* Dean will be DNC chair until he decides not to be DNC chair and not a moment sooner (sometime after the ‘08 election)
* The House will remain essentially the same, Dems will win in MD, PA, TN senate races but GOP will retain control
* Another White House insider will be indicted, but the MSM will ignore it the way they have ignored the Libby case
* Republicans will be evil, Democrats will be dumb
“ignore the Libby case”. Oliver what is there not to ignore? He has been indicted and they are going to trial, I don’t remember you complaining when the coverage was obsessive over the same details. I think the media has learned that the public doesn’t like hearing the same thing over and over again. If you can report on something that is new in the Libby case, please by all means neccessary do it.
*** Republicans will be evil, Democrats will be dumb**
Err, they’re both dumb.
* The Redskins will depart for an early vacation.
I predict Ian and Saveferris will continue to be warposters, though strangely unwilling to actually serve.
I predict Congress and the Senate will stay in Republican hands, but the Delay wing will be neutered.
I predict that Alito will not be confirmed.
I predict that America’s discontent with Bush will intensify as interest rates rise and the housing market dies.
I predict that the 2006 Republican nominee for Governor of Pennsylvania will be former Steelers WR Lynn Swann, thereby giving race-hustlers like Oliver and Steve Gilliard ANOTHER black Republican to call an Uncle Tom and a race-traitor, even though through his charity work, Swann has done more in five minutes to help poor black kids than Oliver and Gilliard have in their lives, combined.
Quaker in a Basement Says:
December 30th, 2005 at 12:50 pm
* The Redskins will depart for an early vacation.
Damn! You beat me to it!
Happy New Year to all…
I forgot to say that the Dems will pick up the Governorship in MN and hold the governorship in WI.
My predictions for 2006:
Senator Burns of Montana gets indicted, as will five GOP Congressmen in the Abramoff scandal.
Grover Norquist gets indicted.
DeLay is ultimately acquitted, though not until the summer, and he loses his re-election to Nick Lampson.
Karl Rove will not be indicted.
The NSA wiretap scandal escalates as Republicans Specter and Snowe are outraged at Justice Department stonewalling on the extent of the NSA probe. Alito is not confirmed as a result.
The big issue for Democrats will be raising the minimum wage, critcizing the new prescription drug plan as too complicated and protection of Social Security in addition to corruption.
Iraq will spiral further out of control and the new government will look exactly like the last one. The Sunni Arabs will be despondent that they voted and got nothing to show for it. The insurgency will heat up again as soon as a new government is officially formed and there will be no US troop drawdown until the summer at the very earliest as the insurgency. Democrats will continue to be divided over Iraq. More Republicans will support a timetable for withdrawal, especially those in the Northeast.
Elderly voters angry at the new prescription drug plan and at Republican attempts to partially privatize Social Security will flock to the Democrats.
The Dems will take the House and pick up a net 26 seats, mostly in the Northeast and Midwest (In IL, Dems will pick up Hyde’s old seat, but Bean will lose. In IN, Dems will pick up Chocola, Hostetler and the southeastern IN seat.). Dems will achieve a tie in the Senate by picking up MT, PA, OH, RI and MO, while holding all of their own. Ford will lose TN to Bryant in a close race that will leave the GOP nominally in charge of the Senate (thanks to Cheney). Kyl will win AZ by five points. Dems will pick up governorships in CA, NY, MA, OH, MD (O’Malley), CO and AL (Lucy Baxley - Riley wins the GOP nomination and Moore voters stay home in November). Republicans will hold on to FL (Crist), TX, SC, CT, NV and AR. Dems will hold on to IL (divided GOP won’t beat Blago), MI, OR, NC and TN. Bush’s approval rating next November will be 43. Warner and Feingold emerge as the top candidates to beat Hillary. Giuliani decides not to run.
I predict that Quaker will learn that it’s possible to put three thoughts in one post, rather than one thought in three posts.
I also like Semanticleos prediction. It’ll be fun, since i live in Philly and blend in with all the liberals here. They won’t know that i’m covert, and i’ll have infiltrated the enemy and be secretly working against them.
Semanticleo better hope he is wrong. Us wingers are WAY better armed and much more accurate than your typical birkenstock eating granola lefty…..!
* A conservative “religious” leader will be embroiled in a scandal involving sex or money.
* House Republicans will engage in some extraordiary procedural moves in an attempt to preserve Tom DeLay’s leadership position. After the stalling tactics become an embarassment, he will be replaced.
“I think the media has learned that the public doesn t like hearing the same thing over and over again.”
Yes, Ian, this is why the media has stopped covering Bush’s ongoing series of highly repetitious speeches on Iraq.
I predict right wingers such as Ian will continue to live in a fantasy world of total and utter self-delusion.
* The prevailing rationale for our military presence in Iraq will change.
Another White House insider will be indicted, but the MSM will ignore it the way they have ignored the Libby case
Ignored the Libby case? I’m sorry, but the moon could have exploded sometime in the days and weeks after he was indicted and we would have never known about it the media was so busy drooling over that story.
I predict that PSU will continue to make full use of his limbic brain, except when he uses the ‘little head’ to do his deep thinking.
* PSU94 will continue to receive invitations to perform improbable feats of self-gratification.
Drooling? Only if there were another white girl missing in Aruba…
*Kim Jong Il will do something crazy.
I predict the growing chasm between left and right will continue
and (perhaps not next year, but certainly by 2008) will result
in social unrest that resembles Baghdad, more than it does
Chicago ‘68.
Birkenstock-eating?
Chalabi will pop up yet again.
Ooops. That one’s not a prediction anymore.
Spoken like the jack-booted Brownshirt you would like to be;
in your fantasies.
Big deal. We’ve got the media.
Big deal. We ve got the media.
AND THE TRUTH……..SHALL SET YOU FREE!!!!!
The Democrats have a chance to pick up the House. The Texas-Tommymandering makes it tough, but they will pick up seats. For 2006 to be like 2002 or 1998, the ruling party needs to find some way to change the topic of conversation, which in off-year elections normally is, “Do you like the guys in charge?” (It’s easier to mobilize folks against the ruling clique than for something.) I don’t think Rove can change the topic of conversation this time around, what with the disasterous effects that happened the last time he did this.
The Senate, however, is unlikely to change hands. The Democrats may well pick up a few seats (Santorum is toast), but there are more Democrats up for reelection this year than Republicans, making this basically a pipe fantasy. A Democratic gain of more than three seats may well trigger some sort of leadership crisis, where the Trent Lott crowd (remnants of the long-standing Senate structure, going back to Bob Dole) tries to get revenge against the Bill Frist crowd (White House-oriented leadership) for December 2002’s unhorsing. The White House may try a similar unhorsing if/when Tom DeLay goes.
Diamond,
2006 is tougher for a Democratic takeover of the Senate then 2008 will be. But there are plenty of opportunities to take over in 2006. Consider:
PA - Santorum is toast.
OH - DeWine is very vulnerable to either Sherrod Brown or Paul Hackett. Recent polls show DeWine tied or losing to both challengers. And DeWine is not liked by the hard-right GOP base because of his role in the Gang of Fourteen. Also, the massive corruption of the Ohio GOP, which will almost certainly lead to Democrat Ted Strickland taking over the Governor’s seat, will encourage Dems to vote and Republicans to stay home.
RI - I expect Whitehouse to pull way ahead from Chaffee by mid-summer.
MO - Talent is not very popular and Governor Blunt is extremely unpopular because of the health care crisis. Blunt barely defeated Clair McCaskill in 2004, who is well-positioned to take on Talent.
MT - Senator Burns may very well get indicted in the Abramoff mess. Either way, State Auditor Morrison and possibly Jon Tester, will give Burns a run for his money. Montana’s Democratic Party is riding very high right now.
TN - Recent polls show Harold Ford roughly even with his main challengers, Bryant and Hilleary. I bet Ford will ultimately lose, but this race will be very close. Ford is the best Dem to run for Senate from TN since Gore and Sasser left the Senate in the early 1990s.
AZ - Jon Kyl has low approval numbers and soft re-elect numbers. Jim Pedersen is a self-financed multi-millionaire who could pull off an upset. This will be a longshot, but Kyl is far from invulnerable.
MS - If Lott runs again, this race is over. But if he retires, Attorney General Mike Moore (D) will be the favorite.
ME - Olympia Snowe wins in a landslide. But she might not run. Chances are she does run, though.
I think the Dems will take 5 of these seats - PA, OH, RI, MO and MT; they’ll come close in TN and a little less close in AZ.
As for Dem seats, the biggest GOP pick-up chances are:
MN - But Mark Kennedy is not very popular in the state, and Klobuchar leads Kennedy in every poll. Had Dayton ran again he may have lost. But the DFL is on a roll in MN and I think Klobuchar will pull it out. Wetterling would be closer - and she’d be smarter to run for Kennedy’s House seat, actually.
NJ - Menendez will hold on. NJ just doesn’t like to put Republicans in the Senate, and as popular as the Kean name is, he’s held no state-wide office. His dad’s coattails aren’t enough (unlike Bob Casey Jr in PA who has held statewide office). Also, Menendez will rally Hispanic voters.
MD - If Cardin gets the nomination he wins in a landslide. If it’s Mfume, the race will be closer. But MD won’t put a Republican in the Senate. Not in this climate.
WA, MI - Stabenow and Cantwell, though mediocre politicians, hold large leads over all of their challengers. These races may be fairly close in the end, but they’ll stay Dem.
NE, FL, ND - The Nelsons and Dorgan would have been ripe for a challenge if Liddy Dole had done her homework. But none of these Red State Dems will face a serious challenger.
I should add one point about gerrymandering and the House races. Everybody assumes that gerrymandering will make it more difficult for Dems to pick up seats. In an ordinary election that would be true. But if there are major national rumblings in the Dem direction, the tide could be even stronger BECAUSE of the gerrymandering. Remember, when you redraw the map to give your party more seats, you make your own seats potentially more vulnerable. Tom DeLay, for example, redrew his own district in order to create majority GOP districts elsewhere. But now he may find himself without the margin of victory necessary to overcome the scandal.
factcheck — Did you and do you still continue to support the military operations in Afghanistan? Please make this a yes or no answer and not some silly liberal spin to it.
Thanks for naming an instance Tinfoiler in a basement.
How about first talking about the Clintons
A conservative religious leader will be embroiled in a scandal involving sex or money
This is assuming they’ve ever stopped.
ian, why won’t you serve your president that you love so much? Please make this a straight answer and don’t give me some con spin about “fighting the war of ideas”. Your 18th birthday is soon- time you become a man.
Just what a thought, can’t answer the question.
In 2006, the Democrats’ march toward the dustbin of history will continue.
By Labor Day, there will be less than 100,000 troops in Iraq.
Alito will be confirmed.
Republicans will continue to hold the House and the Senate.
Dr. “Demento” Dean will average one crazy statement per month.
Bush’s “Is the President doing a good job (generic)?” numbers will average 50% for the year.
In 2006, the Democrats’ march toward the dustbin of history will continue.
Oh yeah, I said that already.
Hehe.
Just what a thought, can t answer the question.
So PSU, how is it that you ‘blend in with all the liberals in Philly’?
What did I tell you?