I don’t do bets with people, I only gamble with institutions like casinos and state lotteries.
Casinos are people my friend
Just not very nice people. Kind of people who go to the mixed nuts bowl at the party and pick out all the cashews.
From the Republican side - early primaries and caucuses favor the extremists, 'cause that is who shows up. But once the first few hyperventilating headlines are written, the “real” Republicans (the money) starts to line up - and you end up with a McCain or a Romney. Taking all of that into consideration - the candidate for 2016 is Santorum. He’s safe enough to the party leaders, and he rings the bell for the far right (organically - not a poser). He will become better at campaigning, slightly. But that shouldn’t be a big issue - look at the candidates going back to Bush I, Dole, Bush II, McCain, Romney - not the silver tongued devils there.
On the Democratic side - like a stinging rough turd squeezing painfully through the anus, Hillary will make the nomination. (I say this with love, as a deep Liberal).
And then for the win - HILLARY 2016! WOO HOO! ack cough…
I think that the next president will probably be another Democrat, but the Democrats have no clear front-runners right now (everyone’s too distracted by noncandidates like Hillary and Biden), so I have no idea who it will be. The Republican side, however, is more clear, and so I would say that the individual who’s most likely to be the next president is Rubio, followed by Christie. Santorum just might end up with the Republican nomination, but if he does, the chance of the Republicans winning the general plummets, so the members of the Democratic field come after Christie in the lineup.
I highly doubt it. The only reason Santorum got any traction at all in 2012, was because he peaked at just the right time. If the Iowa Caucuses had been held a week earlier, it likely would have been Newt Gingrich giving Romney a run for his money; a week later, it probably would have been someone else.
And keep in mind that Santorum only got his moment in the sun after everyone else in the clown car - Cain, Bachmann, Perry, etc. - had flamed out.
Well, maybe - he really did have a OK showing in the 2012 primaries, coming in 1st in popular vote in 11 states. So, he has established himself as “next in line”, which seems to work in the Republican world. Whereas, the rest that you mention truly were just blips on the radar.
I don’t know. I could see Santorum being the nominee, but I can also see the ensuing derp fest driving away the big money donors and resulting in a very lopsided win for any reasonable Democrat.
It’ll be Hillary Clinton, Chris Christie, or Andrew Cuomo.
With 2 terms of a democratic president presiding over a terrible economy I could see a republican winning in 2016. But I don’t know if it’ll be Christie. The GOP nominated two ‘electable moderates’ the last 2 election cycles, and both lost. So they may think it is time to pick a more ideological one.
Plus Christie isn’t that conservative by the standards of the tea party. His biggest appeal is that he yells at people. Once the novelty of that wears off and people see he was willing to work with Obama (which is why Lugar lost), or that he has accepts global warming, gun control, immigration reform, etc.
The Dow just closed above 16,000 and the NASDAQ is flirting with 4,000. For comparison, the day a Democratic President took over from the GOP, the Dow was at 8,281 (it then promptly slid 332 on his inauguration day - go figure) and the NASDAQ was at 1,440. I would say Wall Street is pretty happy with the last 5 years.
Here’s a secret for the Republicans here: the Southern Strategy chickens are coming home to roost; the Democrats have the Executive Branch on lock for the foreseeable future. You just have to rattle off the States that voted for Obama - the WORSE PRESIDENT EVAR!!!111oneone - and figure out any Democrat will win what he won. Keep in mind, Republicans. Virginia, Colorado, and North Carolina are no longer red states. This means that either Florida or Ohio can be lost and Democrats can still clinch victory. The gerrymander may not save House Republicans in 2014 because the demographics of the 2010 gerrymander won’t be the same in 2014 (and certainly not in 2016).
The Republicans have no qualified candidates; in fact, Republicans won’t allow their candidates to have debates hosted by non-Fox affiliates for 2016 Election. Clinton is more qualified than Chris Cristie, Herman Cain, John Kasich, and Scott Walker, combined. There’s no way she won’t be the next President of the United States, *if *she wants it. Biden and Cuomo have a chance, too. My personal preference is that Elizabeth Warren succeeds Obama just because I’d like to see what would happen to America if it really elected a liberal to the White House.
- Honesty
Ironic, isn’t it? Of the six years since 1941 with highest unemployment, five of them are the five years of Obama’s Administration. (The outlier is 1982.) Yet Wall Street rejoices in Obama’s policies. Other intelligent businessmen also largely approve.
Nevertheless, I think there’s a good chance that Joe SixPack will look at unemployment figures and vote, not for the intelligent right-wing party, but for the party best described by
[QUOTE=Garrison Keillor]
The party of Lincoln and Liberty has been transmogrified into the party of hairy-backed swamp developers and corporate shills, faith-based economists, fundamentalist bullies with Bibles, Christians of convenience, freelance racists, misanthropic frat boys, shrieking midgets of AM radio, tax cheats, nihilists in golf pants, brown-shirts in pinstripes, sweatshop tycoons, hacks, fakirs, aggressive dorks, Lamborghini libertarians, people who believe Neil Armstrong’s moonwalk was filmed in Roswell, New Mexico, little honkers out to diminish the rest of us, Newt’s evil spawn and their Etch-A-Sketch President, a dull and rigid man suspicious of the free flow of information and of secular institutions, whose philosophy is a jumble of badly sutured body parts trying to walk.
[/QUOTE]
If you really believe the Democrats are shoo-ins, Google for sportsbooks, who show the 2016 election as even-money, or almost so.
Shown as a (distant) second-most likely to be the Democrat nominee is Elizabeth Warren. The two top GOP contenders are Christie and Rubio. (Almost contradictorily, you can get 2-to-1 on “Next President Female.”)
I’m not accepting bets, but I give Hillary 30%, Christie 20%, and 50% for Other-Not-Yet-In-View. What were the odds on Obama in 2005?
Most of the credit goes to Republican congressmen, who would much rather let the economy go into the toilet than let Obama get credit for an uptick. A bigger stimulus and no austerity and no sequester would have us at under 6% unemployment, yet Republicans act as if reducing the deficit would put people back to work.
2016 is a helluva long way away but assuming no significant gamechangers between now and then:
I’m skeptical that Clinton will run, but if she does and age/health are not serious concerns I think she’d win handily. She’s rid herself of a lot of the worst baggage of the 2008 campaign by being a competent SoS (certainly a lot better than Kerry). If Clinton decides that retirement is a more attractive option, I can’t see Biden either running or, in the event he does, winning the nomination. He’s not a good speaker. At all.
Of the others, maybe Cuomo, maybe Warren if she can get some high-profile and popular political policy wins between now and then, but most likely it’ll be someone else not currently in the limelight but well-poised to jump in. Hell, it could be Al Franken for all I know (although I doubt Al would try it).
On the GOP side Christie will run but the way things stand now I’m thinking Rand Paul will take the nomination. Again, though, it’ll probably be someone who comes to the fore between now and then, someone who looks good enough in the short run but who isn’t in the public eye long enough for people to get sick of him. Heck, I could see a Paul/Christie ticket (but not the other way around).
Winner between Warren and Christie: Christie by a very thin margin.
Warren/Paul: Either by a *very *thin margin.
Unknown Dem/Paul: Unknown Dem.
Unknown Dem/Unknown Rep - too hard to call at this point.
Not to show undue disrespect to the Board’s “Libertarians” but if this happens I’ll think American politics really have gone “through the looking glass” after all. Or that the Koch Brothers et al are playing some bizarre Mafia-like game with other despots around the world and will win points if they bring America to its knees.
This is not to say your guess is wrong, Gyrate. American voter stupidity and GOP malice are already well past any sane limits of believability.
Not going to happen, Rand has way too many strikes against him. He’s an extremely unlikeable guy who holds too many unorthodox views. Look at the way he went way over the top overreacting to legitimate criticism of plagiarism this year. Look at his clumsy, condescending speech to black college students, where he thought he would “educate” them on Republicans and race, amazing them with the exotic knowledge that Lincoln was a Republican. Maybe his opposition to the Civil Rights Act will bring in the racist wing of the party, but he’s too isolationist to attract the hawks and too whack-a-doodle libertarian for the business wing to take seriously.
Well, he’s one of the current darlings of the less-rational portion of the right wing, and I think Ted Cruz has peaked in popularity. If Randy avoids doing anything too stupid (or at least too stupid for his base) he could genuinely be a contender in 2016. This is the party that thought Herman “9-9-9” Cain was a feasible candidate, after all. I’d like this not to be so, but until the purging of the RINOs stops we’re just not going to get a sensible candidate out of the GOP.
OTOH as noted it’s a long way to 2016, so maybe the Lunatic Right will implode in 2014 and the GOP will nominate someone who isn’t a kook or an empty suit.
It’s conceivable that Rand Paul might get the Republican nomination, but if so, even more so than Santorum, he’d guarantee a Democratic victory. You simply cannot win a nationwide general election with the kind of crazy views he has.
Ted Cruz vs Clinton- Ted Cruz wins.