Some Last-Minute Political Shopping

In a year that was more naughty than nice, don't forget about these deserving souls as you do your last-minute holiday shopping.

That would include:

Joe Biden. Want do you get for someone whose Christmas came early, after nearly a half-century of not getting what was at the top of his wish list? How about a Chia pet? If we're to believe that rough-housing with the President-elect's dog led to a hairline foot fracture, then we need to respect Biden's delicate health and his desire for a faithful furry companion — without the risk of tripping, biting, scratching, clawing, transferring fleas, smothering the Leader of the Free World in his sleep, or a lethal bout with kennel cough.

Donald Trump. This one's simple: a subscription to the Calm app (the company's motto: "Sleep more. Stress Less. Live Better"). Trump's future moves — write a book, build a television beachhead, meddle in the 2022 midterms, run again in 2024 — are anyone's guess. For now, why not spend some time decompressing after what's been a bruising, stressful five-plus years in the political spotlight? America — and Trump — would both benefit from a needed time-out.

Kamala Harris. A food gift basket. The Vice President-elect likes wine (she was the only non-teetotaler of the four Democratic and Republican national nominees) — and whining might be her aides' tired modus operandi if the office doesn't wield much influence. Harris won't be a second Dick Cheney; will she even be a second Biden in terms of subtle clout? Other than her symbolic value as a gender- and race-pioneering veep, it's unclear at this point what Harris' day-to-day responsibilities will include (Tom Friedman — and it's not an Onion parody — thinks the coastal-elite California senator should head a rural America agenda).

Nancy Pelosi. A year's supply of Baskin-Robbins ice cream. The House Speaker's supposedly folksy show-and-tell interview in her San Francisco manse included her sharing what's inside her pricey sub-zero freezer (the answer: $12-a-pint ice cream). If Pelosi wants to prove that she cares for working families (an open question given her dragging out Covid relief past the election), indulging in more pedestrian dessert fare.

Mitch McConnell. A year's supply of Excedrin Extra Strength for the Senate Majority Leader if the new year means more negotiating with Pelosi over Covid relief packages. As we won't know the outcomes in Georgia until next month, forget about holiday treats consisting of peanuts, pecans or peaches — lest those two Senate races go to the Democrats and McConnell is relegated to Minority Leader.

Sign up for the daily JWR update. It's free. Just click here.

Rudy Giuliani. An open-ended airline ticket taking the former New York City and Trump lawyer away from America's shores. Between the humiliating bedroom scene in the Borat sequel, the hair-product malfunction and shutting down Arizona's legislature due to his positive Covid diagnosis, America needs a timeout from the artist formerly known as "America's Mayor."

Bernie Sanders/Elizabeth Warren. This biography of the socialist Eugene Debs, a failed presidential candidate in 1912. Debs' self-description: "Yes, I am my brother's keeper. I am under a moral obligation to him that is inspired, not by maudlin sentimentality, but by the higher duty I owe myself." Denied Labor and Treasury posts, that's the 2021 challenge for Bernie and Liz: figuring said "higher duty" while under Senate quarantine.

AOC. An abacus. Her four-member "squad" will more than double in the new Congress, but that means the New York congressman speaks for about 4% the House Democratic caucus. Yes, AOC's squad has newfound leverage given the House Dems' shrinking numbers (barely over the 218-seat minimum needed for party-line wins), but the congresswoman needs to do the math: less than 10 members do not constitute majority sentiment.

Ted Cruz. Shaving cream and a razor. His embrace of the failed Texas election lawsuit suggests that Cruz is already looking to 2024 and the courtship of disaffected Trump supporters. Maybe he should do so without the pre-Covid beard. The last president to sport whiskers: the forgettable Benjamin Harrison, back in the 1890's. Unless I'm missing something — and this is Cruz's way of connecting himself to Abraham Lincoln.

Josh Hawley/Tom Cotton. Fake ID cards. Hawley, the hyper-ambitious Missouri GOP senator, turns 44 just a few weeks before the 2024 votes in Iowa and New Hampshire. Cotton, who's from next-door Arkansas, will be 46. The youngest Republican nominees in modern times: 47-year-old Richard Nixon in 1960 and a 54-year-old George W. Bush in 2000. Otherwise, in post-WW2 America, the average age for first-time GOP presidential nominees: a shade under 65. Not a young man's game.

Gavin Newsom. A map of California that includes all 58 counties, not the select few deep-blue ones around the San Francisco Bay Area. California's governor — he of the infamous French Laundry excursion — seems to approach his job as if he's governing his native woke Marin County, not an entire (and politically complex) Golden State that's blue by the ocean but far more carmine in the more conservative Central Valley and Inland Empire.

Andrew Cuomo. A visit from the Ghost of Christmas Part — not to revisit the New York governor's boyhood, but instead to go back to March 25 and the gubernatorial directive that required state nursing homes to accept Covid-positive patients released from hospitals. Cuomo wrote a self-congratulatory book on his handling of the pandemic. How many condolence letters has he written to the families of the 7,000-plus LTC fatalities in his state?

Dems. A visit from the Ghost of Christmas Present. You have the presidency and you (barely) have the House. But you don't have that third leg—the Senate (assuming at least one of the two Georgia races goes to the Republicans). That means you can't spend as you'd like. Cherry on the sundae: you're also about to inherit a complicated geopolitical outlook, what with an aspiring China, a troublesome Iran and Russia and the nascent Abraham Accords.

Republicans. A visit from the Ghost of Christmas Future. Once the focus shifts to 2022, there's a question of how well the GOP will fare in Senate races (Republicans have 20 seats to defend, to only 13 for Democrats). And 2024? Unless a GOP nominee can assemble the same fragile coalition as Trump to reverse-engineer a win via the Electoral College, the reality is Republicans struggling with the concept of no longer America's party of first choice (dating back to 1992, Democrats have won the popular vote in seven of the last eight presidential elections, save 2004). Trump Gen 2.0. Family financial planning. At least three Trump sons and daughters — Don Jr., Ivanka and daughter-in-law Lara — are rumoured to have political aspirations. That includes the presidency (for the son) and 2022 Senate runs in Florida (Ivanka challenging Marco Rubio) and North Carolina (Lara competing for an open seat). The question: as a famous surname isn't necessarily a guarantor of victory, how much of the family fortune is 45 willing to devote to the next generation's ambitions?

The Media. A lump of coal. I can't think of an institution less deserving of a present given its one-sided performance in the 2020 election. Despite the historian Jon Meacham's fawning praise of the President-elect and the notion that Biden will do for print columnists what Trump for cable news, the lack of Trump-style White House drama likely translates to: lower tv ratings, less front-page coverage and a farewell to sweet book deals.