The Diddly Awards

The Mike “Snoopy” Dukakis award for campaign elegance

Illustration by: Peter Hoey

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.


NOMINEE 1
Senator Joe Biden (D-Del.), the first Democrat to announce that he was exploring a run for president, explained that he doesn’t lust after the executive office, saying, “I’d rather be at home making love to my wife while my children are asleep.”

NOMINEE 2
Rep. Gresham Barrett
(R-S.C.) held a “Shag ‘n’ Eat” fundraiser.

NOMINEE 3
Rep. Jim Moran (D-Va.)
joined his fellow Democrats in denouncing the Republican
“culture of corruption” and the cronyism associated with earmarks—the process that lets members insert a line in a bill to provide funding for a special constituent in the home district. But later in the same speech, noting that he’s likely to become the chairman of an appropriations subcommittee, Moran promised supporters, “When I become chairman, I’m going to
earmark the shit
out of it.”

NOMINEE 4
Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa) doesn’t just support building a wall at the border; he wants to run 2,000 miles of electric fence on top of it, carrying “the kind of current that would not kill somebody, but it would simply be a discouragement for them to be fooling around with it. We do that with livestock all the time.”

NOMINEE 5
Rep. Katherine Harris (R-Fla.) told her then-campaign adviser, Ed Rollins, that God had instructed her to stay in the Senate race against Democrat Bill Nelson.

NOMINEE 6
John Jacob (a Republican congressional candidate in Utah) blamed Lucifer himself for sabo­taging his campaign: “There’s another force that wants to keep us from going to Washington, D.C. It’s the devil is what it is.” He added, “I don’t know who else it would be if it wasn’t him. Now when that gets out in the paper, I’m going to be one of the screw-loose people.”

WINNER! Katherine Harris, whose comment prompted Rollins to reply, “Maybe God wants Nelson to stay a senator and that’s why he’s encouraging you to stay in.”

DONALD TRUMP & DEMOCRACY

Mother Jones was founded to do things differently in the aftermath of a political crisis: Watergate. We stand for justice and democracy. We reject false equivalence. We go after, and go deep on, stories others don’t. And we’re a nonprofit newsroom because we knew corporations and billionaires would never fund the journalism we do. Our reporting makes a difference in policies and people’s lives changed.

And we need your support like never before to vigorously fight back against the existential threats American democracy and journalism face. We’re running behind our online fundraising targets and urgently need all hands on deck right now. We can’t afford to come up short—we have no cushion; we leave it all on the field.

Please help with a donation today if you can—even just a few bucks helps. Not ready to donate but interested in our work? Sign up for our Daily newsletter to stay well-informed—and see what makes our people-powered, not profit-driven, journalism special.

payment methods

DONALD TRUMP & DEMOCRACY

Mother Jones was founded to do things differently in the aftermath of a political crisis: Watergate. We stand for justice and democracy. We reject false equivalence. We go after, and go deep on, stories others don’t. And we’re a nonprofit newsroom because we knew corporations and billionaires would never fund the journalism we do. Our reporting makes a difference in policies and people’s lives changed.

And we need your support like never before to vigorously fight back against the existential threats American democracy and journalism face. We’re running behind our online fundraising targets and urgently need all hands on deck right now. We can’t afford to come up short—we have no cushion; we leave it all on the field.

Please help with a donation today if you can—even just a few bucks helps. Not ready to donate but interested in our work? Sign up for our Daily newsletter to stay well-informed—and see what makes our people-powered, not profit-driven, journalism special.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate