Five Fearless Political Predictions

One of the best portions of the old Sports Illustrated NFL Preview issues was the "Five Fearless Predictions" given by one of their experts. Extravagant claims were made, exciting the sports fan's imagination. If any of those predictions were fulfilled, the expert would receive due praise. In that light, I am making several predictions for this coming election cycle, just to put myself "on the record," so to speak.

1) African-American voters will become more disillusioned with the Democratic Party than they have in decades as a result of the racially-tinged comments made by the Clintons. As a result, they may become slightly more receptive to Republican overtures if Hillary is the nominee.

2) If Barack Obama takes the Democratic nomination, he will handily win the Presidency, as a historic shift in the "evangelical" vote propels him by a significant margin. The largest Republican voting has been trending toward more liberal positions, theological and political, and will rally behind a charismatic Obama with his profession of faith in Jesus Christ. They may even give him close to 50% of their vote.

3) Hillary Clinton, presuming she will be the Democratic nominee, will do more than ever to alienate male voters, as the vindictive spirit and crocodile tears which make her sympathetic to liberal women will appear to men as emotional manipulation, gender-based hate-mongering, and blatantly sexist. Men can be offended by such a posture--just ask Barack Obama.

4) The nomination of Mike Huckabee, likely as a VP candidate if anything, would help hasten the political demise of the so-called Religious Right. His suave, charismatic, stump-speech persona may play well to religious conservatives, but it will also undermine his credibility amongst more mainstream voters. In addition, his nomination would provide Democrats and Independents the opportunity of a lifetime to mortally wound the Religious Right political movement.

And the most audacious of predictions...(drum roll please)

5) Assuming the Hillary Clinton and John McCain win their parties' respective nominations, the McCain camp will make under-the-table overtures to Barack Obama to run as McCain's VP on a split ticket. McCain is rumored to have made similar overtures to John Kerry in 2004, and Barack Obama may covet the opportunity to become the first African-American VP. If he runs with McCain, that may very well happen, even against the establishment-endorsed campaign of the mighty Hillary.