Bob Heleringer

Opinion contributor

In an eminently forgettable 1979 film, “The Jerk,” comedian Steve Martin plays a simple-minded country boy who moves to the big city. In one mildly amusing scene, Martin skips exuberantly down the street shouting to onlookers, “The new phone books are here! The new phone books are here!”

I know that feeling well. Just last week, I sprinted up and down my own street yelling at the top of my voice: “The new political almanac is here! The new political almanac is here!”

Published every other August after the preceding year’s federal election, the 2020 “Almanac of American Politics” is a 2,043-page tome that is a biennial fix for addicted political junkies like myself. It profiles the 435 members of the U.S. House of Representatives, the Congress’ 100 senators, the nation’s 50 governors and, for good measure, the delegates of our country’s “insular territories”: Samoa, Guam, Puerto Rico, the Northern Mariana and Virgin Islands.

To paraphrase Johnny Carson’s sidekick, Ed McMahon, “Everything you want to know about America’s major political figures is in that book!” Published by the National Journal, it begins with an insightful review by veteran political analyst Charlie Cook of the 2018 midterms when the Democrats flipped the U.S. House (picking up 40 seats), gained seven governorships, but lost ground in the Senate where the GOP controls. Such an analysis begins and ends with an evaluation of the seismic impact the incendiary President Donald Trump continues to have on the electorate. “America entered the 2018 election campaign as polarized along party lines as at any point in modern history,” Cook writes, “and, for better and worse, Trump turbocharged those emotions.”

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The Almanac then pivots to a forecast of the Armageddon that has already begun in earnest for the 2020 election, inclusive of its perspective of whether or not the most divisive incumbent president ever can be reelected. Conclusion? There will probably be just as many unforeseen and quirky factors in the 2020 cycle as there were in 2016, as the Republicans will make the election a referendum on the high-tax/socialism fever that has gripped the national Democratic party, while the Democrats will want any referendum to be about Trump’s unorthodox (to say the least) style.

But, for me, the delicious smorgasbord for political foodies is the book’s “up close and personal” profiles of the individual women and men who hold these important offices, their family and educational backgrounds, political strengths and weaknesses, philosophies, voting records, fundraising prowess and the demographics of their districts or states. It’s all there in exhaustive detail including how they voted on important bills in the last Congress.

For example, you have to admire the resilience of Democrat Ann Kirkpatrick, who won Arizona’s second house district in 2018 and is a “freshman” for the third time in her career after losing a prior reelection bid and then a long shot race in 2016 against Sen. John McCain. As a member of the aging baby boomer generation myself, I heartily congratulate “senior” Republican freshmen Jim Baird, 73, and Carol Miller, 68, who won Indiana’s fourth district and West Virginia’s third district, respectively.

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While Kentucky’s GOP governor, Matt Bevin, labors under the sobriquet “America’s most unpopular governor” (according to some polls), it is fascinating to read how Republican governors Charlie Baker (Massachusetts) and Phil Scott (Vermont), in chilly, ice-blue New England, enjoy stratospheric levels of popularity (and reelection margins) while having to work with — or around — legislative branches overwhelmingly controlled by Democrats.

The book chronicles the ever-rising percentage of women in the 116th Congress. In five states — California, Minnesota, Nevada, New Hampshire and Washington — both U.S. senators are female. New Hampshire’s senators, Jeanne Shaheen and Maggie Hassan, also served as popular Granite State governors — a first.

Although I’ve barely started, the 2020 Almanac looks like a terrific read, even if it will probably take me until election night 2020 to finish it. Find the book at your local bookstore or on Amazon for $89. Money well spent. Learn about your government!

Bob Heleringer is a Louisville attorney and Republican who served in Kentucky's House from the 33rd District from 1980 to 2002. He can be reached at helringr@bellsouth.net.