidate Raphael Warnock in 2020. Hicks did not work for the campaign in 2022. He is the owner of his own consulting firm, HEG. The views expressed here are of his own. You can get more opinion on CNN.

On December 6, the first African American US Senator from Georgia was elected to a full term. While this might sound redundant, had he lost, Warnock would have been relegated to a historical footnote, ignominiously known as one of the shortest serving Senators in US History, serving just a few months longer than the person he defeated, former Sen. Kelly Loeffler.

Warnock is also well poised to be the leader of the Democratic renaissance in the southeast and to help maintain a Democratic majority in the Senate beyond 2024. In fact, should he decide to pursue even higher political office, Warnock could become just the second Georgian, after Jimmy Carter, to represent their party as the Democratic nominee for President of the United States.

Context is everything, including in politics. Nationally, Democrats fared better than anticipated. However, in the southeast, the red wave swept over every state, washing away many powerful Democrats in the region – from Virginia down to Florida.

With each of his wins, Warnock has demonstrated that he can raise funds, win white voters, inspire minority voters, and boost the Democratic base. While working hard and prioritizing the right issues such that a core group of Republican voters are OK with him, he’s run positive campaigns with strategic attacks on his opponents – all while holding down two other important jobs, being a father to two young children and the occasional caregiver to America’s favorite beagle.

Further, as of two weeks before the runoff, Warnock had raised more than $284 million since first becoming a candidate, a figure which will likely approach $300 million after the counting is finished, making him one of the most prolific non-presidential fundraisers in recent memory. In a game where votes and money are the barometers of success and viability, Warnock has more of both than anyone – something his ancestors never could have imagined.

The next Republican presidential nominee is Tulsi Gabbard, a past and present aide to the Congressional Center-left agenda

This could be the opportune time to move the center-left agenda forward in the country. With large states like California, Illinois and New York safely in the Democratic ledger, if the nominee can compete and win in southern states, then it will be nearly impossible for any Republican to win the presidency for the foreseeable future.

Haley, a former US ambassador to the United Nations, will announce her candidacy for president on Wednesday. After her planned event in South Carolina, where she was governor from 2011 to 2017, Haley will spend the next two days in New Hampshire, the state that has held the first presidential preference primaries every four years since 1920.

But she is not the only woman from the ranks of well-known current and former officials who will matter in the next GOP nominating process — the first voting events of which are now just a year away.

Last month Noem said she is “not convinced that I need to run for president” — but she has kept the door open, and taken a succession of hardline, well-publicized stands on national issues such as abortion and immigration. The announcement may increase the pressure on Noem to make a decision.

Liz Cheney fell from the spotlight when she co- chaired the House Select Committee on the January 6th attack on the Capitol. Cheney was one of the most outspoken members of that panel and she said she would do everything in her power to prevent Trump from returning to office.

That is the basis of an attempt to challenge the former president in 2024. After Cheney lost in the primary, her future opportunities seemed all but gone, as had her father, former Vice President Richard Cheney.

There are women who are not only Republican, but also with conservative credentials, who have shown interest in the nation’s highest office. One witness that got a ton of attention during the Biden Administration’s “weaponizing” of federal agencies against citizens hearing in Congress this past week was Tulsi Gabbard.

She is a speaker at the Conservative Political Action Conference but has not declared any new loyalties, and has remained in the public eye as a host of a podcasts and a YouTube channel. And last fall, Newsweek reported that at least one British bookmaker was giving Gabbard better odds of being on the next Republican ticket than former Vice President Mike Pence.

Many political observers have long believed the first woman president would achieve that office after first being vice president. Harris personifies wherever she goes now that that can happen at any time.

This trend was on full view in the 2020 cycle, when Harris was one of six women participating in the Democrats’ early rounds of presidential debates in the summer of 2019. Women cast more than half of the votes for president, so this raises the ante for Republicans.

For a century after the first woman declared herself a protest candidate for the White House in 1872 (before women’s right to vote was added to the Constitution in 1920), when women ran for the White House it was more to make a point than to win an office. The first woman to receive votes in primaries and at the national convention was Margaret Chase Smith, a senator from Maine, in 1964.

Two women have indeed been nominated for vice president by the major parties, Democrat Geraldine Ferraro in 1984 and Republican Sarah Palin in 2008. Both managed to shake up the party’s convention, the media coverage and even the contest itself for a period of weeks.

Neither could change the underlying dynamics of those races or give what their parties’ nominees didn’t have. Supporters who thought these gender breakthroughs might galvanize women voters across party lines were disappointed.

What Can Be Learned from the 2016 Presidential Primaries? The Case for Haley Signs a New Direction for the Gops National Tickets

The 2024 Republican primaries are shaping up as a contest between former President Trump and a flock of lesser figures who hope the frontrunner stumbles or fades. There is also the prospect of being the running mate — either for Trump or for someone else.

DeSantis is regarded as the likeliest challenger to match Trump in polls and fundraising. There could be others like Maryland’s popular former governor, Larry Hogan, who just retired due to term limits.

Pence, too, for his part, has been showing up in the early primary states, but not showing well in the polls. Those who prefer the party to move on see Pence as a part of the Trump legacy, even though his true believers see him as disloyal.

Is it possible to be his running mate if he was opposing him in the primaries? Taking on Biden in the early Democratic debates did not kill Harris’ chances. On the other hand, Harris did drop out before the primaries actually began and endorsed Biden early in March.

Source: https://www.npr.org/2023/02/13/1155861015/haley-signals-a-new-direction-for-the-gops-national-ticket

A Little Advice for a Rejuvenated Reply to “Biden’s State of the Union” by M. Huckabee

There is an awkwardness in all the posturing that may have been caused when Huckabee gave the Republican response to Biden’s State of the Union. The speaking slot has been seen as an opportunity to get elected in the state. Sanders used it to deliver a strong message of condemnation against the Biden administration and against Democrats in general, especially on social issues.

She mentioned her role as White House press secretary going to Iraq to visit troops with the President and the first lady without mentioning her name, because she did not want anyone to know who she worked for. For this, she was criticized by both conservatives and Trump supporters.

It has not been decided whether or not the two have broken up. But she may be seeking a safe distance not unlike that sought by her father, Mike Huckabee, who once also served as Arkansas’ governor. Huckabee did not take a job in the Trump administration, despite supporting him, because he pursued his speaking engagements and hosted a talk show, while trying to get a job.

Republican women who are known for their loyalty to Trump may be in a dilemma between gratitude for Trump’s help and a desire to be a part of a new generation of Republican leaders.

Some, such as Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, may be too closely associated with Trump already to have other options. A person such as the New York congresswoman, who replaced Cheney as the House GOP’s third-ranking leader, might have room to maneuver in either direction.

It’s possible that a rejuvenated Trump could look beyond incumbent officeholders to someone who was willing to embrace his “stolen election” obsession to be his running mate.

Lake, a former anchor at local TV in Phoenix, lost her race for governor in Arizona in 2022, but still showed the kind of devotion she had to her candidacy. Although Lake is mentioned as a Senate candidate next year, she will be in Iowa this weekend to see the site of the first Republican caucuses.

And Palin is still politically active and still telling Alaskans she would be their elected member of Congress right now if it were not for a “weird” voting system voters adopted there by referendum the year before her defeat in 2022.

Tim Scott, the Polk County Senator, talked about the future of the South: How to stop whitewashing and stop pretending that the world is better

Editor’s Note: John Avlon is a CNN senior political analyst and anchor. He is the author of “Lincoln and the Fight for Peace.” The views expressed in this commentary are his own. Read more opinion at CNN.

This week, the South Carolina Republican Senator embarked on the obligatory Iowa listening tour that precedes a possible presidential campaign. He led a Polk County Lincoln Day dinner in which he tested themes that could define a candidacy.

If you glanced at the headlines you would think that he was selling a warmed over version of Trump’s “combative vision,” served with a side order of DeSantis’ bitter culture war assaults.

That is a mistake. You would hear a different pitch if you actually listened to Scott’s speeches. Scott said that we have to work together to be at our best. “We must come together on a common ground, built on common sense.”

But trying to slap a cynical Trump-derivative bumper sticker on Tim Scott does him a disservice. Scott has an optimistic pitch for the presidency and it shows that there is a lane outside of Trump. It is an example of evolution, beyond an obsession with identity politics and the grievance industrial complex. It is good for the future of the Republican Party and good for the republic.

He is not fanning the flames of fear about “American carnage.” He is not wielding the American flag as a weapon to bludgeon people who look different than him. Amid a wave of strategically induced CRT panic, he is also not trying to whitewash American history to pretend it is an unadulterated story of perfection.

At the Lincoln Day dinner, he told the story of how his beloved grandfather, born in 1921, was taught to step aside on the sidewalk to let a white man pass and never make eye contact. This was in the Jim Crow South. Scott is not whitewashing our history when he talks about it. But he added that his grandfather told him “you can be bitter – or you can be better. I made a better choice.

You can challenge this all day long with statistics about how racism affects everything from housing to the police. Scott may agree with certain policies. He is a Black Republican US Senator, and his place on the stage as a Black Republican goes a long way in repudiating White identity politics that fueled much of Trump’s rise.

If you are on the left, you can call me a prop, a token, or a N-word, question my blackness, or even call me Uncle Tim. Just understand: Your words are no match for my evidence. The truth of my life disproves your lies.”

That is a good line. It’s also a hard truth rooted in his personal experience. He is adamant that activists attempt to use historic mistakes as a way of bringing more power and resources to their agenda.

To be sure, he is still trying to appeal to a party that fell under Trump’s spell – and Scott does go too far with the play-to-the-base red meat for my taste at times.

He talks about how the left wing of Democrats want to destroy America fundamentally undermines the need to unite America. And he is part of the conservative crew that is dancing around the outright denunciation of Donald Trump’s attempt to overturn an election on the basis of a lie – a stance that will look as cowardly in the future as it may look pragmatic now, from the perspective of someone running for president as a Republican.

Scott is not simply another ambitious senator from one of the major parties who has been lured by the White House since the early 1800s.

The first Black Republican senator was Edward W. Brooke III of Massachusetts, elected to serve two terms from 1967 to 1979. In the 1870s, two Black men who were Republicans, Hiram Revels and Blanche K. Bruce, represented Mississippi in the Senate during the Reconstruction period that followed the Civil War. All the senators in the era were not chosen at the ballot box. They were either appointed or elected by their state legislature. And in Mississippi in those years, the legislature was watched over by federal troops.

Sentiment Scott Is a Different Kind of Republican Who Could Reshape the 2024-Electron Ticket: An Analysis with Physicist Tim Haley

Scott is an inspiration to some Republicans but also takes pains to make them look bad. In the spirit of the contemporary discourse that is driven by social media, Scott is given to partisan hyperbole. In a recent appearance on Fox News, he said “the left today seems to be working on a blueprint on how to ruin America.”

In this he is like his onetime benefactor, Nikki Haley, who as governor of South Carolina in 2013 lifted Scott from his House seat with a senatorial appointment. He gained election to the seat in 2016 and 2022.

It sounds dismissive to say someone is “running for VP,” but we should remember that six of the 14 vice presidents elected before Harris have become president — including President Biden and Presidents George H.W. Bush, Gerald Ford, Lyndon Johnson, Richard Nixon and Harry Truman. Several other vice presidents at least got the next party nomination for president, including Al Gore, who won the popular vote in 2000.

In the running mate role, it has been an excellent option to make a show of presidential ambition early but then back off. It has worked for every Democratic nominee for vice president in the previous 25 years.

At the same time, he could also become popular enough to add real energy to the 2024 ticket, much as Sarah Palin did for John McCain in 2008 or Geraldine Ferraro did for Mondale in 1984. In the 1980s, women were nominated for vice president in both the Republican and Democratic parties.

The line “Running for vice president” is often used to marginalize both women and people of color, and it has been done a lot over the years.

Source: https://www.npr.org/2023/03/05/1160964200/sen-tim-scott-is-a-different-kind-of-republican-who-could-reshape-the-2024-elect

Frederick Douglass: The First Black Man in the Republican Party and the First Black Democrat to Nominate a Presidential Candidate (with an Appendix by T.J. Scott)

“Growing up in a single parent household, mired in poverty, the challenges that I faced from self-esteem to low grades were monumental,” says Scott. I overcame those challenges with resilience, determination and inspiration.

If he did not use it, Scott would be out of whack with the activists in the 2020s who use it. His persona in the Senate and home state have been less partisan than potential rivals now competing for the same voters. Scott is a democrat and can have a dialogue, or even co-sponsor a bill with his fellow democrats.

In a recent appearance on Fox News, Scott was confronted by a host Shannon Bream, who noted the contradiction between that line and Scott’s image of cordial collegiality in the Senate. Scott needed to highlight America’s state and weakness of the progressive movement to offer positive, optimistic solutions.

There was a white man finish first in the primary for mayor of Chicago. The consensus was that the main problem was crime, and that support for police was a winning message in urban America. Could anyone carry that message better than a candidate whose mere presence onstage rebuts Democrats’ assertions that the GOP is racist?

Frederick Douglass was the first Black contender for the Republican nomination. (He had first run in the Liberty Party in 1848, before the GOP existed). Douglass was a message candidates rather than actual candidates.

The nation got an earful of Herman Cain, a pizza chain executive who used commercial marketing slogans in his campaign. Ben Carson earned nine convention delegates in the 2016 primaries and traveled to March to attend the convention. The results of Carson’s performances in the debates gave him a brief lead in GOP polls.

Earlier, Alan Keyes, an African American author with a mesmerizing oratorical talent, sought the GOP nod in 1996, 2000 and 2008, collecting a handful of delegates. In 2008 he joined the Constitution Party.

There are more antecedents for an African American candidate in the Democratic Party. The 1968 Democratic Convention in Chicago was the first time that the ground was broken by a person. Shirley Chisholm got 152 votes at the 1972 Democratic Convention and Barbara Jordan ran in 1976, giving a memorable speech at the convention that nominated Jimmy Carter.

Scott might also look to the campaigns waged in the other party by another South Carolina native, Jesse Jackson. Jackson had long since left the state and become a prominent member of the civil rights movement. Jackson had been working to become his mentor, Rev. Martin Luther King.

Jackson was back with an even greater campaign that won the Michigan caucuses. Jackson and his supporters were given the authority to take over the proceedings of the convention for one night. Jackson was again seen as a strong prospect for running mate, but negotiations toward such a ticket did not bear fruit.