Live from Music Row, Wednesday morning on The Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy – broadcast on Nashville’s Talk Radio 98.3 and 1510 WLAC weekdays from 5:00 a.m. to 8:00 a.m. – host Leahy welcomed national political correspondent for One America News Neil W. McCabe to the newsmaker line to comment on the recent debate for Georgia governor between Brian Kemp and Stacy Abrams and senate candidates Raphael Warnock and Herschel Walker.
Leahy: On the newsmaker line right now, our very good friend, former national political correspondent for The Star News Network, now “Top Gov” tracker for One America News Network, talking and reporting about all things related to Ron DeSantis and a few other things in that area of the world, our good friend, Neil W. McCabe. Good morning, Neil.
McCabe: Good morning, Michael. Good morning, Crom.
Carmichael: Good morning.
Leahy: Let’s see, you were down in, you went a little bit north from Florida into Georgia. Were you at the debate? Which debate did you attend? The Brian Kemp-Stacey Abrams debate?
McCabe: That one. Let me just say the joke in Florida is, in Florida, if you want to go to the South, you have to go north.
Leahy: That’s probably true. So you went north to the South. What was the debate between Brian Kemp and election denier Stacey Abrams? She’s still not conceded the 2018 race, even though Brian Kemp has been the governor of Georgia for four years.
McCabe: Her lawsuit contesting that election was finally tossed out. So she’s now saying in the debate, she was asked directly if she has conceded the 2018 race. And she said “yes” right away. I never challenged the results. (Laughter)
Carmichael: Oh, my gosh.
McCabe: And she says, I pointed out some irregularities, just like a lot of people. (Laughter) But I think the number one takeaway from the Abrams-Kemp debate is that these two people absolutely hate each other, which makes for a great debate.
Leahy: Absolutely. Yes.
McCabe: When my dear wife was working in a restaurant, at the end of her shift I would say two questions. One, are there any first dates? Because I love first-date stories. Did any of your customers have first dates?
Second thing, tell me about the fights. Tell me about the guy banging on the bathroom door while the wife is crying. I love these stories. (Laughter)
Carmichael: Who was banging on the door? The governor or Stacey Abrams?
McCabe: At one point, it’s like Kemp says, how many sheriffs have endorsed you? And she goes, the governor is just trying to push the lie that I don’t support law enforcement, but I do support law enforcement.
She goes on and talks about her brother, who is a criminal, and how she wants the victims of her brother’s crimes to be able to call the police. And I was like, okay.
Leahy: That’s not a strong argument, by the way.
McCabe: It gets a little complicated in the Abrams family, but whatever. Kemp just says, well, I’ll answer for her. No sheriffs have endorsed her. And she’s like, that’s a lie – some sheriffs have endorsed me, but unlike the governor, I’m not making a big deal about who my supporters are.
And Kemp says, I know she’s getting mad. I know she’s a little upset right now. She just kind of quarks her face into the camera, like, what’s he talking about? This is amazing. I think the bottom line is that this was a close race four years ago.
Kemp only beat Abrams by less than 1.5 percentage points. Now Kemp is up anywhere from five to 10, and it’s like he is not letting up on the attacks. And the Abrams campaign is in a freefall. And I think that freefall is not helped by the fact that around the country, there is a triage going on with Democratic candidates.
So if the governor of Oregon is in trouble and the Democrats thought they might have had a race in Georgia that was in the bank, how are they going to save the guy in Oregon?
With Warnock and Walker, I was at that debate in Savannah. Warnock raised $50 to $70 million. He wasn’t expected to use all that money. Warnock is a great fundraiser.
It’s like that money was supposed to be used for other people, because he only needed maybe $20 million. And so all these other senate candidates who are expected to get extra from Warnock, they’re on their own, because Warnock has to die on that hill.
Leahy: I saw the latest poll released yesterday in Georgia in the governor’s race. This is Landmark Communications. They are well known as a leading pollster in Georgia for many, many years. They’re a polling firm and PR firm.
They have Kemp up over Abrams by six points. Warnock and Walker are tied. The question to you, Neil, in that Georgia senate race, is GOP governor Brian Kemp going to have enough of a margin over Stacey Abrams to literally drag former NFL star Herschel Walker across the finish line?
Carmichael: The goal line.
Leahy: Wow. Thank you. The goal line. Thank you.
Carmichael: Since he’s a former NFL player, it’s the goal line.
Leahy: Very good. (Carmichael chuckles)
McCabe: Heisman Trophy winner, by the way. I think that a lot of these polls are going to miss the late movement of Republicans like they do every single cycle. Republicans break late, and polls don’t pick it up. And so you’re always going to see Republicans do two to three points better.
Regardless of the poll, it’s always that way, just because of the culture and personality of Republican voters. There’s also a shift after Labor Day from sort of all registered voters to likely voters. Likely-voter polls miss the sort of unlikely voters who are your Trump coming-out-of-the-woods voters. There are a lot of people.
The only politician they know the name of is Herschel Walker, because he played for the University of Georgia. It’s like he’s going to pull those kinds of people. I think he’s going to do well. This morning I was watching – we’re still in Atlanta – I was watching the ads.
Warnock is really going after Walker for his complicated and awkward relationship styles. But Herschel Walker also has the fact that Warnock secretly owns an apartment building and he’s evicting people when they owe $28.55.
Leahy: That doesn’t play well.
Carmichael: And it’s not a secret anymore. That’s one of Warnock’s problems. I have a quick question for you, Neil. There’s a headline on a website called Business and Politics. It says police cameras showed DeSantis’s voter fraud arrests. Suspects are shocked that he meant business.
Can you tell me what are these people doing that they’re being arrested for? Do you know about it? This is at The Villages, apparently, that these voter fraud arrests are taking place.
Most are Democrats, but there are some Republicans who are being arrested. Do you know what the voter fraud is about, the nature of it?
Listen to today’s show highlights, including this interview:
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Tune in weekdays from 5:00 – 8:00 a.m. to The Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy on Talk Radio 98.3 FM WLAC 1510. Listen online at iHeart Radio.
