The standard of blowouts in recent years has been Michael Dukakis. Yet Dukakis pulled 45.6% of the vote nationwide. I believe Dean, Kerry, Clark, and Edwards are all capable of beating Dukakis’ total by more than 4.4%. I’ll be the first on the block to salute President Edwards.
I gotta say, if the date on that quote is accurate, we’ve got to discuss some lottery numbers.
Anyways, if it’s Dean vs. Bush, Dean gets crushed, but not in a Reaganesque way. Nothing that big…but there will be no doubt that Bush was the clear winner.
I do think that Kerry, Edwards, or Clark will have a good shot against Bush, especially if Chaney is still the veep. Those will be close, and as Bricker said, the thought Clark/Edwards (or my preferred Kerry/Edwards) should worry the Pubs.
Personally, every poll result that shows Dean slipping against the other Dems gives me a little more hope.
-Joe, hoping for a change
I stand by my earlier prediction: George Bush wins with at least 56% of the popular vote.
As for who he wins against- I’ll bet that Gephardt wins Iowa by less than 3%, with Dean a close second, Edwards third, and Kerry trailing in fourth; Dean wins New Hampshire by 8% over Clark, with Edwards, Kerry, and then Gephardt.
The race continues to be a “who can beat Dean”, but the answer is no one- Clark’s campaign is still a complete mess, doing poorly in the states he focuses on but good enough generally to stay in the race- he also makes a few large gaffes that, combined with a few public flip-flops, turn him into an also-ran halfway through. Edwards wins a few southern primaries but nothing outside of it. With no wins or even good performances, Kerry drops out quickly; and as it’s no big surprise that he won Iowa, Gephardt is unable to make anything of it, and fades into obscurity. In the end, Dean takes enough delegates to lock it in the last month of primaries.
Dean selects Max Cleland as his VP candidate; nevertheless, Bush rides a wave of increasing prosperity and satisfaction with the Iraq war into a second term.
Hmm. So, I’ve gotta make a prediction that’s accurate but distinctive enough to win me a bottle of good scotch. This is going to be difficult, but fun.
I have an absolutely irrational love of good scotch, so I’m going to give this some time to, um, ferment in my brain. Back tonight with the real deal on what’s going down this year. That bottle will make the next four years a little easier to take, after all.
Going for the wild-n-wacky prediction here…
The night before the election, George W. Bush is trailing the Democratic candidate by 10%-15% percentage points. While the press is wringing their hands in worry, George just smiles and says “let’s wait for people to vote before we count our chickens,” or something equally folksy and malappropros.
24 hours later, the election results are in, and George W. Bush handily wins re-election, 75%-25%. Despite skepticism from pundits across the nation, Bush urges everyone to put the election behind them, and throws out some stuff about possible terrorists in Venezuela.
The next morning, Diebold puts out a press release declaring their nationwide SecuriVote™ electronic voting system to be an absolute success, and gently chides the critics who had wanted a paper trail to audit the election. This item is buried on page 38 of all the major newspapers, and is promptly ignored by all Americans.
:eek: 
Yes. Yes, you are.
And just to make clear…
So far the only people with anything riding on this is Bricker and Myself.
Any of YOU people want some sweet action set it up yourselves!
Come Tuesday I will tally up who was right and who was wrong about Iowa! Then we’re on to New Hampshire!
I hope not, but…
On the news last night, in a Field Poll (pretty reliable) Bush beats every Democrat now running by at least 8-10 points in California. The talking heads on the broadcast agreed that if Bush were to win California, that could signal a 45 state win for Bush.
My prediction. And I’d love to be wrong.
Popular – 52% Bush, 46% Democrat, 2% others.
Electoral – Bush 40+ States. All the ones he carried in 2000, plus the ones around the Great Lakes, and maybe California.
In this town it will be 75% Democrat, 15% Bush, 10% others. Bush came in third here in 2000. We’ve got it right. Or should I say left. Hmm.
Looks like the new format doesn’t list our location anymore. That would be San Francisco, where Bush will get 15% of the vote.
What do you think the chances are that if this actually happens the political banter will not change one iota? All the straight arrowed “dem, rep, ind, lib” types won’t even conceieve of budging or consider that something might actually be strange about this?
Well shoot, if all I got is ego riding on this, that’s easy:
-Dean takes Iowa decisively, ditto NH, 'cause he’s got the organization, and history shows organization wins out.
-BUT, Clark does well enough in NH to make it a race going into the South, where Edwards makes it a drama. Some time during or shortly after the Southern tier, Kerry and Lieberman pull out. Clark may or may not depending if he wins anything.
-Last piece is Edwards vs Dean and possibly Clark. My best guess is a Dean/Edwards ticket.
-Come the election, as we get closer to the middle of October and it’s still close enough to make Bush sweat, he calls in his NSC and tells 'em to get OBL or get out. OBL is captured right around Halloween, in Pakistan, with Musharraf displaying him for all to see. Bush wins with at least 55% of the vote and most of the states.
Actually, the more interesting question to me is the Congress. If Governor Quinn is around, I’d like to ask him to comment on just what the electoral math is and whether it’s as bad as I’ve been hearing for the Dems.
To Bricker: hey, I said it was wild-n-wacky. I refuse to make a serious prediction this early in the game.
If my insanely loopy scenario actually happens, any attempts to investigate the matter further will be waved away by the Usual Conservative Suspects™ as “nitpicking” from “sore losers” and “traitors,” and told to “get over it.”
Pardon me for actually being concerned about the election process…
If your insanely loopy scenario actually happens, I don’t think us Usual Conservative Suspects will need to worry about you nitpicking traitorous sore losers anymore…
Heres my prediction.
The offensive the current administration is displaying of justifying the war and putting any skeletons firmly in the closet long before election time continues. Around May, Osama Bin Ladin is caught or killed in the hills of Afghanistan and the Hussein trials begin to show up in the news. All of these as well as the transfer of power in Iraq are in the news over the summer. Insurgence is pretty much gone but there is still some hostility among the various political factions in Iraq that cause some problems in the transition period, but nothing major. People forget about early 2003, ancient history. North Korea, Iran, and Syria’s progress in cancelling nuclear weapons programs gets publicity and is painted as winning the war on terrorism. The war is pretty much accepted as a success.
Dean or Clark are candidates, and they make occasional quips when something supporting their views of the war as unnecessary shows up, but they are forced by public opinion to get off the war angle and focus more on the economy and social programs.
Dean shows himeself to be weak on the economy. He supports repealing the tax cuts completely, spending a lot of money on government programs, etc. He shoots himself in the foot on the economy and is left with pure liberal rhetoric by November and loses in a landslide 58% to 33% loss.
Clark (I’ll echo the Edwards as running-mate thing) however, manages to stay pretty strong on the economy. He supports increasing the taxes on the rich in general only, improving his support with the lower and middle class, and his support among the rich is generally irrelevant as they support Bush anyway. His social programs are generally pretty progressive and get support and the decreased focus on the war actually helps him because the opposition is eager to use various incidents in his military history against him. The election ends up 47% Bush, 45% Clark and Bush wins again.
Well, getting out my crystal ball, I see Dean winning the nomination. Maybe with Edwards as his running mate.
My prediction if this is the case is:
Bush: 49%
Dean: 45%
rest of the vote going to 3rd party candidates.
Bush wins by a comfortable margin (gods help us).
-XT
I am going to go out on a limb and forecast that the Republicans will nominate George W. Bush.
Otherwise I’ll be cautious because I’ve been saying for weeks that John Kerry is a has-been, toast, finished, and caput; and should just be content to live off his wife’s steak sauce empire. Now he seems to be very much back in the game.
I think only Clark and Kerry can give Bush a real stiff challenge. Also I think it will be so close that third party voting will be critical. Bush can probably count on 47-48% and Kerry or Clark 46-47% or so. How these votes fall in the electoral map will be key. As Al Gore had Ralph Nader to contend with on his left, this time it may be George W. Bush with a third party headache. Here’s why; his latest immigration proposal, as well as his generous spending in some areas has royally pissed off some paleo-conservatives (of the Pat Buchanan variety). If Pat or someone else like him mounts a serious “Reform Party” or “Constitution Party” candidacy (not a half-assed one like in 2000), it may shave off 0.5-1% from Bush’s vote and actually tip it to a Democrat.
Also, most times, the vice president is not chosen out of the primary candidates (Dick Cheney, Al Gore, Dan Quayle, Mondale, Agnew, and so on). Other than Edwards, I don’t think anyone in this field would accept a VP slot, even Clark.
My possibilites
John Edwards (if not the nominee)
New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson (on his side, wide range or administrative, legislative, and foreign policy experience, and being fluent in Spanish and half-Hispanic - could easily trump Karl Rove’s Hispanic outreach strategy: but also involved in the Los Alamos Energy Department mess)
Arizona Governor Janet Napolitano
Louisiana Senator John Breaux (perhaps best choice, but probably not willing to accept)
New York’s own Hillary Clinton (if things look really desparate!)
This particular prediction is a metaphysical certitude.
I guess. Now, personally, although a registered Republican, I voted for Gore because I thought he was more hawkish, what with candidate Bush’s no-nationbuilding rhetoric, his efforts to gather the Arab-American vote, and the prospect of his making Colin Powell his secretary of state.
As for the 1999 prediction, the deeper question is whether the personality of an individual leader, especially an elected one, is at all important in whether a nation goes to war – I would rather bet on wars being caused by a slew of economic, political, social, and ideological factors. Wrong?
As for the election this year, I would be glad to predict if I knew anything about how to predict. Whomever has the best handlers and then sticks to focus-group selected themes obviously has a big advantage. Bush would also seem to have an advantage in being a reasonably popular wartime President. What’s more important in getting elected – how the candidate campaigns, or what he brings to the table?
OK, I’ll make one stick-out-the-neck prediction. Hilliary Clinton will be the next President of the United States, probably taking office in 2009.
Gephardt is done after Iowa. He gets under 25% and finishes third or fourth. He withdraws and endorses Edwards, who does not win, but is the better-than-expected “winning loser” in Iowa.
After NH, the race is down to Dean the leftist vs. Edwards the moderate. Dean wins the nom (Clark endorses), picks a Senator not in the race as his veep, and actually does better than some might think in the general election, taking 46% to W’s 49%. Nevertheless, W is back in office in 2004.
I have no prediction, as predicting the outcomes of the Democratic primaries, the random weirdness of currrent events, and the general election amounts to a complete fool’s errand.
That said, I give Bush a 3:2 edge over the Democratic field. I’d call it a dead-even horse race if Clark wins the nomination, a 3%-4% advantage to Bushif it’s Edwards or Kerry, and a minimum of 10 points if the Dems decide they really don’t care about the country or the world by nominating Dean.