You can’t have winners without losers, and in 2014, some folks got run over at the intersection of business and politics. Here are five people who lost; some because they were lousy at politics, others because they were lousy at management.
Eric Cantor
The No. 2 Republican in the House should have won his primary easily — at least that’s what his pollster predicted. But Cantor was defeated for the GOP nomination in his Virginia district by a Tea Party upstart, Dave Brat, an economics professor at Randolph-Macon College.
How did this happen? Cantor paid more attention to Wall Street political donors than he did to Main Street voters in his district, it appears. Plus, despite his conservative voting record, Cantor was seen as being too willing to compromise, particularly on immigration reform.
Conservative talk radio hosts got behind Brat, and that drove voters unhappy with the Republican establishment to turn out to the polls.
But Cantor’s defeat turned out to be the high-water mark for Tea Party activists this year; they lost most of the GOP’s contested Senate primaries.
Cantor, meanwhile, landed on his feet, as most Washington political insiders do: He got a job as vice chairman and managing director of Moelis & Co., a Wall Street investment firm.
Harry Reid
This year’s Senate majority leader is next year’s minority leader, thanks to Republicans winning control of the Senate in November.
Reid’s strategy to protect Democratic senators by shielding them from difficult votes failed. On energy bills, for example, the Nevada Democrat blocked Republican attempts to offer amendments on issues such as the Keystone XL pipeline and the Environmental Protection Agency’s proposed regulations on coal-fired power plants. Republicans responded by blocking final votes on the overall bills.
As a result of Reid’s strategy, the Senate passed little legislation and became nothing more than a partisan debating forum. This made it easier for Republican candidates to convince voters that a change was needed.
Now Reid faces a tough challenge in 2016 for re-election in Nevada. He’s a fighter, so don’t count him out. But he may never get back the power he squandered as majority leader.
Tom Steyer
Environmentalist and former hedge fund manager Tom Steyer spent $74 million on the 2014 election, more than any other individual.
He didn’t get a good return on this investment. His NextGen Climate PAC focused on helping Democrats in four Senate races, and two of those candidates won. But Rep. Gary Peters’ victory in Michigan was never really in doubt. Steyer’s lone victory in a tight race was Sen. Jeanne Shaheen’s victory over Scott Brown in New Hampshire.
Steyer’s PAC outspent the U.S. Chamber of Commerce in Senate races in Colorado and Iowa, and lost both of those.
He also spent a lot of money on three gubernatorial races, but won only one of them; Democrat Tom Wolf’s unsurprising victory in Pennsylvania.
Steyer’s goal was to make climate change a top issue in political races; it didn’t seem to work this year. Environmentalists hope, however, that the infrastructure Steyer has created will pay off in 2016, when the Senate electoral map favors Democrats.
Eric Shinseki
Former Army general Eric Shinseki found out the hard way that it’s much harder to lead a massive health care bureaucracy than it is to lead combat forces.
Shinseki was forced to resign as secretary of the Department of Veterans Affairs after it was revealed that veterans faced months-long waits for care at VA hospitals, and that some VA managers had falsified reports on wait times at their facilities.
The VA’s health care system has struggled to keep up with the demands for care from aging Vietnam War veterans as well as veterans from this century’s wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. But Shinseki had been head of the agency for five years. He appeared to be blindsided by reports that showed that long wait times — and covering them up — were not isolated to a few facilities.
His resignation became inevitable when members of Congress from both parties, including Rep. Tammy Duckworth, an Iraq veteran who served under Shinseki at the VA, said new leadership was needed.
Julia Pierson
When your organization’s main job is to protect the president, it’s hard to explain how you let somebody climb over the White House fence, run unmolested across the lawn and enter the president’s house through an unlocked door.
That’s the challenge Julia Pierson faced at a Sept. 29 congressional hearing, and Pierson flubbed it. For that, she lost her job as director of the Secret Service.
To be fair, Pierson’s testimony and answers to questions at the hearing weren’t that much different from any other federal bureaucrat on the hot seat. The difference, however, is that the Secret Service isn’t just another government agency — it’s supposed to be the best security outfit in the world. Pierson’s job was to inspire confidence, not give excuses or quibble about technicalities.
But, as Politico put it, “Instead of fearlessly defending the vast majority of the agents at her agency even while simultaneously acknowledging deep flaws and vowing reform, Pierson’s language and demeanor was that of someone who had already given up. Her testimony was flat and defensive.”
That led both Republicans and Democrats to call for her resignation, and that happened one day after the hearing. After 30 years, Pierson’s career at the Secret Service was over.
