As the end of 2020 approaches, TPM is celebrating its 20th anniversary. And, in honor of that, we’re doing something a little different with the Golden Dukes this year: We’re going to crown the all-time Golden Duke, or at least the greatest of the last twenty years. Or rather, you’ll crown this winner.
A Duke of Dukes, the top Duke from TPM’s 20 years of existence.
The Golden Dukes, of course, are TPM’s annual awards for achievement in the field of public corruption, the crazy, nonsense, reckless abandonments of dignity and any and all betrayals of the public trust. The Duke of Dukes will, essentially, be the politician who has been the more corrupt or scandalous, in the best, most celebrateable way, in the last 20 years.
What exactly does that mean? Ultimately, you will decide.
Next month, we’ll be kicking off a March Madness-style bracket. You might, for instance, see such characters as Rudy Giuliani and Scott Pruitt compete head to head with Duke contenders of old, such as Jack Abramoff and the Dukes’ namesake, Randy “Duke” Cunningham.
Starting in mid December, readers will vote in a series of matchups as we work our way through the bracket.
But: We need your help to nominate the contenders.
Candidates should be nominated based on the role they played in a specific scandal (venal, blatant public corruption or other types of scandal), not on their entire body of work. It’s similar to how an actor is nominated for an Oscar for their role in a movie: Daniel Day Lewis was nominated for his part in “There Will Blood” just as Rob Ford could be nominated for throwing some pretty epic parties. Donald Trump, we imagine, could be nominated for dozens of different achievements.
Anyone who did anything Duke-worthy during the 20 years of TPM’s existence is eligible. Fill out the form below with the name of each nominee, and the scandal you are nominating them for. You can submit as many nominations as you’d like.
