Sadly, for the first time, we really have to explain our title. It used to be rather self-evident, but then it's been more than a year since The McLaughlin Group went off the air, after the death of host John McLaughlin.

The show was a political chatfest and ran for decades. Regulars such as Clarence Page and Pat Buchanan used to face off every week on all sorts of subjects, but at the end of the year they put on two special awards shows.

Long ago, we decide to write our own suggestions in an homage (which is so much nicer than "in a blatant ripoff of their bit," don't you think?). We've done so for over a decade now (there's a list of links to all of these at the end of this article, for anyone interested in past awards given).

This year, we continue the tradition, because we truly believe the categories that McLaughlin came up with are worth preserving. It forces us to re-examine the entire year, which always leads to tons of stuff we had completely forgotten about. This is a two-part column, which will also run next Friday. Without further ado, let's don our tuxedo and approach the podium for our first award of 2017....

   Biggest Winner Of 2017

We considered taking a global view of this category, in which case we would have given the Biggest Winner Of 2017 to either China (who is winning more and more on the world stage, as America retreats from global politics in a big way), or Angela Merkel (for her rather impressive re-election), or -- the most obvious -- Vladimir Putin. But we decided to look closer to home.

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[Program Note: Welcome back to what has become a mostly-annual column, here. The reason I'm re-running this column today is that I've been feverishly at work getting tomorrow's column together (the first of our year-end awards columns). Check back tomorrow for the awards, and on the shortest day of the year (or was that yesterday -- I haven't checked...), enjoy my solstice column, written many moons ago. Oh, one technical note, I have corrected "Constantine's wife" to "Constantine's mother," because not checking my facts through sheer laziness has always been part of the fun of blogging. Mea culpa to Saint Helena, and all of that.]

Originally Published December 24, 2007

When is Christmas? And why?

These are questions guaranteed to get you funny looks when you pop them, especially in a gathering of wassail-soaked relatives. But if you're tired of hearing the seemingly-eternal "this is what Uncle Fred did when he was twelve" stories, and you're leery of bringing up politics with your kin from Outer Podunk, then it's at least a conversation-starter that's somewhat neutral. Plus, you can reaffirm your nearest-and-dearests' image of you as a latte-sipping fruitcake who moved away from the glory of the heartland and now lives on (say it with an embarrassed whisper) the coast.

OK, I should stop editorializing here. After all, the subject at hand is Christmas.

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President Trump, in his victory celebration over the passage of the Republican tax bill today, said it was a big Christmas present to the American people. More properly, however, it is really a gigantic Christmas present to the Democratic Party, because it provides a ready-made single issue to construct their campaign platform around, for next year's midterm elections. The bill is already wildly unpopular, so Democrats should spend much of the next year reinforcing this already-baked-in perception among the public. There is a window of opportunity to do so, since nobody will really be sure how the new tax system is going to work out for their family until April of 2019 -- months after the midterm elections happen.

The basic theme Democrats should use is unfairness. Republicans are hobbled by the facts, and so far have done an abysmal job of selling their tax cut to the public. Instead, the public is already overwhelmingly convinced this is nothing more than shoveling money at the wealthy and Wall Street, at their expense. They're right, and all Democrats need to do is to agree with the public, essentially. The big lie of "trickle-down" has finally lost its appeal, to put this another way, which Democrats have been saying all along. The opportunity to make this case has never been better, in fact.

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For the next two Fridays we will present our annual year-end awards, as usual. Last year, I opened the nomination field up to readers to see who you would consider for each award category, and I got some excellent suggestions, so I thought I'd do the same this time around, too.

It certainly has been an interesting year (in the "may you live in interesting times" curse sense of the word), so I'm sure everyone has their own ideas about who deserves an award this time around the sun. So think back over the last 12 months and let me know who you'd consider worthy of any of the following award categories. You can also look back to last year's columns (Part 1 and Part 2) to see who won the last time around.

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As we begin the final week of 2017's congressional calendar, it is worth noting how ridiculous the whole process has now become. This becomes painfully obvious when you compare what has been done versus what remains to be done. Because after the final votes on the GOP's Christmas gift to their wealthy donors (expected Tuesday and Wednesday), an entire year's worth of problems are supposedly going to be dealt with -- before the end of Friday. No wonder the public holds Congress in such low esteem.

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Democrats -- and not a few Republicans as well -- spent most of this week metaphorically dancing on Roy Moore's political grave. To the very end, Moore proved to be a rather cartoonish villain, riding up to the polls on a horse he couldn't even control (named -- you just can't make this stuff up -- "Sassy"). This led to much ribaldry at his expense, after he lost the election Tuesday night, most of which ended with the refrain: "...and the horse you rode in on!"

Doug Jones pulled off a spectacular upset in Alabama's special Senate election, one that will be long remembered by both parties (indeed, even as Scott Brown winning Ted Kennedy's old seat is now remembered... but more on that in a bit). In doing so, Jones placed Donald Trump in the category of "three-time loser," since the last three big races Trump inserted himself into all led to crushing defeats for his chosen candidates (Virginia governor, Alabama's GOP primary, and then Tuesday's general election). Say it loud, say it proud: "President LOSER! Sad!"

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Donald Trump's election spurred a political backlash. Diverse groups took it upon themselves to protest what had happened to their country, from the massive Women's March On Washington (held the day after Trump's swearing-in) to the "Indivisible" groups that soon spontaneously popped up across America. "Resist!" was the battle cry, leading some to name the entire movement "the resistance." Cynical observers of Washington politics (and yes, I was among them at times) wondered whether the whole thing would eventually peter out or whether it could continue long enough to be a factor in the 2018 midterm elections. After a year's time, though, there are no signs that it is waning. In fact, this resistance is showing a dramatic degree of persistence.

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Can Democrats retake control of not just the House of Representatives but also the Senate in 2018? Well, they'd pretty much have to run the tables to do so, but with last night's Alabama's upset victory by Doug Jones, what has changed is that it is now a distinct possibility. While many Democrats are giddily celebrating their surprise win, they should also take the time to examine the factors present not just in Alabama but also in the other races that have happened over the past year, to identify the key factors in winning. Because if they've got any chance at all of taking the Senate, they should work as hard as possible to maximize what has been going well for them.

Before I get to that, let's take a closer look at what happened last night in Alabama. The first and most obvious conclusion to draw is that Trump is now a three-time loser. He has blundered into three statewide races in the past two months, and he has wound up on the losing side in all three. First there was the governor's race in Virginia, then the Alabama primary (where Trump backed the wrong horse), and then last night's special Senate election where Trump actively campaigned for Roy Moore only to see him lose. That's 0-for-3, folks. This might lead many Republican candidates next year to quietly beg the White House for President Trump not to get involved with their races, but it's pretty early to predict that drastic a GOP move away from Trump. But there's no denying it -- of late, the Trump ballot box magic does not extend to anyone not named "Trump," it seems. This is no real surprise when his job approval ratings are so dismal (Monmouth just posted a poll where only 32 percent of Americans approve of the job Trump's doing -- less than one-third of the public, in other words).

Even in Alabama, Trump doesn't have the influence he once had. Last year, Trump won the state with 62 percent of the vote -- by a whopping 28 percent margin. In yesterday's exit polls, this lead had evaporated completely. When Alabama voters were asked whether they approved of the job Trump was doing, the results were tied at 48 percent approval and 48 percent disapproval. This means Trump support has eroded by the entirety of that 28 percent. In one year. In Alabama.

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Doug Jones will be the next senator from Alabama, according to all media sources. With over 90 percent of the votes counted, Jones snatched away the lead that Roy Moore had been holding for almost the entire night. Rural votes got counted first, but when the urban votes came in, they propelled Jones into the lead. Alabama has stunned the nation with this upset victory -- the first Democrat they'll have in the U.S. Senate in a quarter-century.

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I originally wrote "Trump Hits New Low" as this article's title, but then realized that it was far too generic a headline. After all, Trump hits new lows all the time, in many shocking and unusual ways. A sitting president endorsing an accused child molester to sit in the U.S. Senate, for instance. So I clarified it, since this is a more qualitative thing -- Trump has indeed hit a new all-time low in the polls. As of this writing, his daily job approval average (as calculated by Real Clear Politics) is a dismal 37.3 percent. Trump's job disapproval also hit a record high, to now stand at 57.9 percent. This is also (not surprisingly) the most he's ever been underwater in the polls -- a negative gap of 20.6 points.

To briefly put these numbers in some historical perspective, during Barack Obama's entire two terms in office, he only slipped below 40 percent for a single day. On December 13, 2013 -- when Obama was suffering from two simultaneous political blows (the government shutdown in October and the disastrous rollout of the new Obamacare website) -- Obama was only at 39.8 percent average job approval, while 55.9 percent of Americans disapproved of the way he was doing his job. That was Obama's worst day ever, since for the entire other eight years of his presidency, he stayed above 40 percent approval. Trump is now two or more points worse than that, in both directions.

George W. Bush didn't do so well, of course. But even Dubya stayed above 40 percent for his entire first term. It wasn't until November of 2005 that Bush sank down to 38 percent approval. Bush continued to slide downwards, hitting bottom the month before Obama was elected in 2008, when he only had 25.3 percent job approval, and 69.3 percent disapproval. So things could indeed be worse for Trump. He's still 12 whole points above Bush's worst showing.

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