Therefore, I’m going to try and articulate why I love these
ten particular senators more, but I am not going to entirely succeed and when
you point out their positions on gun control or something similar differ from me, I’ll agree (maybe
this is the best post I’ve had in a while to illicit comments, and if this is
what it takes I’m all for it).
Without further hemming, here is my Top 10:
Honorable
Mention: I am not even going to try and make this bipartisan (not so
spoiler alert: the top ten will be Democrats). However, I do want to say that while I probably agree with
Susan Collins more than any other Republican in the Senate and that I have a
personal affinity for Rob Portman (I really think that Will Portman did more
for the gay rights movement by coming out to his dad than 99% of activists could ever accomplish), my favorite Republican is easily Lisa Murkowski. Maybe it’s because she very vocally
stood up to the Tea Party and that she has been far more moderate in the past
few years (plus, she’s pro-gay marriage, a big sticking point for me and one of
the few requirements for this list).
If I had to put a Republican on here, it’d be her.
Second
Honorable Mention: While I’m not in love with any of the
challengers right now for the Senate (Bruce Braley, Natalie Tennant, Michelle
Nunn, Gary Peters, and Alison Lundergan Grimes being the only Democrats with a shred of
hope to be elected), if Lundergan Grimes makes the Senate, I’ll probably love
her forever for knocking Mitch McConnell out of office, so she’s the biggest
threat for this list of potential freshmen.
As one of the newest members of the Senate, this could turn
(Cory Booker, you are in this same camp and just missed the cut), but Schatz’s
work on the environment has to put him toward the top of my list, and I suspect
that if he defeats Rep. Colleen Hanabusa in her primary challenge, he’ll move
up pretty quickly. I love that
there is actually a senator who not only has climate change as a signature
issue, but also champions it on the stump. We need more senators like Schatz, and I really hope he can
pull off what will probably be the only difficult Senate election of his
career.
9.
Harry Reid (D-NV)
I can’t skip the majority leader, but I also feel like it
would be anti-climactic (and false) to put him at the top of the list. I have come and gone with Harry Reid
through the years, though I feel like he’s gutsier and stronger when he has a
foil (I think I was softest on him from 2009-11, when he had a supermajority I
didn’t think he pushed hard enough with), but when he’s on (the judicial
filibusters, the way he handled his 2010 Senate re-election), I’m all aboard.
Tester is the perfect example of a senator on this list that
is to the right of me (there are at least four, possibly five depending on
Reid’s stances that particular day).
However, Jon Tester is about as perfect fit for the Democrats in Montana
as you can get. He’s generally on
the Democratic side of most issues, but he also is a tough-talking guy and,
though I disagree with him on the DREAM Act and environmentalism, I respect
that he can win tough elections and hold a tough seat, and is a very strong speaker
(I still think he’d be worth considering by Hillary in 2016 for a VP slot).
7.
Amy Klobuchar (D-MN)
Klobuchar is the only senator on this list I’ve met (I’ve
seen Number Two on this list in person, but we didn’t get to chat or
anything). She’s also my
representative in Congress, so there’s a bit of a bias. Klobuchar is pretty much a carbon copy
of my votes in Congress, and while she’s a really strong speaker (funnier than
you’d expect) and someone that once brought up Twilight at a Supreme Court confirmation (before you scoff,
remember that Supreme Court hearings are wildly dour affairs and she’d
just gotten into an epic battle against Tom Coburn over women’s rights, so she
earned a bit of humor), a number of senators with near identical voting records
miss this list. Klobuchar gets a
break in that tie by being, well, my senator.
The hardest sell for me is Landrieu, whose work on gay
rights and the environment are hardly mimicking my opinions, but she was also
one of the first people that really got me interested in the Senate. Random fact: Landrieu was the first
candidate I ever donated money to their campaign (second random fact: I have
only donated to one losing campaign, that of Tony Knowles who ran against my favorite
Republican up-top, Lisa Murkowski, whom I liked a lot less circa 2004).
Landrieu’s spot is permanent, therefore, for both getting me interested
in the Senate and also for not being milquetoast on the Senate floor. I don’t like passive politicians, and
Landrieu is someone who fights for her causes like few others (I still remember
her getting into a verbal fight with Orrin Hatch during the judicial
filibusters a few years back during the Bush administration-it was one of my
favorite moments in the hours of C-SPAN I have watched through the years).
She’s also, like Tester, absolutely the best the Democrats could expect
in a state like Louisiana, which is according to the Cook PVI, the third most
conservative state with a Democratic senator.
With Landrieu looking more and more likely to be out of the
Congress in 2015, Heitkamp appears to have taken her place amongst the Blue Dog
female Democratic wing of the Senate.
I was talking with my brother, and I mentioned that I may write more
about Heidi Heitkamp than any other politician (see here and here and here for just some examples). I don’t agree with her on as much as, say, Amy Klobuchar,
but her retail politicking skills have few equals. She ran a flawless campaign in 2012 and managed to win a
state that President Obama was getting trounced in, twelve years after she lost
a gubernatorial election in part because she was suffering from breast
cancer. That sort of redemptive
story warms even my cynical heart, and she’s deeply effective on the
stump. The Democrats would be wise
to have her hit more of the Sunday talk shows in the future (and Joe Biden
would be wise to keep her in mind for the second spot in 2016 if Hillary
passes).
Bennet is probably the senator I least expected to be a personal favorite when he was initially elected. I remember being surprised when Bill Ritter picked him in 2010 (I was expecting John Hickenlooper or Andrew Romanoff...and I'm guessing so was Andrew Romanoff), and I got an unknown Denver superintendent. Bennet, however, pulled off arguably the biggest upset of 2010's Senate elections (give or take Illinois) and has since been a strong advocate for both immigration reform and environmental causes. Plus, he's not doing an awful job at the DSCC, despite getting a truly terrible election cycle to run it. While Tester outranks him in that above linked VP roundup, Bennet is a surprisingly perfect match for Hillary in 2016 as well: liberal, swing state, young, education-background, and with the DSCC job, superbly connected.
Come on, I needed at least one super liberal who drives Republicans insane on this list. Barbara Boxer is the sort of politician that could only get elected from a state as to the left as California-unabashedly, unapologetically liberal and a force for causes as diverse as the environment, gay rights, election reform, immigration, and women's health, she might not be the Joe Manchin style come-together politician, but you need people of passion in Congress as well as the dealmakers, if only so that all sides of an issue get heard. Plus, Boxer, like Landrieu, was one of the first senators I truly started following and so she's got a special place for me as well...and she once took down Norm Coleman on the Senate floor in an awesome exchange (as may be evidenced in this article, I have a surprisingly long memory for C-SPAN debates.
Surely the saddest retirement of 2014, Tom Harkin has been a personal favorite of mine ever since Sen. Paul Wellstone passed away. Harkin was close friends with Wellstone in the Senate, and I even saw Harkin speak at the Wellstone Memorial (I was indeed at the infamous Wellstone memorial, but I was smart enough not to boo Trent Lott). Tom Harkin has been a strong force in the Senate, frequently taking principled stands, like when he was the chief sponsor of the Americans with Disabilities Act in 1990 or his strong stances on the minimum wage and gay rights. In a way he's the best combination of Paul Wellstone and Joe Biden one could hope for, hence his spot so high on the list.
Claire McCaskill is awesome. Completely, totally awesome. You can tell this just by looking at her Twitter feed (which I insist you follow), one of the most followed senators because her tweets are actually funny and personal, and not just campaign stops. She talks about her diet, she talks about her family-all politicians are actors to a certain degree (presenting a public persona rather than what truly is there), but if Claire McCaskill isn't at least a little bit like this ballsy, risk-taking woman that comes across in her public life, she should be giving Meryl Streep acting lessons. I also love a teensy bit of electoral Machiavelli in my politicians, and she certainly has that (pushing Todd Akin as her Republican primary candidate when she was in an uphill climb to be re-elected, knowing he'd be the weakest), as well as someone who can bounce back from defeat (her incredibly close 2004 gubernatorial election). Plus, she's a tireless advocate for women in particular, and is deliciously frank during congressional hearings. Like I said, she's awesome. And if Hillary doesn't run two years from now, I'm all set with a Claire 2016 bumper sticker.
Those are my favorite senators-do you have any (let's try to be relatively nice in the comments)? Share your personal favorites below!
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