Wednesday, October 26, 2022

A SECOND ACCUSER COULD ACTUALLY HELP HERSCHEL WALKER WIN THE ELECTION

If I didn't know better, I'd say that this seems bad for Herschel Walker:
A second woman has alleged that Herschel Walker, the Republican nominee in Georgia's Senate race, was involved in her getting an abortion.

... The woman, who was identified by attorney Gloria Allred as "Jane Doe," during a news conference Wednesday claimed Walker had "pressured" her into getting an abortion after she learned she was pregnant in April 1993.

"I was devastated because I felt that I had been pressured into having an abortion."
The reason I don't think it's bad for Walker is contained in this Washington Post piece, headlined "Herschel Walker Has Recovered from His (First) Abortion Scandal":
On Oct. 3, the Daily Beast reported that Herschel Walker, the Republican Senate nominee in Georgia, had paid for an ex-girlfriend’s abortion in 2009. Walker, who opposes abortion in all cases, denies the story. But he immediately looked like a hypocrite and lost ground in the polls.

Now, Walker might be bouncing back.

According to the RealClearPolitics polling average, Walker has regained all of the ground he lost mid-scandal....
In fact, Walker is doing better now, according to Real Clear Politics, than he was doing on October 3. At that time, he trailed Warnock by 2.2 points. Now Warnock's lead is 0.5.

If RCP is right, the scandal actually helped Walker, presumably by persuading Republican-leaning fence-sitters that Walker is the target of evil liberals who want to destroy all God-fearing Christian conservatives.

And there's an extra element in this new story: the second accuser's lawyer. To the right, Gloria Allred might as well be Nancy Pelosi -- she lives in California, she's in her eighties, she takes no guff. She's just the kind of assertive feminist Republicans love to hate. (And just being an older woman makes her seem grotesque and repulsive to many on the right.)

When I go to the news aggregation site Memeorandum and look at the dozens of stories on this subject, I see that three of them mention Allred in their headlines -- all at right-wing sites (RedState, Breitbart, and the Daily Caller). And here's the first Breitbart comment: "All one has to say to discredit this woman's claim is Gloria Allred."

I'm serious: I wish this hadn't come out. It won't push many voters into the Warnock camp, but it will fire up the right. And let's hope the story stands up to scrutiny, because if it doesn't, Walker can start measuring the drapes in his Senate office.

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