Football star’s cryptic video could upend Georgia Senate race
ATLANTA» In his 1980s prime, Herschel Walker, a Georgia college football legend, ran the ball with the downhill ferocity of a runaway truck.
There was no question about which way he was headed.
But that was not the case this past week, as Walker tweeted out a cryptic 21second video that sent the state’s political players into a frenzy of decoding and guesswork.
Did the video amount to an announcement that the Heisman-winning Walker — spurred on by the sisboom-bah urging of his old friend Donald Trump — plans to enter the Republican primary for a chance to run next year against Sen. Raphael Warnock, D-GA.?
That was one plausible interpretation of the clip, in which a smiling Walker, who lives in Texas, revs the motor of a sports car.
“I’m getting ready,” Walker says, as the camera pans to the car’s Georgia license plate. “And we can run with the big dogs.”
If Walker indeed jumps into the Senate race, it will go a long way toward firming up the 2022 pro-trump roster in Georgia, where the former president has vowed to handpick GOP candidates to exact revenge on Republicans who declined to support his false contention that he was the true winner of the 2020 election in the state.
Walker, who once played for Trump’s professional team, the New Jersey Generals, in the short-lived
USFL, urged Republicans to stick by Trump in the weeks after Election Day as the departing president pressed his unfounded claims of voter fraud. In March, Trump, in a statement, said it would be “fantastic” if Walker ran for Senate.
But a Walker candidacy also may prove to be the most high-stakes test of whether Trump’s fervent wish to play kingmaker will serve his party’s best interests in a hotly contested swing state that could determine which party controls the Senate.
Although Walker is the most revered player in the modern history of the football-crazy state, the former running back also brings a complicated post-football story.
Walker, 59, says that he suffers from dissociative identity disorder, an affliction formerly known as multiple personality disorder. His forthrightness on the topic of mental illness, outlined in his 2008 book, “Breaking Free: My Life With Dissociative Identity Disorder,” has earned him praise in some quarters. But others have doubted the diagnosis, calling it a convenient way to excuse bad behavior.
In a 2005 application for a protective order, Walker’s ex-wife, Cindy Grossman, alleged that Walker had a history of “extremely threatening behavior” toward her. In one instance, she has said, he put a gun to her temple. In his book, Walker admitted to numerous instances of playing Russian roulette.
Leo Smith, a Republican political consultant in Georgia, said that he hopes Walker will remain on the sidelines. “As a political consultant, I’d recommend that Walker influence politics through fundraising and donations, not as a candidate,” he said.
But Randy Evans, a former ambassador to Luxembourg appointed by Trump, said that Walker may prove to be a “transformational” candidate who crosses boundaries of party and race.
Trump has endorsed Rep. Jody Hice, a hardright conservative and Baptist preacher who plans to run for secretary of state in Georgia against incumbent Brad Raffensperger. Like Walker, Hice supports Trump’s bogus claims of a rigged election.
But a number of Republicans are quietly concerned that Hice and Walker may wither in the scrutiny of a general election. Suburban, centrist women are likely to take note of Walker’s ex-wife’s story, as well as Hice’s comment that he approved of women in politics, so long as “the woman’s within the authority of her husband.”