My 2012 Map So Far

After getting Pawlenty wrong, I thought I might just go ahead and predict the whole shebang!

Predictions so far: Definite Republican flips - New Hampshire, Indiana and Iowa
New Repulican lean: North Carolina
Possible curveball Republican win - New Jersey
Possible curveball Democratic win - Georgia

2012 Presidential Election: Electoral Map: This map displays the projections of the sender and does not reflect the opinions of 270toWin.

Well I was wrong about THAT one...

I'm not going to lie. 2008 was a very good politically predictive year for me. I bet that Mike Huckabee, the more religiously conservative, yet less well known, former Governor of Arkansas would win the Republican Iowa caucus.

And when every pundit in the land declared that it would be a "New York" election race between Rudy Giuliani and Hillary Clinton (see here, here and here), I successfully predicted in early March that the final Presidential contest would be a race between moderates with John McCain and a young pragmatic upstart Barack Obama. And although many had doubts about whether a black man with Hussein as his middle name could win the presidency, I bet that Obama would eventually be the final winner of the whole shebang. Because let's face it, after eight long years of the Bush administration, you could poop in a bag, write the letter D on it and you'd have a better than 50% shot at winning the Presidency in 2008.

So at the end of 2008, shortly after Obama's election, I proclaimed to my Republican colleagues at the RLO in the Massachusetts State House, that 2012 would continue to be a centrist election and not a base election and that the Republican nominee would be the promising moderate Governor from Minnesota, and almost Republican Vice Presidential nominee, Tim Pawlenty; because a former governor of a desired purple state could be much more easily sold to the more socially conservative base than former Massachusetts Governor, Willard "Mitt" Romney, who behind the scenes in the Republican party, most people dislike for his inability to take stand on anything that matters to them (this political shrewdness is one of the qualities I admire most in Mr. Romney - but I digress).

Anywho, lo and behold I look at today's news after the (inconsequential) Ames Iowa Straw Poll, that Tim Pawlenty is dropping out of the GOP race. So not counting Donald Trump, who wasn't really running anyway, my final Republican nominee was the first to drop out! Sarah Scalese, I probably owe you $5 bucks! (When I brought up T-Paw as my 2012 nominee, Sarah said something to the effect of, "snooze-fest"), and it appears that her reading of the Republican electorate was right.

However, this momentum shift probably bodes well for President Obama. Most political parties have two basic choices when battling an incumbent President: crazy heart (see Howard Dean), or safe bet (see John Kerry). And the early indicators show that the Republican Party is leaning crazy heart with Michele Bachmann's win and T-Paw's exit. For the sake of the country, I hope the GOP nominates either Mitt Romney or Jon Huntsman, men who I disagree with but who I know at least have good noggins on top of their shoulders. But the early rumblings of Bachmann and Texas Governor Rick Perry show a party reaching for its heart and not its mind.

It's Gonna be Fine

I thought about posting a negative, sad and angry post about how the drop in the Dow is a complete reflection of the utter dysfunction of the House of Representatives, but instead I thought I'd post a piece of music performed by my absolute favorite ensemble while studying music at school. Here's a piece by jazz guitarist Pat Metheny, performed by the amazing Northwestern Brass Ensemble. Enjoy.

A Crappy Deal

I'm too bummed to go into it now...but we got our five-year-old back (the economy). He may have been molested and possibly raped (drastic cuts as he's very sick), but he wasn't murdered which he would have been if the hostage takers didn't get everything they wanted, so unfortunately Obama paid the full ransom (the same thing with the bankers & TARP 1 [Bush] and 2 [Obama]).

Yet at least, the crazy liberal, George W. Bush's chief speechwriter, David Frum agrees with me.

Sigh.

Pop Quiz...Pick the bigger spender

Remind me, which party created the deficit again?

Economic Terrorists

This is what happens to dealmaking when the terrorist wants to kill the hostage regardless. No ransom is high enough. President Obama's "grand bargain" deficit deal is "indefensible" for House Republicans, even though it's to the right of the Gang of Six bi-partisan group in the Senate.

Look, we all know what needs to be done.

- Eliminate tax loopholes and superfluous exemptions in exchange for lowering the corporate and income tax rates generally. I'm looking at you yacht depreciation write-off! (Gang of Six / Obama proposals)

- Raise the Medicare eligibility age from 65 to 67 in slow, steady increases over 5 years with reasonable exemptions for people that actually work do physical labor for a living (like coal mining and firefighting).

- Spend some immediate funds on INFRASTRUCTURE - we're still in a recession people. Unemployment in the construction market is roughly 22%, borrowing costs are at historically low rates (Unless House Republicans blow up the economy due to the fact that President Obama won't let them personally steal DeShawn's breakfast from him "Because that's MY HARD EARNED MONEY!!!"), and those construction workers will end up - yes that's right - buying some stuff which will grow the economy and reduce our deficit.

- But I'm sick of the "Jobs, Jobs, Jobs" Congress, because they've actually been the "abortion, unions, deficit" Congress and have achieved absolutely jack.

Belated Happy 4th of July - U.S. Women's Soccer Kicking Butt

[UPDATE: New video because FIFA sucks]



If you didn't see it last weekend, after every terrible call the U.S. Women's Soccer team came back from a 2-1 deficit to tie - a beautiful header by Abby Wambach in the 122nd minute - due to Brazil's Erika and her fake injury attempt to eat up the last 2 minutes of play (the game should have ended at 120mins), which poetically ended up being Brazil's downfall. Great penalty kicks by the US team and a great save by Hope Solo won the game for the US.

As of right now our ladies are up 1-nil against the ladies of France.

Let's go USA!