Blue Mass Group

Reality-based commentary on politics.

Predictions for 2006

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OK, here goes.  I reserve the right to be totally, embarrassingly, wrong.

  • The confirmation hearings for Supreme Court nominee Samuel Alito will be the most contentious since Clarence Thomas and will regularly make the evening news.  They will go on longer than planned because Democrats will insist on more information than Alito and the White House are willing to provide about his views, particularly with respect to executive power (which will dominate the hearings; abortion will be a sideshow).  And Chairman Specter (R-Pa.) will allow the Democrats more running room on that issue than most Republicans would like, since he himself is deeply concerned about the executive power issue.  As a result, Sandra Day O’Connor will remain on the bench when the Supreme Court issues its ruling in Ayotte, an important abortion rights case.  Justice O’Connor’s vote, and consequently the result in the case, will be to invalidate the restrictive New Hampshire law, meaning that once again opponents of abortion rights will be foiled in their efforts to scale back Roe v. Wade and its progeny.

    There will be talk of a filibuster and renewed haggling over the nuclear option in the Senate.  But it won’t come to that because there will be unanimous Republican opposition to a filibuster, and the Democrats won’t be willing to bring the issue to a head without at least one Republican.  The vote will proceed, and Alito will be confirmed by an extremely narrow margin with almost all Democrats and a couple of Republicans voting “no.”

  • Closer to home, Deval Patrick’s campaign will continue to run an impressive fundraising operation, in large part on the internet, and will thereby gain increasing attention from the mainstream media.  In March or so his “no idea who you are” polling numbers will start a rapid decline, and he will move to within striking distance of Tom Reilly – by June, he’ll be within the margin of error.  By then, polls will consistently show that either Patrick or Reilly would defeat Kerry Healey without much trouble, in part because Christy Mihos will be spending money like a drunken sailor and firing off broadside after broadside against her without saying much about the Democratic candidates.

  • The state legislature will pass – with much fanfare – a significantly scaled back version of Rep. DiMasi’s vision of health care: there will still be an “employer mandate” of sorts, but the minimum number of employees and the salary “safe harbor” will be increased, the assessment rate will be reduced, and the effective date will be pushed back.  Romney will veto it, and the legislature will override.  ACT will proceed with its ballot question, but the wind will have been taken out of its sails by the legislature’s action, and the ballot question will fail.

  • Backers of the anti-gay marriage ballot question will come unexpectedly close to failing to achieve the 50 votes they need in the legislature to proceed with trying to get the question on the 2008 ballot.  Reps. Travis and Goguen will retire and be replaced by far less vocal anti-marriage legislators, resulting in there being little enthusiasm and no clear leaders for the ballot question in the 2007-08 legislature and a very real chance of the backers failing to achieve the needed 50 votes next time.  Gay marriages will continue; straight marriage and society in general will not be adversely affected.
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    Comments

    1. anyone have thoughts about whether or not alito’s executive power stance would remain consistent if a non-republican/conservative takes the presidency in 2008? is his pov partisan? thx.

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