Best and Worst of 2013 in Politics

In a sneak preview of Friday’s rant, you’re not going to get a filmic “Best of the Year” until mid-January, but I don’t want to neglect my political hosting duties.  Lots of different political writers pick the Best Campaign of the Year, Worst Campaign of the Year, stupidest decision by a politician, etc., and I thought why shouldn’t TMROJ give it a shot?  Here are my thoughts on the year in politics:

Mayor-Elect of Detroit Mike Duggan

Best Campaign of the Year

A few names spring to mind.  Gov. Chris Christie did what he needed to do to keep his name very much in the game for the 2016 presidential election.  Bill de Blasio soared through a crowded field to nab a landslide victory in New York.  And Terry McAuliffe managed to beat a statewide-elected official despite having been clobbered four years earlier in a race for the same office (and with history against him, no less).  However, I have to tip my hat to the Mayor-elect of Detroit, Mike Duggan, who managed to do the near impossible-he won a write-in campaign to advance to the runoff in that election, then pulled off the runoff with relative ease.  I don’t know why someone would want to be mayor of Michigan’s largest city, but Duggan defied long odds to get the honor.

Worst Campaign of the Year

Again, there are a few competitors here  (Christine Quinn and E.W. Jackson spring to mind), but only a fool wouldn’t acknowledge that Anthony Weiner deserves this prize.  How a man who was once a rising star in the Democratic Party could be such an idiot is beyond me.  He somehow was leading or near leading this race for a while before hubris and his own past pulled him into an embarrassingly low 5% and probably ruined the political careers of both he and his wife in the process.

The Thrill of Victory

On May 14^th, 2013, my beloved Minnesota allowed same-sex couples to legally marry.  We weren’t the first state (we were shamefully behind Iowa even), but the personal victory here makes it my favorite political moment of the year.

Stephen Colbert and Elizabeth Colbert Busch

The Agony of Defeat

No race this year stung so badly as the South Carolina special election to replace Sen. Tim Scott.  Gov. Mark Sanford, one of the worst candidates to come across the Republicans' bench in a while, somehow pulled off a spot in the runoff, but Democrat Elizabeth Colbert Busch couldn’t seal the deal.  It’s of course worth mentioning that this is a very conservative district that Colbert Busch would have had great difficulty holding in 2014, but this still would have been a nice win for the Democrats and would have gotten us one more vote in a number of the key pieces of legislation that float around the House (every little bit helps).

Politician Everyone Talked About (But They Shouldn’t Have)

Does anyone remotely remember why Ted Cruz filibustered with Dr. Seuss books a few months back?  Or how he managed to become the patron saint of government spending while the shutdown raised on?  Or why we spent so much time discussing him as a legitimate contender for the Republican nomination?  Because while the name of the 2016 Republican presidential nominee could be Jeb, Chris, or Paul, there is no chance it’s going to be Ted.  The freshman senator can gain headlines, but spent the entire year establishing himself as the upper chamber’s Michele Bachmann, and we all saw how well her presidential campaign turned out to be.

Gov. Scott Walker (R-WI)

Politician No One Talked About (But They Should Have)

If I were to talk to you about a blue-state Republican with solid conservative credentials who has won statewide twice in recent years and is making waves about a 2016 run for the presidency, you’d think I was talking about Chris Christie right?  There’s another candidate emerging in that race with the same profile, though, and that man is Scott Walker.  Thanks to the misguided recall of 2012, Gov. Walker has a strong argument that he knows what it takes to win in a blue-state and unlike even Christie, no one can call him a RINO or moderate.  Walker is writing a book (code for running for president) and could be the great hope to unite the GOP in 2016.

Biggest Missed Opportunity (Election-Wise)

The Democrats were never going to beat Chris Christie in 2013.  That’s a fact-he was too popular in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy and has a personality that fits the Garden State.  That said, we had the votes to beat him (as new Senator Cory Booker can attest), and more importantly, we had the opportunity to drag the 2016 Republican frontrunner through the mud.  Getting the arguably best candidate running for the GOP in 2016 to take more moderate stances in the hopes of painting him as a flip-flopper later (or to get an easier to defeat general election candidate to run against Hillary) was the goal in supporting Barbara Buono unconditionally, but Democrats abandoned her left-and-right and the national party didn’t see the obvious benefits of supporting her, even if it was a losing proposition for that specific race.  It's hard not to draw comparison to George W. Bush's 1998 re-election here; both candidates won in cakewalks after having to defeat an incumbent governor four years earlier in a tight race.  If Chris Christie is elected the 45^th POTUS, you can blame a bunch of short-sighted Democrats for not seeing an opportunity.

Biggest Missed Opportunity (Issues-Wise)

It's so easy to say that the biggest missed opportunity was avoiding the government shutdown (for the GOP) and fixing that website (for the Democrats) and realizing the sequester would make airport lines longer (for John, who is still mad he missed seeing Cinderella with Laura Osnes because of the damn sequester), but I think that if we really want to talk about a missed opportunity in 2013, it's hard not to shake your head on the lack of meaningful immigration reform.  Coming off of the 2012 presidential loss for Mitt Romney, the Republican Party was prepared to eat some humble pie, particularly in regard to their horrific numbers amongst Latino Americans, and they even had a major senator pushing for a bill (Marco Rubio).  Alas, time makes people forget, Rubio wasn't a very strong advocate for the bill (if any major presidential candidate dropped more than Rubio in 2013, I can't name them), and eventually compromises on the sequester, the shutdown, and healthcare were being passed rather than a major second term achievement for the President (who probably needed to do this in the first year of his term in order to pass it).  Now that the Democrats have little chance of picking up seats in the Senate (they'll likely lose some) and no chance of winning back the House if they can't change public opinion fast, we probably won't see a significant bill for immigration reform until at least 2017.

Those are my thoughts of the year-what are yours?  What do you see as the signature achievements, victories, losses, and missed opportunities of 2013?  Share in the comments!