Flying Pink Unicorns

Got my mojo back.


For my abject failures in predicting the outcome of the March 4 Ohio and Texas races, I have had my hearing before the Accuracy Police Commission of the Blogosphere. The Accuracy police sentenced me to 5 months of remedial future prediction training. I was lucky it wasn't 10 years.... In any event, that's it, my blogging license has been reaffirmed, and I have my mojo back.


First a little back-patting and history. Towards the end of last year, both my friend Andrew and I agreed with the strong consensus of the pundits that McCain was finished. No money, unpopular with the voters due to immigration, and very unpopular with the GOP moneyed interests because he is notoriously hard to buy, I figured that the GOP would settle on someone more malleable, and that McCain was finished. Oops.

On January 15th, when only the Iowa caucuses (won by Huckabee) and the New Hampshire primary (won by McCain) had been completed, I told you all that McCain would be the nominee, and that I was certain of it. Andrew, the inspiration of many of my ideas (but not this one) demanded that a price be paid for such certainty if it proved wrong, and I agreed in a blog post on January 30th to a series of pricey and humiliating things I would do if I were proven wrong. Of course, McCain clinched the GOP nomination on Tuesday. Good to be so right about something I was so sure about. Happens now and then.

So where does the Presidential race go from here? If the dem race were over today as I'd hoped, Obama/Clinton, or Obama/Mark Warner (fmr Gov, Va), or Obama/Barney (the Purple Dinosaur) would beat McCain. Say 55-43. Clinton/Obama would also win, but much much closer. 51-48 or 50-49. (Hillary aint exactly beloved, and McCain's great appeal to indys would really really hurt her). But she'd win. With the dem primaries looking to go on and on and on and on, I'm not sure right now of the general. Karl Rove (today's WSJ) may well be right that the ongoing dem primary HELPS the dems in November. But not if Hill tears Obama to pieces and Obama wins anyway (the slightly most likely scenario).

Which is a long winded way of saying I don't know. The dems are still the clear favorite to win in November, as of now. The situation favors them, the electoral map favors them, and McCain's being probably 4-5 points better than a random ok Republican in a national election because of how compelling he is STILL probably isn't enough to make up for it in 2008. As of now. But who knows what will happen, how badly the dems will damage each other, and even if the party will unify afterwards. If Clinton savages Obama and superdelegates her way to the nomination, Obama may well NOT accept the # 2 slot, and his followers will take their marbles and go home. In that scenario, McCain probably wins. That is nowhere near impossible. Sorry, not clean predictions, because the dem field is still unsettled, and there's always the possibility of a big outside event (Iran tests, Al Queda hits the USA, Pakistan goes to hell in a handbasket) that could seriously favor McCain.

Still, if I had to put money on the winner of the 2008 election, dem or GOP, I'd pick Dem w/o hesitation. Then again, I picked the dems in 2000 and 2004.....