Looking back on 2012 with all the smug humility of a pundit, a pundit who likes to say "I told you so," I'm happy to say I was right all year about the outcome of the presidential race.
I'm also happy I was dead wrong about the future of the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC).
I once famously posed the rhetorical question: "What do I like about Republicans in 2012." I answered in a word: "nothing."
I openly mocked the GOP presidential also-rans. I had absolutely no use for the pizza-pitch-man Herman Cain who answered every serious question with a riddle: "Nine. Nine. Nine." Meanwhile he seemed to have never met a female in his employ whom he didn't try to chat-up for an "executive privilege" or two.
And how about that Texas governor? Rick Perry is his name if memory serves me. He's the genius who stood up in a nationally-televised debate and as he was naming the three – count them – federal agencies he'd eliminate if elected president of the United States (POTUS), he stumbled, counting on his fingers, after remembering only one.
"Oops," Gov. Perry apologized.
I was equally unforgiving of the Georgia former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich. In 2012, I could no more envision a POTUS named Newt-anybody, than in 2008, I could countenance a "President Huckabee..." as in former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee. It was not going to happen, that's all.
I also had fun in 2012 deriding the presidential prospects of Minnesota Rep. Michelle Bachmann. I predicted that unless the Republicans concluded that President Barack Obama was undefeatable, their ticket would be made up of two White males, the two White guys they thought would have the best chance of winning in November.
And that's what they did. They chose former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, and he chose as his running mate, the chair of the House Budget Committee, Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin.
Those guys proved themselves to be so unworthy of the offices they sought; I could not believe it was even a contest. The very idea that a guy who would go to a soup kitchen after the needy folks had already been fed; then put on an apron, and wash a pot that was already clean, just for a photo opportunity; the very idea that a person who would stoop to such a cheap, could think he deserved to be vice president, the way Paul Ryan did, was simply mind boggling.
But that guy is the same guy who embellished his own best marathon time by an hour. Why? What did he have to prove by lying about something as arcane as whether he ran 26 miles in three hours or four hours?
Not to be outdone however, after Hurricane Sandy drove the last nails into the Romney-Ryan presidential campaign coffin, Gov. Romney himself staged a food-gathering photo-opportunity, where he rushed off to a local big-box store and purchased $5,000 worth of groceries, then had them delivered to the site of his hurricane relief rally, where campaign volunteers then "donated" the items Romney had purchased as if they were giving them to the needy. Shameless "huckster-ism" if you ask me.
They were both serial prevaricators in my opinion, such that I began referring to the GOP Presidential nominee – Mr. "47 percent" – as "Myth Romney," and his running mate as Paul "Lyin' " Ryan.
But in the minds of my fellow pundits who make up the elite Washington "chattering class," the presidential "horse race" was close all the way until election night, when President Obama won majorities in 27 of the 50 states; 5 million more votes than his opponent, for a 54 percent to 46 percent majority of ballots cast; and a whopping 332-206 landslide in the Electoral College.
So I'm happy I got the presidential contest right, from the beginning.
On the other hand, I was so very, very wrong about my prediction about the demise of the CBC. I said Utah Mayor Mia Love was going to win a House seat, come in (as she promised she would do) and dismantle the CBC from within, with the help of fellow Republican Reps. Allen West (Fla.), and Tim Scott (S.C.).
A funny thing happened to the CBC on its way to the gallows. Love did not win her race, West was defeated by Rep. Patrick Murphy, and Scott was appointed to fill the Senate seat of retiring Sen. Jim DeMint. Now, the CBC will have more House members than ever before in 2013, and no Republican, "ticking time bombs" in their midst.
I couldn't be happier about being wrong about that.
Happy New Year.