It was about three months ago that I took my Smy first whack at my biennial “Fearless Predictions” for this election.
In the original, I note my bona fides as a prognosticator: I got closer to nailing the 2004 presidential election than anyone I know; I was two days off on Saddam Hussein’s execution; while I had a number of flubs in 2006, I got the ones that mattered – Pawlenty by a hair, Bachmann by eight – in style.
This year? It’s gonna be a tough one – but maybe not that bad. Although the conventional wisdom says this is gonna be a rough year for Republicans – I previously predicted the Dems would suffer a moral defeat if they came out with any less than 350 seats in the House – there is evidence that Congressional Dems’ fecklessness on the war, the economy and, well, everything might be costing them.
Here in Minnesota, the DFL candidates have run ugly, nasty, amoral races that deserve to be turned out into the street; in a year like this, that’s unlikely.
So without further ado, let’s get down to it.:
US Senate: Norm Coleman endured a lefty/media (pardon the redundancy) smear campaign of biblical proportions. In a less-fraught year, I think it would have been an 8-10 point race; Franken doesn’t even have the DFL base behind him. I think Coleman will win by two or three.
First District: Tim Walz will win going away – but if Obama wins, and governs the way he’s promised, Walz is either going to have to manufacture a genuine centrist facade, or face a serious problem in 2010. The First District just isn’t that crazy.
Second District: I’ll hold to my July prediction almost verbatim: John Kline will beat Steve Sarvi by at least ten points. Maybe more.
Third District: I think Paulsen’s going to pull this one off, but it’ll be tight. Maybe two points. The DFL has run a snarlingly adolescent campaign in this district; I suspect they realize that talk that the Third Distict is “turning blue” was overstated. Again, if Obama wins and Paulson carries it off, Paulsen will take 2010 by at least 12 points against anyone the DFL throws against him – presuming he resists the urge to RINO out on us.
Fourth District: Ed Matthews is as solid a candidate as the GOP has thrown into this DFL near-sinecure, ever. He’s sharp. He’s articulate. He shredded Betty McCollum, perhaps the emptiest suit in our delegation, at their debate. Seriously – if it’d been a boxing match, the referee would have stopped it in two rounds. But it’s the Fourth, where the DFL could nominate a set of wind-up chattering teeth and count on 50% of the votes. So far. I think McCollum is going to carry this one off – but I think there are chinks forming in the DFL’s sense of invincibility in this district. We’ll be talking about that in the future on this blog. I hope Ed Matthews stays in politics; he can be a contender.
Fifth District: Like Matthews, Barb Davis-White is as credible a candidate as the GOP has fielded in this district in recent memory. A black conservative Christian, Davis-White should make some decent headway – and probably could have done better, had the GOP managed to get her funding within two orders of magnitude of that of the incompetent Keith Ellison. I suspect Ellison will win – but Barb Davis-White and people like her need to stay at this. If Obama wins the White House, 2010 is going to be another 1994 – and people like Davis-White and Matthews will benefit.
Sixth District: Michele Bachmann, the biggest lightning rod for the left’s mania and delusion anywhere in the Congress, has endured the nastiest assaults of any candidate I can think of. Everything Sarah Palin has faced in the past two months – the sclerotic selective sexism of the feminist movement, the misogyny of the left – Michele Bachmann has been dealing with for over a decade. The left just doesn’t like uppity women! I think Michele will tip Elwin “E-Tink” Tinklenburg – former useless head of MNDoT and shameless ghoul – by four.
Seventh District: Collin Peterson will win. Fifteen, twenty, thirty points? Let’s not kid ourselves.
Eighth District: Jim Oberstar will slouch onward, the Robert Byrd Strom Thurmond (or maybe just the Quentin Burdick) of the Northland, borne forth on a wave of entitlement swag and an avalanche of yummy pork. He will be America’s first undead congressman.
And finally…
…well, no. I never thought I’d say this a week ago, but the presidential race is, again, too fluid. The momentum in this race has changed more than in a pee-wee hockey game. Maybe this weekend the picture will be clearer.
And maybe not…
The fact the Betty can win an election shows that the people of St Paul will vote for anyone if there is a “D” next to their name.
Even the vandel from last week skipped over her when he hit everyother metro area congress and senators house.
Fluid, eh? Angryclown isn’t afraid to make the prediction.
President-elect Obama.
Wow are you stepping out..
My prediction about the Presidential race is that it’s fluid.. whew, take a risk like that and you’ll surely be mocked.
First it’s – A Deeper Shade of Purple, then it’s, this state is the most liberal in the country, now you can’t even make a prediction about the race in general, and apparently not even the state.
Let me help. Obama will win Minnesota by 8-10 – and win the Presidency by 5 – maybe 3, maybe 4, but not 10 as some polls show.
2010 will NOT be 1994 – the fraudulence of Newt Gingrich is dead. Your party needs a new mantra, tax cuts simply aren’t the panacea that you claim – and the nation is in extreme economic risk/crisis. No one will expect that risk to be abated by 2010 – further, the pain that Obama will inflict will be on the wealthy – and/or, he’s smart enough to NOT make gays in the military his seminal issue – so the ‘family values’ swell won’t exist – besides which it’s been debunked as crappolla anyway, you righties lack morals in ways we lefties never even dreamed of, and the nation knows it.
sorry I guess that should have read:
“the fraudulent message of Newt Gingrich is dead”
BTW Mitch, I’ll grant that you had the 2004 Bachmann prediction, but let’s be serious a moment, the range she was expected to win by was high single digits, you picked 8 – you had a 20-25% chance of getting that right. You made 13 predictions that day (in 2006) and you got one dead on, the other, Pawlenty, you predicted, as memory serves, he’d win fairly easily – it was damned close.
You have some real talents – including the ability to synthesize thoughts down in writing – but political predictions.. not so much. Your bias gets in your way.
Personally, I think the Paulsen/Madia race is likely to be very tight – considering it’s a blue state, and the tide is with the Dems, this should be a Dem pickup but Madia was a weak candidate – too young, too smarmy for that matter – better than Banhof, but that’s faint praise, Banhof is the Michelle Bachmann of the left, vapid, weak, party hack – not quite Phyllis Kahn, but not far away.
I think Normy will once again fool the state into thinking he’s moderate, and he’ll beat Franken – a far more capable human being – due to smear, lies and dirt.
Those will be your two bright spots. I’m not 100% certain of course – but it looks that way, and more’s the pity – I’d be fine with someone like Ramstad (unlike you, I voted across party lines lots of times in the past 20 years -including time and again for Ramstad) – and I’d be fine with someone with some real character – like McCain or Chuck Hagel – if we are to have a Republican Senator in this relatively moderate state. I realize you promote exteme righties, and don’t feel the left deserves representation, but that’s just you being a hack again.
Bachmann will beat Tinklenburg, but it will be close – very close probably, which again is a pity because while that district deserves a conservative, it deserves one with a brain too. I know you’ve met her, so have I, she’s a twit with a capital T. The fact that it’s close isn’t a testimony to the tide this year, it’s a testimony to Bachmann’s idiocy. She’ll lose sometime soon, because she’ll screw up again, and her constituents will eventually tire of being repeatedly embarrassed by her idiocy.
before anyone responds to peev/pb/penigma/donPreciado(our Precious One)
keep in mind this is the same stellar intellect that asserts categorically that Richard Nixon was president in 1975, that the Cold War started in the administration of Calvin Coolidge and that Joseph Conrad wrote The Heart of Darkness about the Viet Nam War.
Maligna said:
tax cuts simply aren’t the panacea that you claim
Not that I’m agreeing with you, so true to form of a liberal, so let’s do the opposite? Raise them?
I think Normy will once again fool the state into thinking he’s moderate, and he’ll beat Franken – a far more capable human being
You didn’t. Did you just say Franken is a far more capable human being?
Based on what? A successful satire and pornography career? A failed radio show? His ability to con thousands into thinking he’s a Minnesota resident?
Name ONE (ONE!) accomplishment of Franken’s that is even remotely relevant to public office.
Just ONE!
This is the era of liberal “smoke and mirrors” candidates and you guys are going for it like flies on a tird. An apt analogy for Franken I might add. It highlights his station in public life while adding a flair of vulgarity, apropo for his ilk.
I’d pretty much agree with all your picks, Mitch, but I’m afraid that Chuck D. and Flavor Flav are right about The One winning the election. The good news is that once he’s elected, the mask will have to drop and the subsequent buyer’s remorse will be so strong that he won’t have a lot of room to maneuver. Harry and Louise are waiting in the wings right now.
And you are right about Ed Matthews. If he were in a less skewed district, he’d win easily.
Say, Peevee?
Can you do us a favor and condense your lies into a more succinct package? Say two or three sentences.
No one is going to wade through twenty paragraphs of unmitigated babble…really.
Thanks, pal.
Peeve-
“Smear lies and dirt” would be apt terms to describe both Franken’s and Madia’s campaigns. Even more accurate if you threw in “innuendos.”
Swiftee-
It’s a lost cause. Babbling is the soul of Peeve.
I’m going to go off on a limb and say that McCain will win.
I’m guessing that the polls are reflecting the same pro-Obama bias that existed in New Hampshire. The polls all showed an Obama blowout. It never materialized.
There is somewhere in the neighborhood of 10% of the electorate that is “undecided”. If after all this Obamessiah saturation coverage, you’re still saying you’re undecided, that probably means that you’re not going to vote for Obama. The undecideds will break to McCain, and they’re break to McCain at least 60/40. If this is a 4 point race, that means that McCain just needs to break even with undecided voters. That’s likely.
Virginia will be the first key state to watch. McCain needs to hold Virginia. The Keystone State will be the key to a McCain victory. PA is winnable for McCain. Again, the same trend with the undecideds exist there. They’ll break for McCain, and he’ll win PA. If that happens, Obama has to do more than capture Colorado and New Mexico. He can’t make up the loss of 21 electoral votes without sweeping the West.
Forget the one-party press: this election isn’t over, and McCain can win. Obama has trouble closing the sale, and the same trend we saw in New Hampshire and Nevada and Texas will happen again: Obama will underperform his poll numbers and McCain will win. It’s happened before, and it will happen again.
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