The Ex-President in Georgia’s Senate Runoff Isn’t Trump

“Let’s face it,” Mr. Obama told the crowd of thousands at Atlanta’s Pullman Yard event center. Democrats kept the Senate because “somewhat crazy folks—election deniers—got beat.” Mr. Warnock nodded along from the stage, and the knowing crowd said amen.

They’re right. Democrats kept control of the Senate by beating subpar opponents in Arizona, Pennsylvania, New Hampshire and elsewhere. Mr. Warnock also outperformed his opponent, football star and political newcomer

Herschel Walker,

but they’re squaring off again in a Dec. 6 runoff election because Mr. Warnock failed to secure the 50% vote share required to win outright.

Still, Democrats’ broader victory made Mr. Warnock’s task much easier. With the Senate settled, a vote for him is no longer principally a vote to enact more Democratic policies. Georgia voters are at liberty to go with the candidate whose style they prefer. And Messrs. Warnock and Obama are great salesmen of the Democratic Party’s style.

The main point of Mr. Obama’s remarks was to cast the current Democratic Party as heir to and embodiment of the civil-rights movement and to portray a vote for Mr. Warnock as a vote for “justice.” He said little about Mr. Warnock’s agenda, but he urged the crowd to the polls by saying, “Imagine if after the Emancipation Proclamation all the abolitionists and civil-rights activists had said, ‘We’re OK now, let’s go home.’ ”

Mr. Obama invoked the memory of a 106-year-old black woman who voted for him in 2008, saying she “witnessed the arc of history bend in the direction of justice” when he was elected. He said that Georgians weary of having to vote twice in a month should remember “the men and women who had to endure the sting of discrimination, and the smack of the billy club” but “didn’t get tired.”

This pitch sounds like a mighty stretch if you’re inclined to believe that Mr. Obama uses the…