Failed Georgia gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams moderated a Democratic Governors Association panel this week featuring state executives who actually won their races.
It is every bit as sad as it sounds.
“Today’s conversation could not have a better moderator,” said New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy, kicking off an event that featured Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers, Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear, Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz — and Abrams.
“It is moderated by Fair Fight founder and one of my heroes, former gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams,” Murphy added. “Please help me welcome … an American hero, former Democratic candidate, and a dear friend: Stacey Abrams.”
The failed candidate took it from there, thanking the New Jersey governor for “convening this extraordinary panel.”
“I had the honor of serving as the Democratic nominee for governor for Georgia in 2018,” Abrams added. “I am more excited, though, to be in the presence of folks who crossed that finish line and are leading their states so ably.”
After a brief introduction, Whitmer returned the favor, praising the woman who lost by more than 54,700 votes in an election year that saw voter turnout in Georgia increase by an estimated 2.5 million from the last midterm election cycle.
“I am such a fan of yours,” said the Michigan governor, “and I think the whole world has seen what a difference Democratic leadership makes, and if the good people of Georgia had had Gov. Abrams, Georgia would be in a much stronger position with regard to COVID and everything else that we’re all confronting.”
Speaking of Democratic leadership and the coronavirus pandemic, Michigan has a death rate of 66 per every 100,000 cases, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Georgia’s COVID-19 death rate per every 100,000 cases is 44.
To be clear, the DGA did not host Abrams to do a shadow government thing where everyone pretends as if she is the true and legitimate chief executive of Georgia. The event’s organizers made it clear with the title cards that Abrams is not on the same level as Murphy, Evers, Beshear, Whitmer, and Walz.
In some ways, though, asking Abrams to moderate a panel of successful Democratic gubernatorial candidates where she was not treated as the rightful leader of Georgia is sadder than had they invited her on to play pretend as governor. Moderating duties were clearly a consolation prize for losing in 2018. Some prize.
Instead of the panel being a deranged exercise in entertaining Abrams’s delusions of electoral victory, the meeting had more of a Make-a-Wish Foundation feel to it, as if Abrams was a child with an incurable disease and the five Democratic governors, the big-hearted benefactors, were determined to grant her final wish. Watching the panel this week, one got the sense that at any moment, Spiderman and Captain America would enter the frame to surprise Abrams and tell her that she is the real hero, which would have only slightly less pitiable than what ended up happening.
