On a day when I am overawed by the stupidity, brazenness, and greed of the Illinois Governor, I thought it might be fun to revisit some interesting tidbits about that long, glorious election we just had.

We all know about the obvious firsts of this election, but did you know that this is the first time that in United States history that both major party candidates were sitting United States Senators? Of course, there was one other election in which more than one sitting senator received electoral votes. That was the election of 1836, in which five candidates received electoral votes: Martin Van Buren (170 electoral votes),William H. Harrison (73), Hugh White (26), Daniel Webster (24), and Willie Mangum (11). White, Webster, and Mangum were all sitting Senators at the time; Van Buren and Harrison were former Senators. Good year for the most exclusive club in the world.

Oh, but this election was historic for other reasons as well. We know about Oprah supplying her magic to Obama. This election proved once and for all the power of Chuck Norris whose active campaigning sealed the deal for Mike Huckabee (also a frequent guest of Stephen Colbert, I might add) in Iowa. I said two years ago to keep an eye on that Huckabee kid; now he’s got his own Fox News late-night talk show. (If you ever have insomnia on a Sunday night, keep an eye out for it.)

And Huckabee was not the only of this campaign season. Joe Biden did pretty good for himself; he kicked off his campaign by insulting the future president (”I mean, you got the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy”) and ended up Vice President. Bill Richardson and Hillary Clinton got cabinet posts out of the deal–not as good as president, but a decent consolation prize none-the-less. The State of Alaska started out the presidential campaign with the political revival of one of it’s former senators–Mike Gravel, who acquitted himself quite well on the campaign trail–and ended with its sitting Governor being the most-talked about celebrity on the campaign trail. The State of Hawaii did pretty well for itself as well; not only did native-son Obama win the election, but it’s senior Senator will be chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee next year.

And the losers? Well, let’s start with the rest of the GOP field. Rudy Guiliani, the early front-runner, demonstrated that he has the lasting appeal of a piece of chewing gum. Mitt Romney singlehandedly demonstrated that money is not be nearly as powerful of a political force as we all assumed that it was. Oh, and let’s not forget Romney’s ground-breaking Mormon speech that had the lasting impact of Rudy Giuliani. Fred Thompson’s supporters orchestrated a brilliant “Draft Fred” campaign, that floundered on the perceived indifference of the candidate himself. Former Virginia governor Jim Gilmore started 2007 running for president, and ended 2008 getting stomped in an election for United States Senate. Oh, and we can’t forget the other big loser of the campaign season: John Edwards, who started out a reasonable candidate for president, Vice President, or Attorney General, and threw it all away because he cheated on his popular wife.

Let’s not forget the great controversy over Florida and Michigan delegates. Florida, in particular, was supposedly out of reach for Obama. Obama hadn’t campaigned there during the primary. He “insulted” the Florida delegation by not coming out strongly (or early) for their inclusion at the nominating process at the DNC. McCain was popular among military families and older voters, and Obama was supposed to have more trouble than normal with Jewish voters (all three important Florida demographics). And besides, the state had been shifting right lately, going more strongly for Bush in 2004 than Bush in 2000, and with a popular Republican Governor in Crist (who replaced another popular Republican Goveror in Jeb Bush). Obama won that state 51% - 48%. And Michigan, the other state Obama didn’t compete in the primaries? He won that one by 16% after McCain stopped campaigning there almost a month before the election.

But that wasn’t my favorite controversy of the 2008 campaign. There are so many more that were so much funnier. The “lipstick on a pig” controversy comes to mind, for instance. I loved when the normally anti-PC talk-radio crowd starting charging “sexism” over that one. There was real sexism during the campaign, but that comment wasn’t it. But the “what was he possibly thinking” award goes to the anonymous Clinton staffer who tried to make a big deal out of the fact that Obama had expressed presidential aspirations in Kindergarten. (”Yes, Bobby, you CAN be president when you grow up, just don’t say so where anyone can hear it if you ever want to run again.”)

This was an election that vaulted Duncan Hunter, Tom Tancredo, and Tom “First In, First Out” Vilsack to national prominence–although none of them were nearly as prominent as William Ayers, Jeremiah Wright, or Joe Wurzelbacher (who has his own agent and a forthcoming book). More than two dozen men and women ran for the nomination of one of the major parties–and that’s not even counting Bob Barr (Libertarian), Cynthia McKinney (Green), Ralph Nader (Independent), et al. Nor does that number count all of the supposed contenders that we had spent the previous several years talking about, a list that features Al Gore, John Kerry, and George “Macaca” Allen.

The race itself lasted two years almost exactly; Vilsack announced in November, 2006. Obama was one of the last Democrats to throw his had in the ring–waiting all the way until January of 2007. (I know, we elected that kind of procrastinator! What were we thinking!) Fred Thompson got into the race more than a year before the actual general election would take place, and he had already missed half of the GOP debates.

So Goodbye 2008 Election. It was fun while it lasted–and man, it lasted a long time. But don’t worry; 2012 is just around the corner, right? After all, Palin, Huckabee, and Romney have all started raising money, and folks are also talking about Newt Gingrich, Bobby Jindal, Charlie Crist, Haley Barbour, Mark Sanford…

This entry was posted on Tuesday, December 9th, 2008 at 10:09 pm and is filed under 2008 Election. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.