Does Herschel Walker understand the issues he's talking about?

As Republican nominee Herschel Walker enters the final weeks before the Georgia Senate runoff election, he has not been able to articulate cogent policy positions on virtually any of the major issues of concern to voters.

Walker will face off again against Democratic Georgia Sen. Raphael Warnock in a runoff election ending Dec. 6. Warnock received more votes than Walker in the Nov. 8 general election, but neither candidate reached the 50% majority required to win.

Walker, who has frequently boasted of his role as an honorary law enforcement officer, has made fighting crime a major focus of his campaign rhetoric. On Oct. 17, when he was asked during an appearance on NBC News‘ “Meet the Press” what crime legislation he would sponsor first if elected, Walker responded, “You know, the first bill you would wanna sponsor, it’s gotta be something dealing with, supported our men and women in blue.” Pressed for details, he said: “I have no idea what it’s gonna look like. … What it’s gonna look like, who knows? But we have to, have to get something back where you have law and order. We have to get something back where we have some unity because criminals not afraid of police anymore.”

On Nov. 15, Atlanta CBS News affiliate 13WMAZ reported that it had asked Walker’s campaign the same question and had received a general response that he would continue making “strong investments” in law enforcement.

The campaign did not immediately respond to an American Independent Foundation request for his detailed policy positions on crime and other top issues.

Walker has spent the Senate campaign seemingly unable to provide coherent answers to policy questions or detailed legislative ideas.

In August, in a story titled “Herschel Walker skips details in bid to oust Raphael Warnock,” the AP noted that while Walker blamed Warnock for inflation, he changed the subject to immigration and crime when asked how he himself would reduce it.

A Nov. 16 report by 13WMAZ noted that while Walker has supported increased domestic oil and gas production, he has offered no other anti-inflation policy ideas. Warnock voted for the Inflation Reduction Act and authored key provisions to lower costs for medications and insulin for older Americans.

In a Oct. 14 debate, Walker said he would have opposed the legislation. “I believe in reducing insulin, but at the same time you gotta eat right,” he said. “Because he may not know and I know many people that’s on insulin, and unless you have eating right, insulin is doing you no good.”

After the May 24 mass shooting at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, CNN asked Walker if he would support gun safety legislation. “What I like to do is see it and everything and stuff. I like to see it,” he replied, before walking away.

Two days later, on Fox News, Walker suggested, “What about getting a department that can look at young men that’s looking at women that’s looking at social media. What about doing that, looking into things like that, and we can stop that that way.”

In January, Walker scolded a reporter from the right-wing media outlet the Daily Caller for asking if he’d have voted for the 2021 Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, telling him: “Until I see all the facts, you can’t answer the question. I think that’s what is totally unfair to someone like myself to say, ‘What are you going to vote for?'”

Walker has repeatedly fumbled questions about climate change.

“Since we don’t control the air, our good air decide to float over to China’s bad air. So when China gets our good air, their bad air got to move. So it moves over to our good air space. And now we got to clean that back up,” he said in July.

In August, he said he disliked the Inflation Reduction Act “because a lot of money, it’s going to trees. Don’t we have enough trees around here?”

“If we was ready for the green agenda, I’d raise my hand right now,” Walker said during a campaign event on Nov. 13. “But we’re not ready right now. So don’t let them fool you like this is a new agenda. This is not a new agenda. We’re not prepared. We’re not ready right now. What we need to do is keep having those gas-guzzling cars, ’cause we got the good emissions under those cars. We’re doing the best thing that we can.”

Last December, Walker criticized a voting rights bill named for the late Democratic Georgia Rep. John Lewis, referring to Lewis as a senator and falsely claiming: “I think then to throw his name on a bill for voting rights, I think is a shame. First of all, when you look at the bill, it just doesn’t fit what John Lewis stood for and I think they know that and I think that is sad for them to do this to him.”

Warnock, who has detailed policy positions on the issues, tweeted on Nov. 8 that Walker is “neither fit nor ready for this job.”

Published with permission of The American Independent Foundation.