Outgoing Georgia Lieutenant Governor Geoff Duncan is getting some attention right now for refusing to vote in the Georgia Senate runoff election. The novelty here seems to be that there is actually a Republican out there who won’t vote for a provably unfit candidate just because they have the magic (R) behind their name. Duncan didn’t run for reelection mainly because he refused to engage in abuse of his office and illegal actions to steal the 2020 election for Trump. That’s all well and good, but before we give him a cookie for doing the right thing here, it’s important to understand and appreciate what he said about Walker’s opponent, whose competence and commitment to working for the State and its people has already been proven and who he didn’t vote for either:
“Georgia deserve better than Sen. Warnock, whose left-wing voting record is way out of step with their priorities and would never earn my support,” Duncan added. “The Republican Party deserves better than Herschel Walker. To rebuild, we need less team players and more team leaders.”
Think about what he is saying there. Herschel Walker has been called one of the worst candidates for public office in history, and if you want to dismiss that characterization is hyperbole, I’d just ask if you can think of a worse one except maybe Trump. Duncan’s “integrity” move here is simply a way of saying that he considers every terrible, ridiculous, and disgusting thing we now know about Walker to be exactly equivalent to the fact that Warnock is a Democrat and votes like one. He won’t vote for either one because one is a violent, lying ignoramus and the other is a Democrat. To be clear, refusing to vote for Walker is only half, at most, of what is needed to indicate concern for one’s state and country. Voting in the affirmative to keep Walker out is the other, perhaps greater part.
Warnock has been emphasizing his bipartisan credentials in many ads lately, and of course any Senator should work with anyone else who has the good of the American people at heart. But more than anything else, I think this incident shows how running on bipartisanship, which only Democratic candidates are ever expected to do, is not way to attract a single Republican vote. Maybe it is a bit much to expect a Republican to vote for a Democratic candidate even when the Republican opponent is a clear and present danger to the country. But let’s be sure we temper our praise of a man who, when confronted by the unthinkable, is content to simply say “Don’t blame me, I didn’t vote.” That’s what passes for Republican integrity: “I won’t go against my ideology and pathological hatred for liberals even to stop a disaster that could harm our country. Look how thoughtful I am.”