There are many career paths that help prepare an individual to be an effective member of Congress. Attorney is the most common, because litigation and legislation are closely related, and having been trained in philosophy, logic, and the practice of law is a keen sharpener of one’s intellect. Perhaps the opposite side of this ledger might include commercial airline pilot, an occupation which requires considerable skill, but not of the type that translates into visualizing how to cobble together a majority to pass new laws in Congress or giving inspirational speeches to garner votes. Academicians and business executives probably fall in the middle of that spectrum — having skills in discernment, and psychology, but not so much in logic and rhetoric.
Raphael Warnock, with his PhD in Divinity and his career as pastoral leader of large churches, has proven himself to be a masterful speaker and an effective leader during his current term as a U.S. Senator. His 2022 opponent, Herschel Walker, can boast of a successful career in professional sports (football) after a delightful four years as star running back and one-time Heisman Trophy winner for the University of Georgia.
Yet, like the commercial pilot, Walker’s pre-politics career does not constitute a fruitful preparation for a late-career switch to legislating. According to a Wikipedia list, only Fred Brown (D-NH, 1933-1939), formerly with Boston Beaneaters baseball team, Bill Bradley (R-NJ, 1979-1997), formerly with NY Knicks basketball team, Jim Bunning (R-KY, 1999-2011), formerly with Philadelphia Phillies baseball team, and Tommy Tuberville (R-AL, 2021-pres), formerly head football coach at Auburn University were employed in sports careers before becoming U.S. Senators. (We could add a few honorable mention names, such as Ben Nighthorse Campbell who became a U.S. Senator from Colorado after being an [amateur] Olympic Judo competitor, Byron White, who became Supreme Court Associate Justice after playing football for the Detroit Lions football team, and Gerald Ford, who became U.S. Representative, VPOTUS and POTUS after being assistant varsity football coach for Yale.) The cited list contains 50 names total, many of which became local and state politicians, or members of the U.S. House of Representatives.
Of the four sportsfigure-senators cited above, only Tuberville is a sitting Senator today, and he’s not the most ethical person ever elected by Alabamans. He apparently took the position that Senators should not be banned from trading stocks, insinuating that inside information is one of the main reasons they run for Congress in the first place.
They might as well start sending robots up here. ...
I think it would really cut back on the amount of people that would want to come up here and serve.
Tuberville was also an election denier — joining a group of Republican senators who announced they would formally object to counting electoral votes won by Joe Biden on January 6.
Perhaps the Warnock campaign (and its informal supporters in the blogosphere) should consider tying Walker’s candidacy to Tuberville’s unfitness for office and citing both of their pre-Congressional careers as unsuitable preparation for being sworn in as a U.S. Senator.
It is not unreasonable to conclude that football is simply not an appropriate precursor to legislating. If it was, there would have been many more bright examples of this type of career migration over the decades.