No Runny Eggs

Welcome to the 5th and final day of the NRE 2010 Awards. Today, we name our people of the year. As a review, here is the rest of the schedule:

– Jackass of the Year, 1/1
– Thank You for Existing, 1/2
– Dumbest Thing Said, 1/3
– News Story of the Year, yesterday

And the nominees are…

The TEA Party (from realdebate) – Obama tried to ignore it, leftwing radicals like Wisconsin Dem Chair Mike Tate and the NAALCP threw out insults and false accusations of racism. Every time the left tried to impugn the TEA party activists it only served to strengthen their resolve. Grass roots activists, many of them active in politics for the first time in their lives, rose up against the astroturfed organized left wing radicals and threw the left to the curb.

Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid and Barack Obama (Shoebox) – Oh, I could have said the Tea Party but when I thought about it, the Tea Party was the response not the impetus.  There were many times during the year that the Tea Party could have fizzled out and we would have had just another spin of the Merry-Go-Round of the Elite for the November election.  Fortunately, at every opportunity for the Tea Party flame to die down, one of the above would do or say something so overwhelmingly arrogant, stupid or brash that it fed new fuel into the Tea Party.  Watching these three during 2010 was more predictable and tiring than seeing Rob Schneider showing up in an Adam Sandler movie.

Scott Brown (from Phineas): By winning the Senate seat once held by the late and contemptible Edward Kennedy, Brown put an exclamation point on the growing populist reaction against liberal statism, particularly ObamaCare. His election had a tremendous effect on the Senate, providing the 41st vote to end the Democrats’ filibuster-proof majority and forcing Harry Reid to resort to such sleazy parliamentary tactics (and outright bribery) to pass ObamaCare. That public display of ethical corruption, in turn, fueled the public outrage that burst forth last November. For being the key domino that set all the others tumbling, Senator Scott Brown should be Person of the Year.

Aisha (from Kevin Fischer) – In July 2010, TIME magazine wrote:

The Taliban pounded on the door just before midnight, demanding that Aisha, 18, be punished for running away from her husband’s house. They dragged her to a mountain clearing near her village in the southern Afghan province of Uruzgan, ignoring her protests that her in-laws had been abusive, that she had no choice but to escape. Shivering in the cold air and blinded by the flashlights trained on her by her husband’s family, she faced her spouse and accuser. Her in-laws treated her like a slave, Aisha pleaded. They beat her. If she hadn’t run away, she would have died. Her judge, a local Taliban commander, was unmoved. Later, he would tell Aisha’s uncle that she had to be made an example of lest other girls in the village try to do the same thing. The commander gave his verdict, and men moved in to deliver the punishment. Aisha’s brother-in-law held her down while her husband pulled out a knife. First he sliced off her ears. Then he started on her nose. Aisha passed out from the pain but awoke soon after, choking on her own blood. The men had left her on the mountainside to die.

Aisha posed for a controversial TIME magazine cover. Her willingness to be photographed in such a manner told the world of the evil of the Taliban and why American soldiers are at war in Afghanistan.

The Daily Mail headline says it all.

Ron Johnson and Sean Duffy (from steveegg) – If you told me this time last year that the two liberal lions of the Wisconsin Congressional delegation would be ex-elected officials today, I would have called you nuts. Yes, there were some rumblings that Russ Feingold might be vulnerable to a certain candidate because of the spectacular failure of his 2009 “non-hearing” tour, but the first poll that showed that vulnerability had yet to show up. Indeed, that first poll, and the several after, showed that it wasn’t the announced candidates that could give Feingold fits, but the biggest name in Wisconsin politics, former governor Tommy Thompson. Then, Thompson decided not to run on April 15, Ron Johnson used an incredible 6-week run-up from an unofficial launch of his campaign then (and an official launch at the beginning of May) to the RPW convention at the end of May to become that “certain candidate”. With some of the best help Wisconsin GOP politics could come up with (and notably the researcing ability of friend-of-the-blog Kevin Binversie), a willingness to use his personal fortune, and an ability to raise money unseen in a GOP Senate candidate in 12 years, Johnson overcame the new liberal lion of the Senate.

Meanwhile, Dave Obey was riding high as chairman of the Appropriations Committee. In the past year, he had steered through Porkulus and the two largest budgets in the history of the country. Yes, Sean Duffy had entered the race in 2009, but he was still considered a serious underdog, with the 2010 run merely an attempt to get his name and face out to the voters of the 7th so he would be well-positioned when Obey would retire. Nobody knew that would be in May when, apparently after an internal poll that showed Duffy at a minimum too close for comfort for someone who hasn’t had to seriously campaign for as long as I’ve been able to legally drink, Obey pulled the plug. How insurmountable had Duffy become in a district that historically votes for Democrats by double-digit margins? The sitting state Senate Majority Leader, Russ Decker, was ordered to try to (and ultimately fail to) hang onto his seat rather than pursue his decades-long dream of succeeding Obey, and the only major Democrat candidate was a state Senator who didn’t have to give up her seat to run what turned out to be a lackluster campaign. The ultimate margin of victory for Duffy was 7 1/2 points.