# Who can be the first to predict the 45th president of the United States? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [November 5, 2008, 4:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-can-be-the-first-to-predict-the-45th-president-of-the-united-states/471207 "2008-11-05T04:37:03Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2008, 3:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-can-be-the-first-to-predict-the-45th-president-of-the-united-states/471207/81 "2008-11-06T03:47:44Z")
George Bush gets hit by a truck next week. Dick Cheney is sworn in as our 44th President. Barack Obama becomes our 45th President on January 20, 2009. ---
**Author:** ![foolsguinea](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/foolsguinea/32/14751_2.png) [@foolsguinea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/foolsguinea)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2008, 10:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-can-be-the-first-to-predict-the-45th-president-of-the-united-states/471207/82 "2008-11-06T10:28:38Z")
Let’s see. Obama looks good for two terms, so figure 2016. I think he’ll be welcomed back for a second term due to pro-incumbent tendencies. Won’t be someone from the religious right. Reagan got in after Carter because of serious problems Obama is not go to suffer from in the same way, & could appear more mainstream than the regionalist identity politicians we have now. In fact, I suspect the anti-Obama vote is going to dwindle to a few knee-jerk anti-welfare-state types & regionalist/racists, with no appeal to the mainstream. So if it’s a Republican, it’s going to be a more mainstream-acceptable figure of some kind. And that might take longer than eight years to happen, somehow. So, a Democrat? I don’t know. … Oh, wait, what am I saying? Joe Biden, mid-2011, postassassination. ☹ ---
**Author:** ![foolsguinea](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/foolsguinea/32/14751_2.png) [@foolsguinea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/foolsguinea)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2008, 10:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-can-be-the-first-to-predict-the-45th-president-of-the-united-states/471207/83 "2008-11-06T10:31:43Z")
> [@Lantern](#): > > … Petraeus. He has the same disciplined intellect that Obama does and my hunch is he is politically ambitious as well. He will work closely with Obama in the next few years, learning about politics from the new master as well as building his bipartisan credibility. He will watch the Republicans get pummeled the next 8 years and in 2016 the party will turn to him in desperation as the next Eisenhower. See, I think it’ll take two more pummelings. So, Petraeus 2020, but who in '16? ---
**Author:** ![foolsguinea](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/foolsguinea/32/14751_2.png) [@foolsguinea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/foolsguinea)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2008, 10:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-can-be-the-first-to-predict-the-45th-president-of-the-united-states/471207/84 "2008-11-06T10:37:37Z")
> [@jsgoddess](#): > > Biden retires after 2012. Obama picks Debbie Wasserman Schultz as his new VP. She runs and wins in 2016. Oh, I saw her on TV once. She’s impressive. As a fine-lookin’ serious-minded Democrat lady, I’d say she may be better than Gov. Sebelius. ---
**Author:** ![Sublight](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/439d5e/32.png) [@Sublight](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sublight)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2008, 10:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-can-be-the-first-to-predict-the-45th-president-of-the-united-states/471207/85 "2008-11-06T10:41:48Z")
I take the outside track with [Susan Collins](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Susan_Collins). ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2008, 2:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-can-be-the-first-to-predict-the-45th-president-of-the-united-states/471207/86 "2008-11-06T14:42:53Z")
> [@foolsguinea](#): > > Let’s see. Obama looks good for two terms… He hasn’t even been sworn in yet, and you already predict the political ebb and flow of the next eight years! I sure hope you’re right, but it’s sheer speculation, and waaaaaaaaaaaaaaay too early to say. ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2008, 8:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-can-be-the-first-to-predict-the-45th-president-of-the-united-states/471207/87 "2008-11-07T20:43:07Z")
The more postmortems of the campaign I read, the more I think it’s going to be near-impossible Palin to pick up the nomination in 2012 - and I didn’t think she was going to get it to start with. Seems it’s a staple for the losing campaign to blame it on the VP nominee, so the McCain people are out there saying she doesn’t know where Africa is or what NATO is and answers the door in a towel and so on. I mean, it can’t possibly the advisers’ fault- they only told the candidate what to do and how to do it for two years! 😛 So Palin, like Edwards, is already associated with losing, but even more than Edwards the wide perception is that it’s all her fault. She has a core group of supporters, but her and the campaign’s performance may be way too much to overcome. ---
**Author:** ![Duke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e8c25b/32.png) [@Duke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Duke)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2008, 8:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-can-be-the-first-to-predict-the-45th-president-of-the-united-states/471207/88 "2008-11-07T20:53:29Z")
> [@Agnostic\_Pagan](#): > > The other Joe Biden - [“Beau”](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beau_Biden) in 2016 after serving in his father’s Senate seat. And with Lisa Madigan as his veep after serving as governor of Illinois. I was going to pick Lisa Madigan as the next president after Obama. Now, I know people who know her, so I hope my pick doesn’t jinx her. Plenty of Dems out there as potential VP candidates in 2016 so I won’t try to pick one. I’m already on record here as predicting a Romney/Sanford GOP ticket in 2012 so I’ll stick with that. I don’t see it winning, though. ---
**Author:** ![Tom\_Scud](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/f08c70/32.png) [@Tom\_Scud](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tom_Scud)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2008, 9:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-can-be-the-first-to-predict-the-45th-president-of-the-united-states/471207/89 "2008-11-07T21:07:30Z")
> [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](#): > > I think Obama is a two-termer, so it will be 2016. I think that’s just too far ahead to project. Think about it. Who had ever even _heard_ of Barack Obama in 2000? He exploded onto the Democratic scene with his convention speech in 2004, but in 2000 he was an obscure state legislator who no one (with the possible exception of himself and his wife) would have given the most remote odds of making it all the way to the White House in just 8 more years. Not that anyone outside Illinois even knew who he was. > > Granted, the kind of immediate, transcendent star power shown by Obama when he first came to national attention 4 years ago is exceptionally rare in politics and his kind of lightspeed career trajectory is not likely to repeat itself anytime soon, but it goes to show that two Presidential terms in US politics is two eternities and you can’t predict anything. Interesting to think about… other successful Presidential candidates and where they’d been 8 years before. Bush in 1992: had held no elective office whatsoever, was the son of a President who managed to blow an 80% approval rating and lose after only one term. Clinton in 1984: in his second term as governor of Arkansas, having lost and then re-won the governor’s office. Who? Bush (1) in 1980: Successful VP candidate, prior head of the CIA. Reagan in 1972: Governor of California - I think he was pretty well recognized as the leader of the Goldwater wing of the Republican party by that point Carter in 68: had been a state senator for four years, at the time was out of office. So out of the last 5, two guys who would have been fairly popular picks and three guys no one would have picked. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2008, 10:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-can-be-the-first-to-predict-the-45th-president-of-the-united-states/471207/90 "2008-11-07T22:09:10Z")
Quoth **Elendil’s Heir** : > [@](#): > > He hasn’t even been sworn in yet, and you already predict the political ebb and flow of the next eight years! I sure hope you’re right, but it’s sheer speculation, and waaaaaaaaaaaaaaay too early to say. Of course it’s too early to predict the ebb and flow yet, but that’s what this thread is all about. So we’re giving it our best guesses, and most of us will be wrong. ---
**Author:** ![foolsguinea](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/foolsguinea/32/14751_2.png) [@foolsguinea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/foolsguinea)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2008, 10:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-can-be-the-first-to-predict-the-45th-president-of-the-united-states/471207/91 "2008-11-07T22:25:48Z")
> [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](#): > > He hasn’t even been sworn in yet, and you already predict the political ebb and flow of the next eight years! I sure hope you’re right, but it’s sheer speculation, and waaaaaaaaaaaaaaay too early to say. You’re right, of course. But…[ul][_]America likes incumbents.[_]Obama would not suffer from the “12 years of the same party” problem McCain would have.[_]Many voted against Obama due to his lack of executive experience; in four years he’ll have more relevant experience than his challenger.[_]Some voted for the white guy (or Southwesterner or whatever) out of fear of Obama’s cultural differentness. They’ll get more comfortable with Obama in four years.[_]I don’t expect the GOP to nominate as good a candidate as McCain in four years.[_]Bush is the Herbert Hoover of my generation. The GOP isn’t coming back strong immediately.[/ul]Bill Clinton & GW Bush both won their second terms with higher pluralities than their first. I expect Obama can hold on to his majority. ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2008, 10:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-can-be-the-first-to-predict-the-45th-president-of-the-united-states/471207/92 "2008-11-07T22:49:10Z")
I think that to be viable, the GOP is going to have to move away from the religious right, finally. McCain didn’t lose among conservatives, he lost with moderates. ---
**Author:** ![Rachael\_Rage](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/71c47a/32.png) [@Rachael\_Rage](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rachael_Rage)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2008, 3:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-can-be-the-first-to-predict-the-45th-president-of-the-united-states/471207/93 "2008-11-08T03:37:09Z")
How about Chuck Hagel? He will be 70 by 2016, though. ---
**Author:** ![Cyberhwk](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/7993a0/32.png) [@Cyberhwk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cyberhwk)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2008, 9:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-can-be-the-first-to-predict-the-45th-president-of-the-united-states/471207/94 "2008-11-08T09:35:16Z")
> [@RickJay](#): > > I assume you meant 2016 the second time you typed 2012? > > She can’t conceivably beat Obama in the primary in 2012. And why would Obama replace Biden with her? Yes, I did mean Clinton running in 2016. Barring a similar anti-Democratic backlash, in 8 years Hillary could be a force in the VP slot. In 2016 she would be 69 (younger than McCain), and Slick Willy would have been out of office for 16 years. All conjecture though. Which direction they go will greatly depend on how Obama’s Presidency ends up turning out. ---
**Author:** ![leander](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/bcef8e/32.png) [@leander](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/leander)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2008, 10:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-can-be-the-first-to-predict-the-45th-president-of-the-united-states/471207/95 "2008-11-08T10:03:08Z")
> [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > It’ll either be a new star rising out of the Republican party, or one of the new Democrats that will become a heavyweight through the Obama administration. The governing party in Washington is changing, and that brings a ton of new people into new roles. Some will fall flat and go away, but some will become elder statesmen and be in line for the Presidency then. As much as I hate to agree with **Sam Stone** :), he’s absolutely correct here. There will be “rising stars” in both parties over the next 8 yrs, and one of them will be the next President. Also, I see no reason to think that Biden will step down - as others have said, this is the pinnacle of his career, and he will enjoy being an important part of this administration. ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2008, 4:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-can-be-the-first-to-predict-the-45th-president-of-the-united-states/471207/96 "2008-11-08T16:08:19Z")
I’m sure the Republicans will agree completely that Biden should be in charge of the Senate. 🆒 ---
**Author:** ![gonzomax](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e8c25b/32.png) [@gonzomax](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gonzomax)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2008, 4:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-can-be-the-first-to-predict-the-45th-president-of-the-united-states/471207/97 "2008-11-08T16:56:58Z")
> [@foolsguinea](#): > > See, I think it’ll take two more pummelings. So, Petraeus 2020, but who in '16? IOf the old war monger stays in Iraq and then clears Afghanistan ,he will be 150 years old. ---
**Author:** ![Quintas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/48db29/32.png) [@Quintas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quintas)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2008, 7:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-can-be-the-first-to-predict-the-45th-president-of-the-united-states/471207/98 "2008-11-09T07:13:51Z")
> [@gonzomax](#): > > Clinton is 61, she can run. Thaat would be something. A black followed by a woman. A gay woman at that. ---
**Author:** ![foolsguinea](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/foolsguinea/32/14751_2.png) [@foolsguinea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/foolsguinea)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2008, 8:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-can-be-the-first-to-predict-the-45th-president-of-the-united-states/471207/99 "2008-11-09T08:21:35Z")
A gay black woman? Have you been talking to BrainGlutton again? ---
**Author:** ![Quintas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/48db29/32.png) [@Quintas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quintas)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2008, 9:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-can-be-the-first-to-predict-the-45th-president-of-the-united-states/471207/100 "2008-11-09T09:45:41Z")
A native American prez would be cool. Especially if thy went by his/her tribal name. President “crouches with fox” will address the nation tonight. Of course his opponents would accuse him of being in cahoots with “Big Casino”. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-can-be-the-first-to-predict-the-45th-president-of-the-united-states/471207.md?page=4) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-can-be-the-first-to-predict-the-45th-president-of-the-united-states/471207.md?page=6)