My fellow prisoners, the end is near. Here are a few predictions.
Let’s start easy: Obama wins the presidency.
Of the close states, Obama wins Pennsylvania, Ohio, Colorado, Florida (by a whisker), but not North Carolina or Indiana.
Democrats get 57 seats in the Senate (not counting Lieberman, of course).
Obama doesn’t get assassinated any time in the next four years. (Attempts and woundings don’t count.)
McCain doesn’t run again. His health declines precipitously sometime within the next four years, provoking a collective shudder in the US (and the rest of the world), and setting forward a few years the age considered acceptable for a presidential candidate.
Sarah Palin does not become the Republican nominee for President in 2012. Neither does Guilliani.
North Korea attempts to back out of its non-proliferation agreement with the US within a few months. Result: Big fuss. Widely considered Obama’s first big test.
Some time in the next four years, North Korea suddenly collapses. Handling the fallout becomes a much more significant foreign policy priority for the Obama presidency than almost anyone expected.
US troop presence in Iraq is reduced quickly, but there are still at least 5,000 US troops in Iraq in 2012.
The Republican party bounces back surprisingly quickly.
The Obama Presidency becomes the best thing that has ever happened to Fox News. Fox News plays its role as Unofficial Opposition with great gusto and makes a ton of money doing so.
Here’s an easy one: The Bush team behaves in a deeply unprofessional way during the transition. The media’s response is disappointingly tepid.
Politics becomes interesting again. For eight long years, the country has been run by hateful, blinkered people. During this time, and especially over the last four years, politics has only been interesting because it involves issues vital to our lives and often to the fate of humanity. What’s been largely missing is a sense that an intelligent contribution to political discourse could ever have a meaningful impact on the people who actually make decisions. For all the disagreements among Obama supporters, I think that there’s going to be a real, and extremely refreshing sense, that political debate is an area in which intelligent, well-argued, evidence-backed contributions might conceivably sway reasonable people in positions in power. A lot of very smart people all over the country are going to find that wildly exhilarating. There’s an incredible amount of pent up energy, enthusiasm and ideas out there. May it make a difference.
It’s been a long, annoying ride, my friends, and right now we all just want it to be over. Looking back, I think this little clip sums up the entire campaign. It’s the contrast between someone who is, for all his imperfections, an adult talking to other adults in an adult fashion, and a glib, uninformed college kid struggling very unsuccessfully to fake her teaching assistant into thinking that she’s done the readings.
Good luck, Mr. Obama. You’re going to need it.
Chris | 03-Nov-08 at 2:37 pm | Permalink
Oh, forgot this: The domestic terrorism threat from right wing extremist groups becomes a big issue again.
Steve Laniel | 03-Nov-08 at 3:59 pm | Permalink
Not counting Lieberman, but does it count Sanders? I suspect you mean 58 including Sanders.
Chris | 03-Nov-08 at 4:06 pm | Permalink
Sorry, yeah.
Spaz | 03-Nov-08 at 4:22 pm | Permalink
Sometimes I really hate how unsuperstitious you are – walking under ladders, opening umbrella’s indoors, never knocking wood.
Didn’t you predict a Kerry victory?! You could have made these predictions months ago, but you have to do it on the eve. Now just shuddup for 36 hours already!
I’m far more interested in 1) just what voter turn out is; 2) whether more blacks/minorities/under 30s vote; 3) how multilateral Obama (assuming a win) will be globally (especially with Iraq and the global economy); 4) what Iran might do (they will try something); and 5) whether four years from now we can say with any ascertainable certainty that there was any real (yet alone radical) change in how America is governed or in particular health care and environmental policy.
My fingers are crossed…let’s see what happens.
Spaz | 03-Nov-08 at 4:55 pm | Permalink
Oh, do you really thing Beijing would allow South Korea to outright collapse? I think its in China’s interest to ensure any communist states within its sphere stay afloat.
Chris | 03-Nov-08 at 6:13 pm | Permalink
No, I don’t think Beijing would allow South Korea to collapse – or North Korea, for that matter, which is what I’m guessing you meant. But I think it’ll be really very messy. I don’t think communism will have anything to do with China’s role here. I think it’ll be driven much more by the desire to prevent an absolutely massive refuge crisis on the border.
DC | 03-Nov-08 at 9:46 pm | Permalink
I think “Politics becomes interesting again” is an interesting point. “Good faith” seem a relevant phrase – a return of good-faith disagreements to politics.
Having said that I think that the timing of the Republican bounce back is less interesting than the form in which it comes – creeping sanity or redoubled fanaticism?
Also interesting is the question of what happens to the netroots and the Obama-mobilised grassroots – do they become a powerful pull to the left on Obama or do they just become his apologists (c.f. conservatives and Bush, 2001 – 2007)? Does Obama keep his mass-organisation instincts and use the grassroots to bully the recalcitrant or does he try and put them back in their box until 2012?
DC | 03-Nov-08 at 9:53 pm | Permalink
Oh and does Obama bring some semblance of rationality and even-handedness to US policy in Israel-Palestine and in Latin America? Any prosepect, for example, of ending the Cuban embargo?
Personally, I can’t bring myself to expect anything more than very modest improvements in these two areas. On this as on so much else I suspect Obama probable shares my broad views but I expect (like Chris it seems) that he will be so bogged down in the unexpected that political capital may be too short for this stuff.
Chris | 03-Nov-08 at 9:59 pm | Permalink
The first draft of this post speculated about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, but I didn’t have the heart to post it. I’m guessing much more sanity and maturity, but not nearly as much as either of us would like.
Chris | 03-Nov-08 at 10:09 pm | Permalink
I think the vast right wing conspiracy will attack Obama in increasingly nutty and outrageous ways. Not as sure about the official Republican machine itself. I know that tons of people now are claiming that the Republican party is about to purge its moderates, and get even nuttier. But just look at the demographics: Certain states are trending Democrat, in keeping with long-term changes in the composition of the electorate.
Republicans are not, at the end of the day, interested in shouting themselves red in the face for the fun of it. They want power so that they can do things with it. That means, perhaps – perhaps! – that they’ll be doing a little triangulation over the next few years. I’m sure the Democrats will fuck up enough stuff to make them an appealing alternative to a lot of voters after a bit of repositioning. There’s a lot of resentment over the Bush years to get over, though.
chris y | 04-Nov-08 at 5:10 am | Permalink
A small bet that the first big test will actually involve Pakistan, though I’m not prepared to guess how. Best case, seriously escalating clashes over the Afghan border. Worst case, total loss of control by Islamabad over NWFP and Baluchistan, military coup, possible failed state scenarios (though I don’t think that’s likely).
Chris | 04-Nov-08 at 8:10 am | Permalink
I was wondering about Pakistan. For some strange reason I don’t see the country entirely collapsing. I’m also not sure about a military coup. These things are often helped along by tacit approval from outsiders, and that’s one thing I don’t think potential coup-makers could count on in the next little while. We’ll see.
I’ll repeat a point I’m fond of making: It really is important to resolve the dispute over Kashmir.
Chris | 04-Nov-08 at 10:49 am | Permalink
Oh! I forgot! Bush will pardon Pollard.
DC | 04-Nov-08 at 11:12 am | Permalink
OT, but can anyone explain why McCain didn’t exploit the Jeremiah Wright thing more? I know he said he wouldn’t back during the Dem primaries but that doesn’t seem an adequate explanation. The other one would be that he was afraid of being seen as racist, but given the general tone of the campaign he has run it doesn’t seem like that can explain it either. And in terms of the whole “Obama is secretly a far-leftist” it’s the most substantial evidence anyone has, no?
The question is provoked by this remark by Gideon Rachman in the FT today:
“Although it is an article of faith among Obama supporters that Mr McCain has fought a dirty campaign, in one critical respect the Republican has held back – he has refused to make an issue of the racially incendiary sermons of the Rev Jeremiah Wright, Mr Obama’s long-time pastor and spiritual mentor.”
DC | 04-Nov-08 at 11:13 am | Permalink
Meant to include this second para from the Rachman piece:
“Early in the campaign, a Republican operative joked to me that, by election day, most American voters would think that Rev Wright was Mr Obama’s running mate. In the event, it was only at the very last minute that Republicans in Pennsylvania ran advertisements that focused on the railing reverend. Mr McCain’s refusal to play the Wright card was an honourable act of self-restraint.”
Chris | 04-Nov-08 at 11:28 am | Permalink
Well, I doubt very much that honour had anything to do with it. The Rashidi nonsense showed that McCain was willing to stoop pretty fucking low.
Perhaps it just didn’t poll that well internally. After all, how well did it work for Hillary? And even if it had worked well for Hillary, the way media cycles tend to work is that if something is a big deal in the primaries, the media tends to be much less interested in it later on. There’s sort of a been-there-done-that quality to it at that point. Honestly, I doubt it would have helped them.
upyernoz | 05-Nov-08 at 9:17 pm | Permalink
i think what happened with the jeremiah wright thing is that mccain made a point of condemning the wright attacks last spring when they came up during the democratic primary. he criticized members of his own party for joining in on the attack and made a point of blaming obama for wright off limits.
there were really two reasons he did this. first, it made him appear presidential and honorable just as the democratic campaign was turning nasty. second, it innoculated him from falling victim to his own pastor problem.
those two reasons made more sense back in the spring. the problem was that by this fall mccain started getting desperate. and that’s why he resorted to ayers and, to a lesser extend, rashid khalidi. neither of them packed the punch of someone light wright, who obama had an undeniably long and close relationship with.
semi-related: am i the only one who thought that goldfarb was trying to hint at rev. wright in this video. it seems pretty clear to me that is what he is getting at, but he can’t say the words “reverend wright” because his boss called the pastor off limits. other bloggers seemed to think the video showed goldfarb unable to think of another anti-semite example. but i thought he clearly had wright in mind and was just inept at getting that across without saying the name.
Chris | 05-Nov-08 at 9:48 pm | Permalink
Ahhhhh, that’s a very good guess about Goldfarb.
chris y | 06-Nov-08 at 5:40 am | Permalink
Chris @12.2. Hope seems to be springing eternal on that one:
http://www.dawn.com/2008/11/06/top11.htm
Chris | 06-Nov-08 at 8:43 am | Permalink
Nice! I didn’t know anything about his position on Kashmir.
Have I mentioned how important it is to try to make some progress on that issue?
DC | 06-Nov-08 at 9:21 pm | Permalink
It was very obvious to me at least that Goldfarb was talking about Wright (though i can’t remember why he was supposed to be anti-semitic). Very weird of him to bring it up and then refuse to say his name.
Regarding your predictions, Chris, I can’t remember whether you ever did a post on how utterly wrong you were about the VP debate?
Chris | 06-Nov-08 at 10:44 pm | Permalink
I didn’t put my utter wrongness in a separate post, but I did note it in the comments.
I think Wright refused to condemn Farrakhan, who credible people assure me is anti-Semitic (I haven’t looked into it myself). Not sure if there’s anything else.
DC | 07-Nov-08 at 10:53 am | Permalink
Ah, acknowledgement of wrongness acknowledged.
Chris | 07-Nov-08 at 11:32 am | Permalink
I just clicked on the “Predictions” category and read through a few. Man, I suck! E.g. That didn’t really work out, eh? Still can’t understand why. I guess the Democrats figured the best thing to do was let the right implode, instead of risking a reputation for being too extreme or something.
These still look pretty good, though.
DC | 07-Nov-08 at 12:49 pm | Permalink
Actually I think your “Bush to be impeached” prediction doesn’t look too bad. You overshot somewhat with impeachment itself, but nevertheless the speed of Bush’s spiral from reasonably comfortable re-election to unprecedentedly unpopular political leper was pretty dramatic. Anyone could say “Bush will be seen as a terrible president” because that prediction had reality on its side, but it wasn’t obvious that Bush would become universally (within polite society) regarded as a terrible president long before his term was up.
Chris | 07-Nov-08 at 12:53 pm | Permalink
The interesting thing is that I find it very easy to remember (and frequently remind people of) my Iran prediction, but I had completely forgotten my prediction about impeachment. This is why it’s good to write shit like that down.