This column apparently shares a birthday with none other than Donald Duck, who turned 75 years old yesterday. Who knew? Yes, my column turned three years old yesterday, since my first foray into blogging happened on Huffington Post on June 9, 2006. Since I don't follow horoscopes, I have no idea what the metaphysical significance is of this column sharing the date with a duck who doesn't wear pants, so I will leave that for wiser minds to decide.
Because it's time for an annual feed-the-ego column (actually, I wrote about my first anniversary, but the second seems to have slipped my mind last year...). If a column full of patting myself on the back with links to my other columns doesn't appeal to you, then I would advise you to stop reading right now. Fair warning!
One year ago, Hillary Clinton had just been finally defeated numerically for the Democratic nomination for president. There was a lot of bad feeling in the air over this, and Democrats everywhere were wondering how many "PUMAs" (for "Party Unity, My Ass!") there really were, and what they would mean to the Democrats' chances in the fall. This led me to rewrite the labor anthem "Which Side Are You On?" for the occasion. As it turned out, by the time of the convention, the PUMAs were an endangered (if not extinct) species, and the convention was a shining display of unity behind Barack Obama. Much to the dismay of the media, who were really hoping for some fireworks on the floor (which has indeed happened before, but it's been a while).
This past year has been an interesting one to blog, I have to admit. From Mrs. Chris Weigant guest-blogging on "Why I Decided To Become An American" to hitting 2,500 Diggs ("End The Media's Pro-McCain Bias Now!") to our (sometimes) resident ChrisWeigant.com cartoonist C.W. Cunningham being honored by the Jefferson Center for Protection of Free Expression, it's been quite a year. I got the chance to interview Al Franken, and may (if he ever gets seated in the Senate) be able to line up a second interview, so that's something to look forward to.
Of course, I've had to pay attention to Republicans during the year, so it hasn't all been roses. My favorite quote from a Republican all year: "[The Republican Party is a] dead, rotting carcass with a few decrepit old leaders stumbling around like zombies in a horror version of Weekend at Bernie's, handcuffed to a corpse." This has also meant dealing with Republicans who badmouth you, dear reader, which I wrote about in "Oh, The Humanity! Godless Huffington Post Commenters Wickedly Destroying Conservatism."
Of course, the election was the biggest story of this time period, and led to thinking the unthinkable (a 269-269 tie in the Electoral College), as well as things that used to be unthinkable (a 60-seat majority in the Senate), which is now within reach (as soon as Al Franken is seated).
But the biggest election story was the presidential race, of course. I did a series of articles (which began rather modestly, and then added charts, and tracked Obama's chances from low point to landslide) on the electoral math and polling, which ended with a final column just before the election. Watching Obama's acceptance speech at the convention was probably the high point of the whole time period. The guest column I ran during the election ("Why Obama's Election Should Be Considered Historic") was probably the best one I've ever run, which was also a high point.
Of course, there was McCain and Palin on the other side, who provided lots of material -- from telling the media to ask McCain how many houses he had (weeks before they actually did) to telling Sarah Palin she was full of moose poop. I did, at one point, feel so sorry for Palin that I wrote a column titled "In Defense Of Sarah Palin" because I thought everyone wasn't even giving what she said an honest assessment. But in general, Palin was the gift that kept on giving (in terms of column material, at any rate).
While I tried to be funny at times (like Hallowe'en), I was so impressed with professional funnyman Craig Ferguson's rant "If you don't vote, you're a moron" that I had to transcribe the whole thing for posterity.
The most memorable event of the year, however, was Inauguration Day, which I traveled to Washington to personally witness (and, of course, blog about). I will forever be proud to say "I was there" whenever Obama's historic swearing-in is spoken of.
I began commenting about Obama's term with a lesson I had learned during the campaign -- "Barack Obama Is Smarter Than Us" -- and a warning that Obama was going to, at some point, enrage the left. Since he's been in office, I've started another series "Obama Poll Watch" which will -- soon after the first of every month -- plot his approval numbers for his term in office. It's not as exciting as the Electoral Math series, but it's still fun to create lots of graphs for people.
There were two recent columns which I thought deserved more attention (which is why I'm closing on this note) -- the concept of a "National Security Blanket," and a court decision on anonymous political emails ("Anonymity Of 'Obama Is A Muslim' Emails Constitutionally Protected?").
So, looking ahead to another interesting year, the big fight (at least at the beginning) is going to be countering the Frank Luntz Republican playbook on healthcare reform, which should take up a lot of time in the next few months.
And taking one final look back, the most amusing contest I ran was a photo caption for a classic shot of President Bush preparing to spank a female beach volleyball player at the Olympics (which I picked winners for later).
All in all, it's been a good third year, and it's looking like my fourth year blogging will certainly be interesting (if perhaps not as exciting as a presidential election year), as we continue to watch Democrats attempt to govern, now that they've run the tables in two branches of our federal government.
To my readers (both the faithful and the occasional), thanks for reading, thanks for commenting, and thanks (as always) for getting to the end of yet another lengthy post. I couldn't have done it without you.
Chris Weigant blogs at: ChrisWeigant.com