Thursday, October 06, 2022

WHEN SCANDAL HITS, REPUBLICANS DON'T EVEN BOTHER TO WHATABOUT ANYMORE

The latest news about Herschel Walker is that the woman whose abortion he financed is also the mother of one of the children he didn't publicly acknowledge until earlier this year.

Some observers think we're seeing "the dying embers" of Walker's Senate campaign. I don't. I think he'll come out of this unscathed. He might even come out of this in a stronger position.

Last week, a Fox News poll showed Walker trailing Raphael Warnock by 5 points. (Unlike the rest of Fox News, Fox's polls don't have a Republican skew.) Here was one reason for Warnock's lead:
Warnock enjoys more party loyalty, as 95% of Democrats support him vs. 82% of Republicans for Walker.
That may be about to change. Republicans officials and their allies are making very public displays of support for Walker. The message is that whatever he's done in his life, Walker will vote the way Republicans want him to vote -- and also that he's being attacked by the Democrat/media Axis of Evil.


This has the potential to increase Walker's support within his party. Republicans who were lukewarm about Walker might rally around him now.

This is not how Donald Trump extricated himself from the Access Hollywood scandal. He did that with whataboutism and distraction, as Tim Alberta reported in his 2019 book American Carnage. After the "Grab 'em by the pussy" tape went public, and Republican National Committee chairman Reince Priebus told Trump, “Either you’ll lose in the biggest landslide in history, or you can get out of the race and let somebody else run who can win,” Trump and his team took charge. A debate was scheduled to take place two days after the release of the tape. Trump response was to paint Bill Clinton as the real sexual predator, and Hillary Clinton as his accomplice. He also portrayed Hillary as corrupt:
It was less than two hours until the start of the October 9 presidential debate.... Without advance warning, Trump held an impromptu news conference alongside a group of women who had publicly accused Bill Clinton of sexual misconduct....

Trump attacked and counterattacked throughout [the debate], bringing up Bill Clinton’s history of being “abusive to women” and aggressively prosecuting Clinton’s use of a private email server while secretary of state, an issue he had failed to raise during the first debate. “If I win,” Trump declared, “I am going to instruct my attorney general to get a special prosecutor to look into your situation. Because there have never been so many lies, so much deception.”

“Everything he just said was absolutely false,” Clinton responded when given the floor, adding, “It’s just awfully good that someone with the temperament of Donald Trump is not in charge of the law in our country.”

“Because you’d be in jail,” Trump shot back. Some audience members gasped. Others cheered.... Within 48 hours the bleeding had stopped: Republicans ceased their calls for his withdrawal, Pence dutifully returned to the stump and his campaign went on as though nothing had happened.
Oh, and, of course, the hacked emails of Clinton campaign manager John Podesta were released by Wikileaks one hour after the Access Hollywood tape was made public.

In terms of sheer aggression, it's the same playbook. But this time, Republicans are barely trying to change the subject. It appears as if they want the Walker scandal to be the subject, because they want Walker to be perceived as a victim of a brutal assault by the amoral do-anything-to-win liberals. And I worry that it might really work.

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