I know, there’s already a fantastic 2016 predictions thread going. But, editor’s prerogative. Here goes:
- Trump/Cruz. I’m sticking with my prediction of over four months ago that Donald Trump will be the Republican nominee for president. However, due to the truly epic flame-out of my original VP prediction (Ben Carson), I’m now going with Ted Cruz as the VP. It makes lots of sense ideologically, geographically, ethnically, religiously, and insider-outsider-wise, and in addition, they are the only two on the GOP side who don’t seem to viscerally hate each other. I think Cruz probably wins Iowa with Trump second; Trump wins NH (Christie second, but that’s his high point) and SC; and at that point, Trump realizes that he might actually win the nomination and starts dumping serious cash into a ground game. Rubio remains the favorite of the media but not many voters and fades after placing third in the first few contests; nobody else ever really catches fire. It’s Trump vs. Cruz down the stretch, and it gets closer than the current polls but Trump holds it together.
- Subpoint: if Trump looks like the nominee going into the convention, I do think there’s a real chance of shenanigans from the party pooh-bahs to deny him the nomination, probably in favor of someone not currently running (since they hate Cruz as much as Trump, if not more). I don’t know enough about the delegate process to know how that would actually work, but every political junkie in America is surely hoping that it comes to that. Could be some of the best political theatre in ages.
- Clinton/Ju. Castro. This is totally conventional wisdom, and in this case, I’m going with it. Bernie might win NH, but that’s about it; Hillary pretty much runs the table after that. Julián Castro, the former San Antonio mayor and current HUD secretary, is on everyone’s VP short list, and the numerous ways in which he makes sense (ethnicity, Texas, etc.) hardly need to be detailed. Plus, who could resist the prospect of hilarious pranks involving his identical twin brother, US Rep. Joaquín Castro (D-TX).
- President Clinton. A Clinton vs. Trump general election is a blowout win for Clinton. Pretty much every swing state goes to her; it’s the most lopsided victory since 1988.
- Casino woes. Closer to home, the disappointing numbers from MA’s only functioning casino, the Plainridge Park slot barn, continue. Plainridge starts making noises about relief from the state, but for now its pleas fall on deaf ears. MGM’s effort to stop the new Foxwoods/Mohegan Sun joint venture from moving forward in Connecticut fails, raising the prospect of two resort casinos going up simultaneously within a few miles of each other.
- Uber wins a round. The legislature acts on the question of regulating Uber and similar services by more or less going with Governor Baker’s proposal, which is what Uber is hoping for. Sadly, no serious effort is made to reform regulation of the taxi industry, which inevitably leads to a deepening crisis there.
- Ballot questions. The legislature passes the proposed “millionaire’s tax” constitutional amendment through to the next legislative session, potentially setting it up for the 2018 ballot. Voters approve the question regarding cruelty to farm animals, but reject everything else.
- Status quo on Beacon Hill. Governor Baker’s approval ratings stay strong as generally good relations between him, the Speaker, and the Senate President continue. Paradoxically, this translates into a bad year for Republicans at the polls; they lose one Senate seat and a handful in the House, as voters see little reason to try to engineer a dramatic shake-up.
- Sports. The Patriots don’t make it to the Super Bowl. The Celtics make the playoffs and do pretty well but don’t make the finals. The Bruins exit the playoffs early. The Red Sox just miss a wild card spot. David Ortiz’s final appearance in his last game at Fenway generates one of the longest ovations anyone can remember.
Please share widely!
…but I still can’t fathom either Trump or Cruz on the GOP ticket. I’ve learned not to get my hopes up for a convention that matters.
They both have die-hard constituencies but there are few more hated people in the political world than either. Indie and moderate GOPers will flee this duo in the swing states. A Castro VP will lock up FL and the Rocky MT states.
…of pinning Democratic hopes on how extreme the other side is. It did happen in a few 2010 Senate seats but I also recall Dems hoping Reagan would be the 1980 nominee for that reason.
I hear you and hope that the right wing indie PACs decide to sit it out. Otherwise, we will be fucked for four years.
Trump wins the nomination. Cruz as VP.
It will be a close race between Trump and Hillary. Trump wins.
Baker signs the transgender public accommodations bill.
The T fails harder this winter than last winter.
My bold prediction for the Republican side is that it’s over much quicker than most are now predicting. First, Cruz wins Iowa with Trump in second, which ends up really hurting Trump given that his whole campaign is based upon him being a “winner.” Trump recovers enough to narrowly win NH, but the bigger story is that Rubio finishes in third in both IA and NH. This performance leads the big money and GOP establishment to rally to Rubio, and he gets the endorsements of several candidates who drop out after NH. Rubio does better than expected in SC, wins NV, and then has a relatively easy time gaining enough delegates to make him the clear winner before the convention, particularly when the winner-take-all states vote later in the schedule.
On the Democratic side, Clinton wins the Dem nomination, of course. I think there’s a good chance she does so losing only Bernie’s home state of Vermont. I agree with the Julian Castro VP conventional wisdom, which makes a lot of sense on many levels. Sherrod Brown is maybe in second place on the list, but Clinton bypasses him because she wants more of an age contrast and because that would lose the Dems a competitive Senate seat.
Clinton beats Rubio extremely narrowly by a 270-268 electoral vote count, winning all the 2012 Obama states minus Colorado, Iowa, Ohio, and Florida. Dems also win 7 House seats to narrow the GOP advantage and narrowly re-take the Senate.
…win the nomination, that is. Here is the scenario.
Modern politics are sufficiently detached from the people that candidates can gather speed based on fantasy—on a pretend story that they construct and convince others to repeat.
For Jeb this story will be how, after an early shakedown period, he is lean and mean and on the comeback trail. How the Fire has awakened in His Belly. How he has come through the fiery crucible of the campaign tested, annealed, reforged.
That, amplified by his considerable war chest, plus the GOP primogeniture, will make him the preferred anti-Trump by the spring. He does need to win a few states to pull this off, but they need not be early ones.
A majority of delegates at the convention will not be pledged to any viable candidate and will be available in principle to appeals and bribes from party officials. That puts Jeb over the top.
From there his best shot at victory will lie in fear of Hillary; the “independent” PACs will be instrumental in inflaming the Republican base. Look for some truly vile stuff to dominate the news cycles; Clinton will have to be very nimble to keep control of the conversation.
Jeb would certainly tap Cruz for veep if that would secure the nomination, but I think he’d prefer Rubio (12th Amendment be damned) or even Christie.
How likely is all that? At least as likely as Trump, I think.
…to be playing 12th amendment games with.
as Texas in 2000.
…which is fine since I’m not sure I knew before it was mentioned that year that he was living in TX and his political career was predicated on being a Congressman from WY. I suppose there are a couple places Bush could reasonably move to, but I’m not sure about Rubio. My point was you don’t want a state that big to have to throw away some of it’s electoral college clout.
Agree with much of David’s post but….
Think Cruz will be the nominee. He is a strong second among Trump voters and will be able to argue electability with them by Super Tuesday. Think he might pick Fiorino as VP as it will motivate young conservative women and Texas and California has good electoral math. HP attacks will be likened to
Staples attacks against Mitt with a strong implication that Hillary has never made any business decisions so it’s easy for her to heckle from The Cheap Seats instead of The Arena (look up TR if unfamiliar with the allusion).
Mind you, Hillary might still win if Trump does a Perot.
Also, not sure what state senate seat you planned on picking up, but you will likely lose the one held by Wolf so it may be a wash.
(And before the name calling begins – these are not necessarily my choices but what I think will happen)
http://patch.com/massachusetts/peabody/six-candidates-seek-state-rep-seat-0
CA won’t be in play for the GOP regardless of who’s on the ticket, and her business record at HP is genuinely awful. Since that’s all she’s got to go on (quite different from Romney, for whom Staples was a small detail), she’s a weak candidate. If Cruz is the nominee, look for a VP pick who isn’t currently running (I don’t think he’ll pick Trump). Nikki Haley, maybe, or some other true believer.
if Trump runs third party, the Dems win regardless of who is on either ticket.
Her comments about watching the so-called PPL abortion videos will haunt her if the public ever has to take her seriously as a VP prospect. It is the kind of junk that a minor league player cannot shake when they get to the majors.
I have been wondering for a while if there are unreleased videos out there that could be used to vindicate her remarks. They may even waiting for the general to do so, with an eye to hurting Clinton.
I have done enough as a pro-choice advocate, as I think you also are, to be dismissed as an ideologue. But I think that the frauds who made and edited those videos would have released them earlier, struck while the iron was hot. I could be proven wrong, but hope not. A woman’s reproductive freedom is too serious for me to place a bet.
It makes sense that they’d release their best stuff during the general.
This says there are “about a dozen” videos total.
http://www.cnn.com/2015/07/31/politics/planned-parenthood-videos-david-daleiden-interview/
8 have been released so far.
http://www.centerformedicalprogress.org/cmp/investigative-footage/
You think the marijuana legalization one is going to fail?
I think people are unhappy about how badly the medical marijuana rollout has gone. That, coupled with strong opposition from the political establishment, police, etc., will be enough to doom it.
.
I am surprised that you think the public has paid much attention to the medi-marijuana roll out. It is not my thing, nor recreational, but I just do not see it even though the media tell me I am in one of the heartlands for distribution. I never hear about it in my casual conversations, even with the young’uns. Then again, I might just be an old coot who does not pay attention to this.
OTOH, I am inclined to vote for it since I know what a failure prohibition was and our more recent “war on drugs.” If you want to puff something, just don’t get into a car. Stay home and eat some chocolate instead.
make easy fodder for negative ads. Not 100% who’ll fund negative ads against pot, though, but assuming someone does, the “Massachusetts can’t even handle opening medical marijuana dispensaries” message could be very damaging.
I think David’s wrong and this probably passes, but it’s exactly the kind of ballot initiative campaign that is prone to look very strong until about 2-3 weeks before the election when a last-minute fear campaign gets thrown at it and support collapses. IE, what happened in Houston re: the anti-discrimination initiative, and in MA just a few years ago with the death with dignity initiative.
My heart tells me your wrong on my beloved Pats and Sox, but my mind tells me you’re right. I could still see the Pays limping to the AFC championship but we will have a tough time if we face the Jets or Broncos along the way, and nobody is beating Carolina on its road to the Super Bowl. I would love to be proven wrong. I agree that the Celtics will make a deeper than expected run in the playoffs while the Broons fail out.
Politically at the presidential level I am glad you aren’t overrating the more establishment candidates like others here. I just don’t see Trumps brand developing into the kind of sustainable ground game he needs to win. I’ve had conservative friends telling me he is making the right hires for a long race, but I could see an Iowa “loss” to Cruz really shift the narrative especially if we have a strong non-Cruz second in NH.
I am calling Carson quitting before the first caucus due to money and staff trouble and his support goes to Cruz. Carly might quit before too. Watch McCain and Graham and see where those endorsements end up, and maybe Mitt and his money people. I bet all three back Rubio due to animosity with the Bushes and Christie, and disapproval of Cruz. Otherwise you paint a compelling case, even if it’s still hard to believe, it’s certainly more believable than Jeb winning the nomination at this point, which shows how nutty this cycle has been.
Agree on Bernie, as goes New Hanpshire so goes Vermont and maybe Maine. The folks that traditionally vote in primaries are going to be voting for Hillary. Bernie hasn’t made enough inroads into that demographic and he’s out of time to do so. Castro is a solid pick electorally and I expect it. I wouldn’t count out a surprise pick like Bob Gates if she feels the need to move to the
middle and double down on national security experience.
Agree on most statewide politics. You and I proposed a nice moderate proposal for Uber, instead we will replace one special interest written regulation with another and it will have consequences down the road when the cabs are out of business and Uber is automated. I still favor the new service, but we have to do a better job creating a competitive playing field. Another easy one-all the big names stay home for 2018 and it’s a Wolf’s race to lose for The Mark Roosevelt Award. Most Dems will be fine with this, which is why we should be looking elsewhere for progressive change.
I don’t think Trump can nominate, but if he does, it doesn’t automatically mean HRC wins. That result will mean something truly weird has happened on the GOP side, and the effects on their turnout will be unpredictable.
Committed Dems like us will vote reliably, but the independents could be completely sour on the whole thing.
Net result, I think, still a close one. I don’t see how we avoid a nail-biter. There’s no guarantee she wins this.
Coakley. She can definitely lose this.
Of course there are major differences, but we’re about to nominate the most known Democratic candidate possible who’s “turn it is” who also has mediocre approval ratings (in the same way that Clinton had great ratings as SOS but terrible in a national race, Coakley had great ratings for AG, but not when running for other offices), with some major progressive policy deficiencies, who is well loved by Democratic women, well hated by independent men, and uninspiring to too many progressives.
I think we need to hope for a Trump or Cruz nomination to pull this one out.
I’m interested (and worried) to see what happens to the record 2.5 million people who donated to Sanders’s campaign as Clinton moves more to the center during the general. Although he’s never been able to get over a certain hump, Sanders’s support has been consistent and strong (unlike Dean’s in 2004 for example), despite basically everyone believing he will lose. It’s quite remarkable – more donations than any campaign in history to a socialist from Vermont. If someone predicted that last year, everyone would have thought them crazy.
How the Clinton campaign and the Democratic party deal with these supporters after a Sanders loss (and so far not so good) is really important.
It depends on if they think Bernie got a fair shake or not. Seems to me he mostly did. I’d be curious to hear what others think.
The debate schedule has been lame. I think it’s mostly seen as lame just because it’s being compared to the GOP debates which have had stratospheric audience numbers. The only reason the GOP debates have had those numbers is Trump. If not for him the viewership would be comparable.
Putting aside the issues of the DNC seeming to have gone out of their way to protect the frontrunner, I think the bigger issue will be whether the supporters feel as if the Democratic party is one supporting corporate power or one supporting progressive values of the populist bent.
That’s why I don’t think the Castro choice is in the cards. You need a VP choice that will bring along the Sanders voters, and unfortunately you can’t have two women on the ticket and expect to win. How close can we come to a male Elizabeth Warren?
The last two female veep nominees included a woman running in an impossible cycle and a woman who was simply impossible to imagine in the White House. So they aren’t great test cases. But suffice to say, voters upset with a woman on the top of the ticket will be voting against it no matter who is on the bottom. And I am confident those voters are an irrelevant minority these days. And Hillary doubling down on the firsts might actually help her drive turnout and excitement among the base. Especially if she picked a progressive woman.
That isn’t to say I like Clinton/Warren. I see Warren being a far more effective advocate for her issues in the Senate than as a Vice President. And I believe she could run for President on her own without that stepping stone. David outlined those objections rather nicely when Biden/Warren was floating in the ether.
But plenty of other progressive woman would work just as well. Amy Klobuchar, Kirsten Gillibrand* and Jeanne Shaheen immediately come to mind. Kamala Harris and Maggie Hassan would be good choices if they weren’t already running for Senate seats. It wouldn’t be the electoral poison you make it out to be,
*Pretty easy for Hillary to register in DC so the EC issue isn’t a problem, it’s called “pulling a Cheney”.
…though to answer the question posed above maybe Sherrod Brown comes closest to a male equivalent. I can’t understand how a ticket can be “too female” when all but two major party tickets and all the winning ones have both been men. “Moving” to DC looks too insidery. Illinois is home and I don’t know if she can derive political benefit from the South by moving back to Arkansas.
I just don’t know if Hillary would be the right ticket mate for her. In other words, her national brand as a progressive populist is strong enough that being Vice President won’t substantially elevate it. And it would tie her to endorsing all of Hillary’s policies, some of which she may oppose. And since it should be obvious that Warren has no interest in running for President, I fail to see why she would be willing to be Vice President. David covered this ground already and in better fashion a few months back, but it’s a great choice for Hillary but an odd move for Warren herself.
here’s what I wrote about Biden/Warren.
accept a VP offer. Nor do I think the moving-to-DC issue would be at all problematic. It’s inside baseball – nobody cares. Cheney’s “move” to WY was obviously a fraud, yet it had no impact.
And think she would make a great presidential candidate someday. I see no downside to her being a VP either. I agree Castro is the safest choice, especially since it seems most likely to me we have a GOP ticket with at least one Latino.
Nice, but…
While I think it would be more difficult to elect an all-female ticket, it would be extremely difficult if the New York electoral votes were compromised with two New York residents on the ticket.
K really like Klobuchar, but not if Hillary wins the nomination.
I don’t see them taking away anything a male candidate like Castro would add, and I am unsure is their addition would really lose Hillary too many votes. The EV issue was addressed with my ‘pulling a Cheney’ addendum.
Also most modern political science says that the native son effect was at most, a 1-1.5% bump on average and it has become less and less pronounced due to polarization. I do think Bob Graham or Jeanne Shaheen would’ve ensured President Gore, but Obama didn’t need Bayh or Kaine to win VA and in 2008, and Hillary won’t necessarily need a swing stater to win either.
Now I do think we are likely to see a Latino on the GOP ticket, so it would make sense for the Clinton campaign to pick a Latino, and it’s clear that Castro has been ready for this elevation for some time. I happen to think his twin brother is the more polished speaker, but he brings healthy experience in executive, legislative, and cabinet roles and would hold his own on the stump or in debates. Not to mention adding some youth as insurance to the ticket.
He was mayor in a very weak mayor city with little record of progressive achievement. He’ll have had less than two years in federal government. He also hasn’t even been much of a national leader on anything – not even immigration.
I mean, I understand the appeal of a young, good-looking guy with a great resume and hitting an important demographic, but that seems like all he really is.
I’ve dug for real accomplishments, especially on the progressive side, and I can’t really find much on Castro. Are there any? I guess there have been bigger stretches for VP, but I’m not ready to sign up for this guy yet.
when you nominate a bunch of winning people for important positions in a cabinet, and those people come from red or reddish states, it’s a great recipe to lose opportunities or majorities. We lost some golden opportunities to elect good people in tough states (ie Katherine Sebellieus could right now be a Democratic US Senator from Kansas) because the President wanted to appoint big names when less-well-known names could have done the job just as effectively.
Sherrod Brown should remain exactly where he is. Him joining Hillary’s cabinet isn’t going to move her any further to the left, but it could cost Democrats both one of our strongest progressives in government *and* a stalwart Dem we need to win back the majority, who can win in Ohio even in a historically-bad-for-Democrats off-election year.
Furthermore, Sherrod Brown, Liz Warren, and all our best progressives can do far more for progressive causes where they are than as Vice President in a center-right, Wall Street friendly Presidential administration. Staying where they are also makes them more electable, not less, if they ever did decide to run for President 4 or 8 or 12 years from now.
The Democratic nominee will probably be our next United States President regardless of whoever their VP nominee is, so I dearly hope it isn’t someone like Sherrod Brown.
In fact, if there’s anything political trend in the 2000s that I love, it’s nominating caretaker VPs. Hillary should try to find her Joe Biden — an affable, perfectly capable person, who’s elevation to VP won’t risk a democratic majority in the process. Heck, there’s even one of those people available from Ohio, if Hillary were to be worried about winning the state… Ted Strickland.
And could lose his primary this year. He’s also older than her. Sebelius was unlikely to become Senator, she owes her governorship to a combination of
Moderate Republicans jumping ship to endorse her campaign. Those same Republicans were just fine and dandy with Pat Roberts. Seeing the race Orman gave him, maybe it would’ve wasted some money but it’s been several decades since that state elected a Democrat. 1930 was the last time according to Wikipedia.
Neapolitano might’ve done well in AZ, I’m glad Salazar could replaced by the far more progressive Bennet.
but she was a very popular, effective governor who got the kiss of political death of having worked for a Democratic President coming from an uber-Republican state. So… we’ll never know. Neapolatono was another perfect example.
re: Strickland, I’m not in any way, shape or form suggesting Hillary (should she win the primary) pick him… I’m just saying that there are plausible Ohio alternatives if Hillary felt really, really strongly she wanted an Ohio VP to help solidify the state. I would be terribly sad to see someone as strong and effective as Sherrod Brown go from being Senator to VP. All that said, I think Hillary would win Ohio regardless of who she appoints VP, so that’s all silly talk.
My reply was a bit of a nitpick, but overall I agree it’s better to keep talented folks where they make the most sense. I’d rather a majority than a few cabinet posts.
I suspect Sanders himself will move his people to Clinton and she is wildly popular even among self-identified liberals, many of whom seem a lot more willing that you are to see her positives, both as a progressive and generally.
I could be completely off on this, but I’m not sure Sanders can do that. His support seems much more movement-oriented than personality-oriented. Without some real work by the Clinton campaign and the DNC to truly embrace certain values, I think it will be hard to convince the bulk of those people to move and invest in the nominee.
I wouldn’t be surprised if there is a strong assumption that they will all come on board, and urged to do so less by an actual embrace of the mission and more by pointing to the Republican ticket and using fear to motivate.
As jconway notes, her biggest weakness may be her last name. But I’m not sure what Coakley and Hillary have in common aside from being women who’ve lost a race.
Coakley decided not to reach out to voters in late December and January..her campaign calculated they could lose X voters every day and still win. She never took the election seriously, and had enormous built-in advantages against a lightweight candidate who went nowhere.
Clinton basically lost a tie. Her campaign made bad judgments on contesting minor caucuses, but to say she never took Obama seriously is wrong. Clinton lost to a generational candidate who wiped the floor with McCain and Romney and innovated many new campaign tactics.
I just don’t see a substantive similarity.
I honestly think a Trump/Clinton contest could depress turnout significantly. A reliably defined out of touch Republican like Cruz would be enough to motivate centrists, independents, and moderates to hold their noses for Hillary and being the Sanderistas into the fold. But Trump is a wild card who appeals to moderates according to polls and unionized workers, two demographics unlikely to go Cruz’s way. I’d rather Trump gets beaten in the primary and goes away quietly, his presence in the race is corrosive to our national discourse.
He’s not picking one of the “losers” as his running mate.
He’ll pick someone retired military, ideally with evangelical ties. Maybe he’ll pick Jerry Boykin and double down on the Islamophobia.
(I can’t really imagine a situation where he has the delegates to win, but not to control the whole process.)