phew

     A durable coalition of blacks, latinos, asians and college educated liberal whites prevailed last night in Georgia.   Their candidate, Rev. Rhaphael Warnock beat the MAGA party's nominee, Herschel Walker by 2 percetn in the runoff election.  It shouldn't have been that close.

    Walker was a deeply flawed candidate with little to recommend him if you subtract his football stardom from his resume.   His intellectual and moral failings were on full display in the general election and the runoff, yet he was able to come within a whisper of winning.  Warnock, a gifted politician in the Barack Obama mode, left it all on the field as he and his organization spent tens of millions to reach a few Republican voters who couldn't hold their noses long enough to vote for Walker.  In the end, along with his GOTV efforts it proved enough.

    Our politics have gotten so partisan that as one pundit put it, Republicans could nominate a soggy pile of mashed potatoes for office and as long as there was an R next to it, 90% of Republican voters would pull the lever for potatoes.  (Sorry Mr. Shulman for insulting potatoes).  

      It shouldn't be this way.  However, until the GOP summons up the will to repudiate the 20-25% of their voters who would destroy democracy in the name of Cheeto Jesus, we will see more candidates like Walker.