And here we are. Join us after the jump to find out this year’s winners of the coveted Golden Duke Awards.
And the winners are …
Meritorious Achievement in The Crazy: Ginny Thomas
Unrefudiated Champion of Tea Party Wackiness: Carl Paladino
Most Outrageous Election Season Fib Issued By A Politician: Gov. Jan Brewer
Most Over-The-Top Campaign Ad: Demon Sheep
The George Allen Honors For Best Tracker-Captured Freak-Out: Phil Davison
Best Scandal — Sex and Generalized Carnality: George Reker’s Altruistic Streak
Best Scandal — Local Venue: Bell, CA City Council Salary Scandal
Best Scandal — General Interest: RNC’s Spending At A Bondage-Themed Strip Club
For more information on each category see our winners page. And to read each judges’ individual vote and color commentary go to our judge’s page: Rick Hertzberg, Susie Bright, Alex Pareene, Sara Benincasa, Andrew Golis.
Now, I’ll share my thoughts later and let you know who I would have voted for. But what jumped out at me where the areas where readers and our judges agreed and disagreed. Best Scandal, biggest fib, Best Scandal, local venue, most over the top ad, everyone seemed to agree on those. But there was a big, big disagreement on Meritorious Achievement in the Crazy. To our judges it was almost unanimous, Ginny Thomas. But the popular vote was overwhelmingly for Christine O’Donnell. Elite versus popular tastes, I guess. Benincasa was the sole judge to pull the lever for O’Donnell. And I think I may have to if I’d been a judge. On the other hand it was a split decision on Best Scandal — Sex and Generalized Carnality. Two votes each for George Reker and Eric Massa. And then Rick Hertzberg voted for the never quite resolved scandal in which a South Carolina political operative and prominent blogger claimed to have had an affair with now Gov.-Elect Nikki Haley. In this case, the tie breaker went to the TPM masses. They went for Reker. And so he won the award.
