Well today I'm heading back home for the Holidays. I have a red eye flight out of Los Angeles to Pittsburgh tonight. I have quite a busy Christmas season this year. First, I'm going to exchange gifts with my brother and folks in Pittsburgh, then off to the Pennsylvania/Delaware to celebrate Christmas with my Grandma and our whole family then off to Maryland for my cousin's wedding. And I will be spending New Years and the last few days of my trip in Philadelphia. So you can tell I'm pretty excited. It's going to be a busy day at work today so I can't guarantee I'll have a lot of diaries out today. But I will say it's been a great pleasure keeping you all updated with the races that took place this past year and the races that will take place next year. I am going to try to get one big PA-Gov diary out before the New Year though. But for now, I'd like to look back at the big races I covered and the big winners and losers of 2013. First the winners of 2013:
1. The Virginia Democratic Party Ticket:
This turned out to be quite an entertaining race. We witnessed GOP clowns like Ken Cuccinelli (R. VA) and E.W. Jackson (R. VA) royally blow their chances to be the next Governor & Lt. Governor to Terry McAuliffe (D. VA) and Ralph Northam (D. VA). McAuliffe ran a great and progressive-leaning campaign, pulling off a narrow win and Northam didn't really have much of a competitive race against Jackson. In fact, Northam was the only one of the three Democrats to win by a landslide. And of course, the big victory was Mark Herring (D. VA) winning the Attorney General race and recount against Cuccinelli protege Mark Obenshain (R. VA). This race is historic because it's the first time Democrats now occupy all three of the major offices and broke the tradition of the opposing party of the current President winning these races. We have Cuccinelli's extreme conservatism and the fringe Tea Party base to thank.
2. Senator Ed Markey (D. MA):
Some people will say that this was a sure win for Democrats after Senator John Kerry (D. MA) was selected to be President Obama's Secretary of State. But in an off year election, Markey's campaign did an excellent job getting voters out to the polls. Progressives scored a big win here with Markey who ran an excellent campaign advocating privacy protection, gun control, the environment and opposing cuts to Social Security. It was also a big win for environmentalists thanks to Tom Steyer for making Markey's primary opponent, Rep. Stephen Lynch (D. MA), flip flop on his support for the Keystone XL Pipeline. Republicans took some big blows in this race. First their great white hope, Senator Scott Brown (R. MA), chickened out in trying to win back his seat. Then the GOP thought they had a winning candidate in former Navy SEAL and businessman Gabriel Gomez (R. MA) but he turned out to be a lackluster candidate. Now Massachusetts has two great progressives in the U.S. Senate.
3. Senator Cory Booker (D. NJ):
Love him or hate him, we all knew the Newark Mayor was going to be the next Senator from New Jersey. Booker made history this year as New Jersey's first African American Senator. Booker may not have been progressives first choice to succeed the late Senator Frank Lautenberg (D. NJ) and he did ruffle some feathers by announcing his intention to run for U.S. Senate before Lautenberg even announced his retirement. Of course, Booker had his bumps in the road along the campaign trail but he still came out the victor against the bigoted, volatile Tea Party candidate, Steve Lonegan (R. NJ). The Progressive Change Campaign Committee even pushed Booker to come out in favor of expanding Social Security. We shall see if he keeps his promise.
4. Mayor Bill de Blasio (D. NY):
Who would've thought the race to succeed outgoing New York City Mike Bloomberg would turn out to be an exciting election for progressives? de Blasio went from being in fourth place in the Democratic primary to the newly elected mayor of the Big Apple. De Blasio ran as the anti-Bloomberg running on a platform of funding pre-k education by raising taxes on the rich and tackling income inequality. He also used his wonderful family effectively to help build a strong grassroots campaign and addressing racial issues and the NYPD's controversial Stop-And-Frisk policy. He also stood up for fast food workers and for raising the minimum wage, helping make income inequality a key campaign issue. We saw Bloomberg protege City Councilwoman Christine Quinn's campaign implode and de Blasio successfully held off a runoff election against New York City Comptroller Bill Thompson. Was also witnessed the hilarious downfall of Anthony Weiner's campaign which helped pave the way for de Blasio's victory.
Now onto the losers:
1. State Senator Barbara Buono:
New Jersey Democrats truly had a great candidate in Buono. She was a strong advocate for organized labor, gun control and the middle class. Buono represented true progressive and New Jersey values but she could not defeat Governor Chris Christie. Christie's popularity with how he handled Hurricane Sandy helped him easily win re-election, not to mention the lack of state party support for Buono's campaign. Now the Garden State will have to put up with another four years of Christie thuggery or at least until he calls it quits and runs for President in 2016.
2. State Senate Majority Leader John Morse (D. CO) & State Senator Angela Giron (D. CO):
Despite Democrats spending big to fight back against the NRA's recall campaign against Morse and Giron for supporting tough gun control measures, the end results were devastating. Who knows how many Democratic candidates next year will be running on gun control after what happened in Colorado but if we learned anything from these loses, we need to get better with base turnout in off election years.
3. Elizabeth Colbert Busch (D. SC):
When Governor Nikki Haley (R. SC) appointed Rep. Tim Scott (R. SC-01) to succeed Senator Jim DeMint (R. SC) in the Senate, Democrats landed a high caliber candidate in Stephen Colbert's sister. She stood up for marriage equality and reproductive rights and even though she was running in a red district, she didn't hold back any punches against disgraced former Governor Mark Sanford (R. SC). This race looked like a big pick up opportunity for Democrats but a mysterious and sleazy phone poll that hinted that Colbert Busch had an abortion reminded us that this is still South Carolina where sexual smearing politics are still alive and relevant. Just ask Senator John McCain (R. AZ) and what he went through in the 2000 South Carolina GOP primary.
All in all, I think progressive candidates had a good year at the polls. We had some hurtful losses but some excellent victories. One can only hope that next year will be a good year for us at the polls. Stay tuned.