I pick Edwards to win Iowa, place 3rd in NH, and win SC, making him the front runner and allowing him to eek out the nomination. Clark’s non-participation in Iowa and continued Dean-like gaffes is going to hurt him.
Edwards will start off way behind Bush in the polls, but an awesome performance in the convention will vault him into the lead, and he will only expand it in the debates. He will also be helped by choosing Evan Bayh as his running mate, a VP from the crucial industrial Midwest.
Edwards wins in November with 53% of the vote to Bush’s 46%. Republicans make big gains in the House and Senate. Edwards will smile and make optimistic speeches. Life is good.
Well, first off, I’d like to say that the thought of Edwards as VP is… intriguing. Imagine putting charismatic, affable, and competent Edwards next to surly, churlish, and competent-but-unquestionably-evil Cheney. That’d be fun to watch.
Anyways, here’s I go…
Dean wins Iowa, Kerry second, Edwards third, Gephardt fourth. Gephardt drops out but never endorses anyone during the campaign.
Dean wins New Hampshire, Kerry places second, Clark third, Edwards a distant fourth. Clark’s campaign is all but dead, but he doesn’t drop out.
Edwards picks up momentum in the South and generates a lot of excitement, but his campaign doesn’t have the organizational skills to keep it going for long. Kerry and Clark end up withering and dying, and Dean ends up winning the nomination by virtue of not losing. Dean chooses someone Southern and probably not a candidate (although maaaaybe Edwards) for his Veep.
Bush crafts events in the late summer to his liking – hell, he can declare Iraq a success at any point he wants, even if it’s bullshit, and most people will lap it up because they want to. Despite valid attacks on Bush – shit like “This guy is a uniter??” and “Didn’t you say you wouldn’t build any nations last time you did this?” – Rove continues to wrap Bush in the flag. Hell, the economy might even make a slight bump, which will be heralded as a new boom: “We created 628 jobs this quarter!”
Bottom line: Bush wins with almost every state going the same way it did last time.
Bush wins 59 % to 49% over Hillary Rodam Clinton in November. The Democratic whimps in contention whine and collapse when Hillary spreads her political legs at the Democratic Convention. What a bitch.
Bush marches in while the integrity of our borders shuffles off to Mexico.
:smack:
Bush wins just by the hairs on his chinny-chin-chin. While at the reception speech the first lady bumps into Bush casuing his face to fall off revealing a small control center ala Men in Black being driven by the amputated nose of Michael Jackson. It is decided the nose couldn’t hold office because he ran not as itself but as Bush. A re-election is held and the nose wins again, this time by a landslide.
Gephardt isn’t going to New Hampshire. He flew home today instead of going there. He’ll probably officially drop out today, he’s quitting in any case. If he gives an endorsement, I’d imagine it’ll be for Kerry, who’s of the party (as opposed to outsider Dean).
I’m gonna regret posting a prediction this early, but I think New Hampshire will go Kerry, Clark, Edwards, Dean.
After hearing Dean’s speech last night (audio on drudge), I wish I could withdraw my prediction of him getting the nod. The man is utterly batshit insane. Mind you, I find that entertaining, but he will never be a vaible national candidate.
Dean will stay in for a while, but the “unelectable” tag is on for good. Kerry’s stiffness is too Gore-like. Edwards will the demo nomination.
My predictions for New Hampshire is that Dean will win, Clark second, Kerry third. The media will cover it as a major comeback. The primaries will continue without a clear front-runner for some months still.
For the general election, Bush will win by at least 5% of the popular vote, and a very large margin in the Electoral College.
Democrats will file a lawsuit over something or other in the election. When it is thrown out, they will claim that it invalidates the election, and refer to Bush as “the President who never won an election”. The economy will continue to recover, and Democrats will complain that it is bypassing those at the bottom. The unemployment rate will drop, and Democrats will claim that they are mostly “dead-end” entry level jobs that don’t earn enough to support a family, or high-demand jobs that poor people cannot aspire to.
The Usual Suspects on the SDMB will continue to post paranoid accusations of secret plots to steal the elections. Stoid will start a long thread the day after the election claiming that the world is coming to an end and that the Republicans will grind up poor people for dog food . And I will post in every available thread saying, essentially, “Neener neener neener!” in a completely class-free, annoyingly superior whine.
And I estimate Cheney’s chances of stepping down at 40%. If he does, Condi Rice will replace him, and be elected in 2008. (IhopeIhopeIhope…)
Despite the disproportionate influence of the lefter-leaning party activists during primaries, it seems clear now that Dean isn’t going to manage anything this time around. I’m disappointed, because as I hinted before, I thought Dean was a sure loss in November. The party sees that as well.
I wish it were otherwise, because Kerry and Clark are both formidable candidates against an incumbent president running on a war record.
It will be interesting to see how they approach each other. Clark’s message seems to be along the lines of, “Hey, Kerry was a junior officer - a hero junior officer, and I respect that heroism, but a junior officer nonetheless. I was a four-star.”
If you were doing a prediction, Bricker, your foresight is outstanding - that’s almost EXACTLY what Clark said. From the New York Times:
“I’ve negotiated peace agreements,” he said. “I’ve led a major alliance in war. It’s one thing to be a hero as a junior officer. He’s done that, and I respect him for that. He’s been a good senator. But I’ve had the military leadership at the top as well as at the bottom.”
For November, I want points, or odds, either one. Bush is quite reasonably the favorite. In an even-odds bet, I’d put my money on Bush in a heartbeat. But at 3-2 odds in Bush’s favor, I’d bet on the Democrat.
Hey John Corrado, you say Bush will get at least 56% of the vote. I say he won’t. Care for a small wager?
I don’t know who the Dem nominee will be, other than that the field has been narrowed to Kerry, Edwards, and Clark. I think whichever of them ultimately wins the nomination can beat Bush, which is not to say he will beat Bush.
If we’re getting points for far-out predictions, I want to reiterate my early call that Edwards was gonna take the nomination, and that the general election would depend on voter turnout, as I said more than a year ago.
The winning Dem. ticket will be Clark (Edwards as vp?), with a long shot to Dean (Clark as VP? I know he said no way to a VP spot, but I think this would be a formidable ticket.)
People who think Dean has no chance to beat Bush are wrong, wrong, wrong. Bush is WAY more vulnerable than almost anybody is saying at the moment. He seems to be doing okayish for the moment, but November is a long way away, and he’s still riding on incumbency and the general ignorance of the public regarding the dems.
[prediction mode]
So, as election days looms, polls show Bush sliding further and further behind as more and more Americans grow tired of his handouts to the wealthiest and of his consistent pattern of deceit, Orwellian double-speak, and general smarminess.
Just before November, Bush suspends free elections justified by fabricating a national emergency, disbands the SCOTUS, and establishes martial law to keep the opposition in line. Republicans cheer.
American Democracy as we have known it will be over.
[/prediction mode]
The winning Dem. ticket will be Clark (Edwards as vp?), with a long shot to Dean (Clark as VP? I know he said no way to a VP spot, but I think this would be a formidable ticket.)
People who think Dean has no chance to beat Bush are wrong, wrong, wrong. Bush is WAY more vulnerable than almost anybody is saying at the moment. He seems to be doing okayish for the moment, but November is a long way away, and he’s still riding on incumbency and the general ignorance of the public regarding the dems.
[prediction mode]
So, as election days looms, polls show Bush sliding further and further behind as more and more Americans grow tired of his handouts to the wealthiest and of his consistent pattern of deceit, Orwellian double-speak, and general smarminess.
Just before November, Bush suspends free elections (justified by fabricating a national emergency), disbands the SCOTUS, and establishes martial law to keep the opposition in line. Republicans cheer.
American Democracy as we have known it will be over.
[/prediction mode]
Interested in a wager? You say Dean, I say Kerry. Anyone else, we call it a wash. A bottle of champagne under $50, perhaps?
Define ‘a very large margin’, and we might have a wagering opportunity here, as well. Just take into account the magnifying tendencies of the EC: a candidate that wins 60% of the popular vote is likely to win 90-99% of the electoral vote, for instance. So I’m assuming you mean a larger margin than one would expect from a 5% popular margin, based on past elections. (In 1992, Clinton won by just over 5% popular, and by 202 electoral votes; the 1988 and 1952 elections were decided by about 7.5% popular, and by margins of 315 and 353 electoral votes.)
If Bush wins in the manner you predict, this won’t happen. Saying it will is just throwing needless partisanship into an otherwise respectable post.
If corporations are doing a lot better, but it isn’t making a difference in people’s paychecks, that’s a pretty reasonable thing to complain about.
Hey, the unemployment rate did just drop, and without even creating any new jobs! A lot of people simply gave up looking for work.
Won’t happen, absent a genuinely incapacitating health event. And if that happens, Dubya’s veep will be someone who isn’t likely to use it as a springboard for 2008.
Why?
Jeb.
I’ve said this a number of times before. I’ll put my wallet where my mouth is on this.
