I thought I'd do a rundown of the 5 most spectacularly bad campaigns of 2006 as a sort of year in review. Plus there's a bonus at the bottom of the page.
#5 Tom DeLay for Congress (Texas 22nd District): DeLay was a skeeze bag, and a dumb enough one that he managed to botch his withdrawal and hand Demswhat should be a cakewalk GOP seat. Then his GOP machine picked a person with an unspellable last name(S-h-e-l-l-y S-e-k-u-l-l-a-G-i-b-b-s) to be their write in candidate. Couldn't have been a more poetically beautiful result for Nick Lampson though, who lost his seat to DeLay's redistricting plan.
#4 Conrad Burns for Senate (Montana): Starting with a staggering amount of corruption on his public record. Burns proceeded to insult firefighters, fall asleep on camera at a public hearing, and brag about his illegal immigrant labor. A disaster from beginning to end with only the GOP's 72 hour program saving his dignity (but not his Senate seat).
#3 Ken Blackwell for Governor (Ohio): By far one of the lowest blows in the 2006 was Blackwell insinuating that Rep. Ted Strickland was somehow connected to NAMBLA. It reeked of desperation, and his already sagging campaign took yet another seemingly impossible downward turn. Also, the idea of disqualifing Strickland for a residency violation that didn't actually exist comes close too. In the end, he got crushed like an empty beer can, like he deserved
#2 Katherine Harris for US Senate (Florida): I probably didn't pay as much attention to this campaign as I should have, and apparently, I missed comnedic gold. I did catch her scary "I'm in it to win" statement on Fox News, and occasionally news of yet another new campaign team crossed my web browser. But what I remember most is the picture of her riding a horse, which was maybe the most ridiculous picture of the 2006 campaign.
#1 (Worst.Campaign.Ever-2006 Edition): Sen. George Allen (R-VA) Or how to go from a leading contender for President to a laughing stock in your own home state...in less than thirty days. His campaign was zooming along until it became macaca-riffic. Was there a minority group didn't he offend during his campaign? I was half waiting for him to use the word honkies to describe whites just to prove he was an equal opportunity racist. Then to top it all off, in the closing days of the campaign, his goons physically assaulted a protester. And to think he could have been President....scary.
Honorable Mentions(there are many, and I'm sure I'm missing some): House-Jack Davis (D-NY-26), Bill Sali (R-ID-1), Randy Graf (R-AZ-8), Doug Lamborn (R-CO-5), Vewrnon Robinson (R-NC-13) Senate: Rick Santorum (R-PA), Bob Corker (R-TN), Governor-"Both Ways" Bob Beauprez (R-CO), Phil Angelides (D-CA)
For fun, I'll throw in the five worst national campaigns run in western parliamentary democracies over the past 20.
#5 1994 US Midterm Elections Democrats: We had been in power for 40 years, and had gotten out of touch with the American people. Passing NAFTA as globalization was already starting to take jobs away killed us as did the perceptions of scandal (Rostenkowski, Wright, House Check Kiting). I know I'll take hits for this, but we had lost our way and probably deserved to be rebuked.
#4 2006 US Midterm Elections Republicans: We all know this story. The Republicans deserved to be crushed (more so than we ever did in '94) and were.
#3 1997 United Kingdom General Election Conservative Party: After 18 years of Conservative rule and 5 years of ineffective John Major leadership, British voters revolt and Labour crushes the Conservatives, winning a 179 seat majority and winning 418 seats en route. The size of Labour's victory is surprising to many-with the announcement of Defense Minister Michael Portillo's defeat symbolizing the carnage on the Conservative side.
#2 1983 United Kingdom General Election Labour Party: By 1983, Labour had, under pressure from its extreme left wing elements (the Bennite faction) staked out issue positions that were so far to the left that its party platform was later dubbed "the longest suicide note in history". The result drove moderate Labour voters either to Maggie Thatcher's Conservatives or the Liberal-Social Democratic alliance. The Conservatives romped, winning 397 seats, Labour only 209, and the Liberal-SDP alliance 23. However the numbers are decieving-the Cons got around 42%, Labour only 27%, and the Lib-SDPs 25%. Labour is only saved from the slag heaps of history by fear of Margaret Thatcher, else Labour may have become a marginal party with what is now the Liberal Democrats becoming Britain's main left wing party.
#1 (Worst.Campaign.Ever-Global): 1993 Canadian Federal Election Progressive Conservative Party: How bad was this one, well, for starters, the Progressive Conservative Party of Canada (the principal center-right party there) went from 169 seats to a whopping total of... 2 . It was a blow from which they never recovered. How did they go from majority ruling party to also ran status? Well, start with PM Brian Mulroney's hugely unpopular policies. They were so popular that by 1993, Mulroney's approval ratings were located somewhere near the bottom of the Marianas Trench. Then add in the most gaffe prone political party leader in Canadian history, Mulroney's replacement, Kim Campbell. Then throw political ads that were in such bad taste that they still haven't been forgotten (the ads mocking Jean Chretien for having Bell's Palsy). Then the PC's govening alliance split in three, with the right wing Westerners forming their own party (Reform) and the nationalist Quebecers forming another (the Bloc Quebecois). In that environment, all the opposition liberals had to do in order to win was stand still. And they did, winning a majority government of 177 seats.