The problem with prognostication is not the risk of being wrong, it’s the frustration if you’re right but still have to sit through the train wreck. Unfortunately, you must put your words on the record before you’re allowed to perch on a bar stool watching the Republic burn while saying “I told you so”. In no particular order I make the following predictions:
Election 2012
- Newt Gingrich will never, under any circumstances up to and including the zombie apocalypse, become president. There, I’ve said it. We can all quit pretending. Newt could cure cancer on live TV and still lose. If I am wrong you may ridicule me in the future.
- Depending on who becomes the Republican candidate, the press will either obsess over either Newt’s ex-wives or Mitt’s underwear. If you have a TV, throw it out the window while there’s still time.
- Ron Paul will not win in 2012. He will probably never win. However, he’s the Energizer bunny and the longer Washington stays stuck on stupid the closer Paul comes to doing the impossible. Ron Paul will always cause the press to pull a Baghdad Bob but stranger things have happened than a president Ron Paul. Would you have bet on President Nelson Mandela or President Lech Walesa? (Not that Ron Paul has been locked in a South African Prison or faced down Soviet threats…only that sometimes the underdog wins big.) Also Paul’s real value is as an unvarnished example of a man who sticks with his principles even when they’re unpopular. People like to think he’s so weird he’ll sprout antennae but I’m reminded of Orwells words: “During times of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act.”
- The 2012 election will go to the person who loses least. Obama’s mismanagement will continue to be so epic that it will eventually render Steven Colbert speechless while the Republicans will work equally hard to snatch defeat from the hands of victory.
- Whatever interchangeable tool the Republicans choose will have the principles of a limp noodle and the excitement of a metronome. He will go to great lengths to shoot himself in the foot 37 separate and distinct times while studiously avoiding any clear stance on anything until he’s nothing but Forrest Gump waving the flag.
- The press will label the Republican contender a racist, gay-bashing, badger raping, shithead who will personally attack voters during unverified but certain to be true monthly vampric killing sprees. Right wing talk radio will claim that Obama is the anti-Christ and this election, like all other elections, is the most important election of all time. If you’re thinking of joining a cult in order to avoid politics, this would be a good year.
- Congress, which has already gone 1000 days since the last full budget, will fail to approve a proper budget. This is what we call “compounding the suck”.
- Both campaigns will be entirely negative but leaks will be one sided and practically invented from whole cloth. If there’s a confidential report that a Republican candidate undertipped a waitress in Des Moines in 1972 it’ll be front page news that he stole her car and sold her cat on e-bay.
- Obama will continue to be a mystery that teleported into existence through divine providence in 2008. There’s nothing more to see here…move along.
- If the election is anything other than a landslide for Obama there will be multiple simultaneous localized recounts. Recounts will continue as needed until they get the correct pre-determined answer. A Republican candidate needs to win by an unmistakable margin. Mathematically the model is as follows: drop out third party voters, of the rest assume it’ll take 48% to elect Obama or 52% to elect his opponent, then hit yourself in the head with a mallet. The new 48/52 election system will be a permanent part of American life so long as it takes more ID to buy Sudafed than vote.
- A major press outlet, staffed by people who barely understand algebra, will opine that the electoral college is outdated. Nebraska and Maine, which apportion electoral votes on a pro-rated basis, will split nearly 50/50 and be virtually irrelevant. As they should be.
- The press, which gave up even the pretense of impartiality in 2008, will personally dry hump Obama every time the man is seen in public. Barack Obama could be seen gutting a live kitten on TV while naked and it would be presented as a great step forward in our economic recovery.