― Michael Bassey Johnson
By Alex P. Vidal
IF Herschel Walker were Filipino, he would have won the December 6 runoff senatorial election in Georgia, USA.
But he is an American and was rejected by the Georgians partly because of his “incredible” record as womanizer.
Erap Estrada, the father and son Revilla, Robin Padilla, Freddie Webb, Lito Lapid, to mention only a few, were known “womanizers” but the Filipino voters did not consider their turbulent past when they elected them.
In fact, the Filipino voters love the underdog. The more you paint an opponent as bad guy, the more the voters will sympathize and vote for him.
Erap had openly flaunted his mistresses and was ripped apart by his presidential rivals in 1998, yet he mangled all of them with a big margin of votes.
The same “immorality” issue had surfaced when the former screen idol, known as “Erap para sa mahihirap”, ran subsequently for the senate and vice president but he came, saw, and conquered.
Padilla, a bad boy both in real life and in the movies, had confessed to have sired many children from multiple partners and was “abhorred” by the holier-than-thou, yet he recently became the No. 1 elected senator.
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Walker, a Republican and long time friend of Donald Trump, had been accused of forcing at least two girlfriends to have an abortion, an issue leveled against him while in the heat of election campaign.
It was supposed to be a negative publicity, yet he stood toe to toe against incumbent Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock, who is a pastor.
As of this writing, Walker (48.8 percent with 1,713,395 votes) was projected to lose to Warnock (51.2 percent with 1,796,196 votes) with a difference of 82,801 votes.
From start of the campaign period even before the November 6 US midterm elections, political detractors zeroed in on Walker’s dark sides, thus he actually had already “lost” to now reelected Warnock, but a runoff had to be arranged when both protagonists did not get more than 50 percent of the votes.
Walker, 59, at first glance, had a coveted political profile for a potential Senate candidate in Georgia.
He was a football hero at the University of Georgia before his long NFL career.
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Walker is a business owner whose chicken products are distributed across the U.S. And he’s a Black conservative with backing from Trump.
But an Associated Press review of hundreds of pages of public records tied to Walker’s business ventures and his divorce, including many not previously reported, sheds new light on a turbulent personal history that could dog his Senate bid.
The documents detailed accusations that Walker repeatedly threatened his ex-wife’s life, exaggerated claims of financial success and alarmed business associates with unpredictable behavior.
Walker has at times been open about his long struggle with mental illness, writing at length in a 2008 book about being diagnosed with dissociative identity disorder, once known as multiple personality disorder. But he had refused to openly discuss these events as a candidate.
AP reported that the Twitter tease intensified buzz about the potential for a celebrity candidate back in July. But it also helped surface details about Walker’s troubled past, many first disclosed by Walker himself in his 2008 book, “Breaking Free.”
“His account details years of struggles and an eventual diagnosis in 2001. Walker describes himself dealing with as many as a dozen personalities —or “alters”—that he had constructed as a defense against bullying he suffered as a stuttering, overweight child,” AP reported.
(The author, who is now based in New York City, used to be the editor of two local dailies in Iloilo.—Ed)
