As 2019 comes to a close it’s as good a time as any to look back at the political year that was. Here are my awards for 2019’s most notable — and infamous — political achievements.
Winner of the George Romney Award for Campaign Missteps: Elizabeth Warren
In 1967, Governor George Romney of Michigan was a leading candidate for the Republican nomination for president. Then he went on a Detroit radio show and declared that when he’d gone to Vietnam he’d “received the greatest brainwashing anybody could get.”
Romney’s poor choice of words magnified one of his greatest political liabilities — a perception that he wasn’t that bright (Minnesota Senator Eugene McCarthy would note, with an acid tongue, that a mere “light rinse” might have sufficed).
Elizabeth Warren’s “brainwashing” moment came when she unveiled her comprehensive Medicare for All plan. It wasn’t just that Warren misjudged the popular support for single-payer health care, it’s that her plan played into the Number One fear about her candidacy — that she is too liberal and too supportive of “big government” solutions to prevail over Trump among an electorate that isn’t all that liberal or supportive of “big government” solutions. Like Romney, in one fell swoop she did serious, perhaps fatal damage to her candidacy. It’s a reminder that campaign mistakes are always worse when they magnify a candidate’s most glaring political liabilities.
Winner of the George H.W. Bush Award for Staying the Course: Joe Biden
On the surface, Joe Biden has not had a great 2020 campaign. He’s performed badly in most of the presidential debates (Thursday night’s final Democratic debate of 2019 being a notable exception). He’s had a host of flubs and miscues that have led to questions about whether he is too old to be president. His fundraising has been mediocre and enthusiasm for his campaign is lacking.
And yet, he continues to lead in all the Democratic polls and there’s no indication that any of his competitors have the ability to catch him. For all his faults Biden has stayed the course by relying on three key assets — the residual support he enjoys for being vice president to a popular two-term Democratic president; his abundant strength among African-American voters; and his ability to win over white, moderate, primarily older voters.
His nostalgic, optimistic message of national unity and bipartisanship may seem naïve to some, but there’s no doubt it is well-pitched to the Democrats voters who already seem to be leaning in his direction. This looks nothing like his campaign disasters in 1988 and 2008. His candidacy is starting to make me wonder if an old dog can learn new tricks.
Winner of the Barry Goldwater Award for Political Stubbornness: Donald Trump
In 1964, Barry Goldwater, the Republican nominee for president, famously declared that “extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice” — telling the moderate wing of the Republican Party, more or less, to go jump in a lake. That November, he suffered the worst presidential defeat in American political history.
It’s unlikely the same disastrous fate is awaiting President Trump, but it’s still remarkable the extent to which he is imitating Goldwater’s political strategy. Even though he is presiding over an extraordinarily strong and vibrant US economy — one that could help an incumbent president get re-elected — Trump seems committed to focusing on divisive issues and firing up those who already plan to vote for him. Trump has made little effort to broaden his political support and has offered nary an olive branch to non-Trump voters. In our polarized political environment — and considering Trump’s cult-like support — it’s a strategy that could work. But it’s hard to call it a smart one.
Winner of the Anti-Sally Field Likability Award: Jeremy Corbyn
Back in 1985, Sally Field won the Oscar for Best Actress and famously declared “you like me, you really like me.” This is not a declaration that UK Labour Leader Jeremy Corbyn will be making any time soon. In recent British parliamentary elections Corbyn didn’t just lead his party into a ditch, he led them over a cliff into a pool filled with piranhas that also happened to be on fire. The why is pretty simple — voters didn’t like him. In fact, Corbyn had a favorability rating that was 40 points underwater. He is perhaps the only politician who could make Prime Minister Boris Johnson look Churchillian. Since Corbyn’s defeat, many an American politician and pundit have sought to draw lessons for American politics from the British election. Most of them don’t hold, but here’s one that might: Don’t make a deeply unpopular person who also happens to be an anti-Semite the face of your political party.
Winner of the Roy Moore Award for Political Toxicity : Matt Bevin
Matt Bevin was such a lousy and unpopular governor of Kentucky that the Republican lost his bid for re-election in a state that Donald Trump won by nearly 30 points. Before leaving office, he issued 428 pardons to a group of convicted criminals that included child molesters and murderers. When asked this week how he could stomach pardoning a man who raped a child, he responded, “which one?”
Don’t let the door hit you on the way out Matt.
Winner of the Harry Reid Lifetime Achievement Award: Nancy Pelosi
I take the iconoclastic view that former Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is one of the most effective Democratic congressional leaders in recent history. But this year, Nancy Pelosi put him to shame. It’s not just that she led her party to the biggest midterm victory in more than 40 years, it’s the effectiveness with which she has held her caucus together.
On no issue has that been truer than impeachment. I, for one, thought Pelosi was too timid and parochial in opening an impeachment inquiry against Trump. But once she did, the speaker proceeded with a strategy that was modest, effective, politically savvy, and kept her unruly caucus on the same page. At the same time, she didn’t lose sight of the need for legislative accomplishments — like the new North American trade deal — that her more moderate members could point to as evidence that the party isn’t just focused on impeachment. It was a masterful achievement and one befitting the most successful female politician in American history.
Michael A. Cohen’s column appears regularly in the Globe. Follow him on Twitter @speechboy71.