Crystal ball '08
Fellow leftie Ted Rall engages in some presidential prognostication in his current column.
While Rall expresses his hesitation in prophesizing, I have no such hesitation. After all, Rall incorrectly predicted that Howard Dean would win the 2004 Democratic presidential nomination (which he notes in his column), while I announced my support for John Kerry for the nomination way back in June 2003.
(OK, so that technically might not have been a prediction. I was making the case for which of the Democratic presidential hopefuls I thought would be the best to prevent George W. Bush's "re"-election. I wasn't making a prediction per se. But I think it's close enough...)
I made an all-out prediction for the 2008 presidential race back in February and I still stick by that prediction. I made my prediction in the comments section of this post. I wrote:
I think [that Al Gore is] probably going to run. I mean, he's a nominee for the Nobel Peace Prize, he's been nominated for an Oscar, he just made an appearance on the Grammys... And he has another book coming out in May called The Assault on Reason.
Having another book come out so soon after the release of "An Inconvenient Truth" (the film and the book) sure looks like preparation for a presidential campaign to me.
If Al enters the race, he's going to blow Hillary out of the water.
Plus -- I might as well say it -- after these dark years of the unelected Bush regime, Al Gore will look pretty good to the voters. He's the guy the voters could have had and all of this fucking shit could have been avoided.
With Al Gore back, voters will feel that they have a second chance to get it right. Rarely in life do we get do-overs. I think that both Al and the voters will get a do-over.
I'll go out on a limb here. Here's my offical prediction (you read it here at RVS on February 13, 2006 [sic -- the date actually was February 13, 2007. Oopsie. About once a year I make a mistake...]):
Hillary Clinton's campaign will implode like Howard Dean's did, mostly over her support of the Vietraq War. Al Gore will enter the race late (he can afford to, both in terms of the ca$h available to him and in terms of not having to educate the voters about himself, like Barack Obama has to). Al Gore will win the Democratic presidential nomination. Al Gore will be the next president of the United States.
In his current column, Rall predicts that John Edwards and Mitt Romney will win the Democratic and Repugnican nominations, respectively.
Rall calls Edwards and Romney "wealthy, in-tune ideological chameleons (North Carolina liberal, Massachusetts conservative) [who] radiate Martin Sheen-like central-casting telegenicism."
Rall writes that Edwards and Romney, who are both No. 3 in the polls of the announced candidates for their parties, "are keeping their powder dry, taking advantage of their lower poll rankings -- which leaves them free to finesse their stump speeches outside the media spotlight -- to hone and finesse messages that excite their parties' bases while reaching out to swing voters.
"Their plan is to appear dignified, above the fray and saving money on advertising while watching numbers one and two beat each other into overexposed pulps. Clinton cancels Obama; McCain cancels Giuliani. The number threes then step in and seize the nomination by default."
I think that Rall is probably right about Clinton canceling Obama and McCain canceling Giuliani. Clinton and Obama going after each other will leave an opening for Edwards, just as McGain and Giuliani going after each other will leave an opening for Romney.
However, I think that Romney is most likely to get the Repugnican nomination because of the top three Repugnican front-runners he's the one who's pandering the most to the foaming-at-the-mouth wingnut base, and my sense of this Repugnican pre-primary season is that the wingnuts stupidly aren't thinking about electability come November 2008, but are thinking about their pet ideological concerns.
So I say, bring on Romney -- there is no way in hell that the American people are going to put an anti-choice (and thus anti-woman), pro-torture, anti-gay, racist Mormon with the retarded name of Mitt* (not necessarily in that order) into the White House.
So I predict, as Rall does, that Guiliani and McCain will cancel each other out and that Romney will get the Repugnican nomination -- "Given the choice between libbie Giuliani, loony McCain and Reagan conservative-come-lately Romney, Republican primary voters will pick Mitt," Rall writes -- if some other Repugnican doesn't jump into the race at the last minute to alter the current dynamics, although I can't really think of who that might be.
Rall and I differ in our predictions for the Democrats.
"Barack Obama has mastered the art of the platitude, but in a country as racist as the U.S., a black guy has to bring the whole package -- experience, gravitas, actual opinions -- to deny the soft bigots a reason to vote against him," Rall writes, adding, "Besides, post-Bush, voters are looking for substance over rhetoric."
I don't care that Obama is black -- I care that he has been a U.S. senator for only two years and that, as Rall indicates, his campaign thus far has been about creating some warm, soft and fuzzy feeling about him than it has been about substance. Obama is a brand, I think, more than he is a person. (Should it be Obama™?) Also, from what I can tell -- he seems to refuse to take a courageously and honestly clear stance on the issue -- Obama opposes same-sex marriage. So I won't be supporting Obama.
Rall calls Hillary Clinton "the most formidable" of the Democratic front-runners right now and says that the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination is "Hillary's to lose -- and I think she will, because even her supporters aren't thrilled about her."
I'm certainly not thrilled about Hillary -- she stirs nothing in me whatsoever -- but even her supporters aren't thrilled about her? Is that true? If so, yikes for the Clintonistas. (Of course, I supported Kerry when he was seeking the Democratic presidential nomination and I supported the Kerry-Edwards campaign, of course, and no one of whom I am aware was what I would called thrilled about Kerry, either. As I have noted, people, in my observation, voted for Kerry more out of their hatred for George W. Bush than out of their love for Kerry.)
Anyway, Rall continues: "Clinton and Obama will split the politically correct 'America's first _____ president' vote. Democratic primary voters will make them suffer for their wishy-washy stances on Iraq. [Actually, from what I can tell, Obama has been sufficiently anti-Vietraq War. He wasn't even in the Senate when Hillary Clinton and John Edwards voted for the Vietraq War.] John Edwards, on the other hand, is saying the right things in all the right ways. Like Clinton, he voted for the war -- but he's stepped up and apologized."
Well, Edwards' apology isn't good enough for me, because during the run-up to the Vietraq War it was clear to me, just as a news consumer, that the members of the Bush regime wanted to invade Iraq no matter fucking what, and that they would invent any "evidence" to justify their wish to invade Iraq. You can't tell me that a U.S. senator knew less than I knew just from listening to NPR and reading reputable news providers such as The Associated Press and Reuters.
But I agree with Rall's prediction that Edwards will win the Democratic presidential nomination -- if no one else jumps into the Democratic field (more on this later).
I think Americans are ready to have a woman as president -- just not an utterly uninspiring woman like Hillary Clinton. And I know that millions of Americans, myself included, are all Clintoned-out.
If the current crop of Democratic contenders remains the same, hopefully the Democratic Party hacks will be smarter than are the Repugnican Party hacks who probably will nominate Romney, totally ignoring the question of Romney's electability in 2008. Hopefully the Democratic Party hacks won't remain blinded by the surname of "Clinton" and will take a long, hard work at Hillary Clinton's actual electability.
Hillary Clinton is hated by millions of Americans -- I can't see her winning in November 2008 (unless, I suppose, her opponent is Mitt Romney...). Hillary Clinton is the darling, however, of the Democratic Party hacks, the kind of idiots who picked the wooden dork Phil Angelides in the California Democratic gubernatorial primary over the John Edwards-like Steve Westly, who actually could have beaten Ahhhnuld Schwarzenegger last November.**
Speaking of John Edwards, although I'm ready for a woman or a black president -- just not Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama, who, Clintonista James Carville said not too long ago, lack (respectively) "spice" and "seasoning" -- Edwards has the political advantage of being a white man in a nation in which, like it or not (and I don't like it), white men still win most elections.
Edwards also has something else that neither Clinton nor Obama have: Edwards has run in a national presidential election, although he was No. 2 on the ticket. And people don't blame Edwards for having blown the 2004 election -- they (rightly) blame Kerry, who had the sense to stay out of the 2008 race because the people clearly don't want him.
So yes, if the current crop of Democratic contenders doesn't change between now and the primary, I predict that it will be John Edwards who will come out of the primary season alive.
But I still predict that Al Gore will jump into the race. According to a recent article in TIME magazine, if he is going to jump into the race, Gore would need to do it within the next five months or so.
The more I think of it, the more I think that Gore's flurry of recent activity indicates that the man really wants to be president. I mean, he's awfully visible these days for someone who used to be vice president and "lost" the 2000 presidential election but no longer has any desire to live in the White House. His "retirement" from politics is pretty damned public.
What I wrote back on Feb. 12, 2007, still stands:
I am still hoping that just after Obama and Hillary have bloodied each other significantly, a fresh Al Gore jumps into the race and gives us the blend of Obama and Hillary that we need: We need someone with Hillary's years of experience but not with Hillary's blank record of accomplishment and her snakelike, Clintonesque taking of every side on every issue. We need someone with Obama's strong stance against the Vietraq War from the get-go but without Obama's inexperience, and we need someone we know, unlike Obama. (We are, after all, talking about the highest elected office of the nation.)
That person would be Al Gore, who deserves to be re-elected as president in 2008.
I am hoping that, in his political shrewdness, Gore lets the other Democratic and DINO [Democrat-in-name-only] contenders knock each other around for a little while and then, when it looks like there are no good Democratic presidential candidates, he swoops into the scene like Superman to save the planet. (Oh, wait -- he already has started to save the planet...)
Finally, Rall concludes his current column:
Finally, concerning the general prospects of the Democratic versus Republican parties, here's my final foolhardy and almost certainly inaccurate prediction. If there are still more than a skeleton force of troops stationed in Iraq by Election Day 2008, Democrats will win the presidency and pick up seats (but not veto-proof majorities) in both the House and Senate.
Barring some absolutely unforeseeable event, I agree with Rall that the Democrats will pick up the White House in November 2008 -- if for no other reason than that the Repugnicans don't seem to be looking at November 2008 electability during their pre-primary season -- and that the Democrats will pick up seats in both chambers of Congress, strengthening their majorities. (Winning veto-proof majorities is such a tall order that I wouldn't even have mentioned it, like Rall did.)
November 2008, I predict, will be a nightmare for the Repugnicans, who not long ago controlled the White House, the House of Representatives and the Senate, and who boasted about their "permanent [Repugnican] majority." Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!
Before I sign off, I'll even go further than Rall did. Hell, I'll not only predict the 2008 Democratic presidential nominee -- Al Gore -- but I'll predict his running mate, too.
I think that we can safely scratch Hillary Clinton off the list. Assuming that Her Highness Hillary would even accept the No. 2 spot on the Gore ticket (I doubt that she would), my guess is that Gore is as sick of the Clintons as I am, if not more so (although of course he'd never admit that publicly if I am correct about it).
John Edwards would be a tempting choice for Gore, although there might be some hesitation on the part of Team Gore to tack Edwards onto the Gore ticket when Kerry-Edwards was the "losing" ticket of 2004.
Barack Obama also would be a tempting choice for Gore, as Obama would do for Gore what Edwards did for Kerry: inject some fresh youthfulness into the ticket (Edwards, already having been a vice presidential candidate, no longer has the freshness that Obama has).
We've had a woman in the No. 2 spot on the Democratic ticket -- Geraldine Ferraro back in 1984; she was the first female vice presidential candidate in the history of the United States. It would be awfully tempting for Gore to put the first black candidate ever in the No. 2 spot on the Democratic ticket.
But Obama's biggest liability, I think, is his lack of experience in Washington.
Still, all things considered, I predict a Gore-Obama ticket for 2008. (If Gore doesn't jump into the race -- but I predict that he will -- then I expect to see an Edwards-Obama ticket for 2008. I don't think that Edwards would want to be saddled with Hillary any more than Gore wouldn't.)
I hope to hell that I'm right, because I would like to earn the claim that my political crystal ball is infuckingfallible.
*Yes, Barack Obama's funny name is a liability for him, too. We like to think that American voters are above such superficial considerations in their selections of the president of the United States. But of course they aren't.
**A true story that I told at the time is that in August I saw Phil Angelides, a Geek -- er, Greek American, at the annual Greek Festival here in Sacramento. (No, I didn't go there to see him; I didn't even know that he was going to show up there.) At no time during his appearance at the festival was Angelides surrounded by more than a handful of people, and I do believe that most or even all of those were the people he'd come there with.
Again, this was the August preceding the November gubernatorial election. It was at a convention center full of hundreds if not thousands of Greek Americans. I knew then that if an entire convention center full of Greek Americans wasn't enthusiastic about Phil Angelides, then there was no way in hell that he could beat Ahhhnuld Schwarzenegger, and, of course, Angelides, the pick of the California Democratic Party hacks, lost to Schwarzenegger by more than 15 percentage points in the blue state of California in November.
5:07:42 PM 
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