Flipped by Greg Bluestein

Author:Greg Bluestein [Bluestein, Greg]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
Published: 2022-03-22T00:00:00+00:00

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The uproar over Loeffler’s breakup with the WNBA was an opportunity for Warnock, too. At first glance, it seemed Warnock had little to worry about in the early stages of his campaign. He had support from prominent state and national party leaders, an inspiring personal narrative, and no high-profile Democratic rivals.

But the pandemic had knocked his campaign off its stride. He was seldom grabbing headlines after his splashy January debut, even during social justice protests that aligned with a number of his greatest strengths as a candidate. A few of the party’s top donors, even some of his friends, wouldn’t return the pastor’s calls, leaving Warnock feeling burned and isolated. His advisers would assure him it wasn’t personal. Politics was a dirty game, and the pastor needed to learn to play it. Quickly. “He was an imperfect perfect candidate. He’d tell you all the time he wasn’t a politician. Keeping him on message was a nonstarter,” said Dasheika Ruffin, one of his deputies. “But you could see him just come alive in a crowd.”

As his campaign geared up, Warnock insisted on maintaining a semblance of his routine at Ebenezer Baptist Church. The demands of his congregation didn’t ease during a pandemic or pause for his Senate bid, and Warnock wanted to give himself part of Tuesdays to attend to his flock by overseeing board meetings, conducting sick calls, and handling other clergy business. It was also on Tuesdays, usually early in the morning, that the pastor would start what was typically the most demanding part of his weekly regimen: a ten-hour process of reading, studying, and then writing and practicing his Sunday sermons. His staff jealously guarded that time for Warnock so he could prepare for the sermon, which was usually recorded on Friday and broadcast remotely to his flock during Sunday services that were forced online by the pandemic.

Though he had long lived a public life, Warnock was by nature intensely private. His aide Terrence Clark drew a glimpse of the pastor’s personal side when he drove Warnock from Atlanta to a federal prison in Jesup in June to greet the pastor’s brother Keith, a first-time offender who was sentenced to life in prison for a drug-related offense in 1997. Keith’s early release from prison was a joyous occasion for his family, and Clark watched teary-eyed as the two men embraced in a parking lot of a southeast Georgia gas station.

It could have been a made-for-campaign spectacle, too, but Warnock wanted to keep the moment out of the public eye. He only let slip the news of his brother’s release later that day on a long-planned webinar, by way of explaining to participants the happy reason he was speaking to the group from a moving car. To Clark, that experience epitomized what motivated the candidate he was spending his every waking hour to help win. “He never really lost hope that his brother would be released,” Clark said, “and that brought it full circle for me.”

He and

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