Georgia: Why GOP is focused on Warnock
“Georgia’s two pivotal Senate runoffs had their biggest moment yet,” said Sam Brodey in The DailyBeast.com. During a heated debate this week, Republican Sen. Kelly Loeffler sounded like an attack ad “come to life,” robotically calling Democratic challenger Raphael Warnock “a radical liberal” 13 times and accusing him of hating the police and the military. Warnock, a Baptist minister, counterattacked by portraying Loeffler—whose husband is the New York Stock Exchange’s chairman—as a selfish rich woman out of touch with ordinary Georgians. Back in February, Loeffler made a series of stock trades after her Senate committee was briefed about the threat posed by the coronavirus. At the debate, she refused to say that senators shouldn’t trade their own stocks, responding that her wealth was the result of “the American dream.”
At least she showed up, said Christina Cauterucci in Slate.com. In the debate for the other open Senate seat, Republican incumbent David Perdue failed to appear, giving Democratic challenger
Jon Ossoff a chance to argue with an empty podium. Perdue evidently decided he’d rather be a no-show than discuss a slew of well-timed stock trades he made just before the pandemic hit the U.S. Ossoff called Perdue a “coward” who “feels entitled to your vote.” Loeffler may be a flawed candidate, said NationalReview.com in an editorial, but she’s right: Warnock is a radical leftwinger. He’s dodged questions about whether he would vote to add liberal justices to the Supreme Court. He’s likened Israel to “apartheid South Africa” for its treatment of Palestinians and defended Barack Obama’s former pastor Jeremiah Wright, even after his “God Damn America” speech surfaced, as well as remarks Wright made about “them Jews.”
Loeffler has charged that Warnock “hates” the military, said David French in TheDispatch.com. This is based on a snippet from a sermon Warnock gave in which he said “nobody can serve God and the military.” But Warnock was simply saying that all matters are subordinate to God—a “conventional Christian belief.” The Republican strategy for both races, which will determine which party controls the Senate, is clear, said Jonathan Martin in The New York Times: Ignore Ossoff, attack the African-American Warnock as a scary radical, and fire up turnout for both races “among white conservatives.” Will it work? We’ll know after Georgians go to the polls Jan. 5.