Courtesy of Jeffrey A. Tucker Of course, the ezine which was started as a blog by
the man who used to be Ron Paul’s chief of staff
Or as the Gadsen Flag would put it…join or die!
How I’m calling it:
As the “virtual incumbent” malaise sets in, I don’t expect an Obama landslide in the national tally. He will probably break the 50% barrier but not by much. Where I expect the landslide will be in the electoral vote, with Obama winning at least half a dozen more states than Kerry did in 2004. If Obama wins less than 50% in the popular vote the only difference is that you won’t hear any more demands from the left to abolish the electoral college…a good thing in itself!
So how do I expect this to work? Well lets look at the states that I expect to go for Obama:
Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Delaware, Pennsylvania, and Ohio in the Northwest. Michigan, Wisconsin, Illinois, Minnesota, and Iowa in the Midwest. California, Oregon, Washington and Hawaii in the Pacific. Colorado and New Mexico in the Rockies.
What about McCain? West Virginia, Kentucky, Indiana, Tennessee, Arkansas, Louisiana and Missouri in the Ohio/Mississippi region. Alabama and South Carolina in the deep south. Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, Nebraska, South Dakota, Wyoming, Idaho, and Utah the West and Plains.
So far a very ho hum prediction…here’s where it gets interesting. I think Virginia will go for Obama while North Carolina will go for McCain, which again, isn’t all that surprising. McCain should also hold on to his own state of Arizona, and Palin’s Alaska. But I am calling Florida for Obama, and get this: Georgia, Mississippi (!), and Montana I am putting in the Obama column.
How on earth could this be? I’m calling it the “third party pivot” but its more simple to say that Bob Barr will deliver Georgia to Obama, Chuck Baldwin will be the spoiler in Mississippi, and Ron Paul (!) will do the same in Montana.
And you didn’t even think Ron Paul was running did you!? Well, actually he didn’t want to, at least in Montana…but in accordance with an archaic election law he is running there on the ticket of the Constitution Party…an organization he doesn’t even belong to! I would like him to win the electoral votes as well…but I’m afraid that there will be just enough votes to make the difference between Obama and McCain. North Dakota, with very similar demographics to Montana, will probably go for McCain…simply because Ron Paul is not on the ballot there.
So what’s the point. After all, Obama has a win even without Georgia, Mississipii, and Montana. The point is that when Republicans start to figure out what hit them, they’re going to need some signposts along the way back to sanity and putting a winning coalition back together. Those three blue states surrounded by red, surrounded in turn by blue will be the pointers saying: Let the Ron Paul freedom coalition back into the game…or the GOP is RIP!
A few more nuances. Why do I predict no comparable effect by Nader on Obama’s electoral take? Because the Nader vote is too thin and geographically uniform. In contrast there are regional clusters of Barr, Baldwin, and Paul supporters, i.e. ex-Barr constituents disenfranchised by redistricting in Georgia, the “Bible Belt” running through Mississippi and the Florida panhandle for Baldwin, and the “libertarian belt” (gee, what else could you call it) running along the 49th parallel. Also, I see ethnic and cultural differences among the white population of the southeast with people in the highlands (“hillbillies”) somewhat more likely to vote for McCain, and people in the lowlands (“rednecks” et al) somewhat more likely (!) to vote for Obama. So Virginia goes for Obama because there is a West Virginia, but the Carolinas go for McCain because there is no east and west Carolina, only a North and a South. Or something like that. I suppose one could dispute these ethnological niceties endlessly. However I am more interested in seeing the results develop through tonight and tomorrow…and see if my hypothesis holds up.
The Saxo Bank based in Denmark has issued a Bearish Assessment for 2008, the silver lining is a Paul Presidency
Saxo Bank experts believe that oil prices will hit the level of 175 dollars per barrel in 2008, whereas grain prices will double. The U.S. and the Chinese markets will collapse by 25 and 40 percent respectively by the end of the summer of 2008. Every third of ten U.S. large building companies will go bankrupt. The British economy will also start declining.
The bank has its forecast on the new U.S. president too. The bank predicts that Ron Paul, the Texan Republican, will take the office in 2008.
What does this mean?
I think it is interesting that a respected financial institution would 1) make such a Casandra-like economic forecast, 2) go out on a limb and predict a Paul Presidency. What is it with these Danes? Libertarian leanings, or just contrarianism?
Of course Friends of Ron Paul in Japan would like the latter prediction to come true, but hopefully without the tanking of the global economy. Are we to assume the two forecasts are linked…that is what a cursory reading would assume. Perhaps the Saxo experts are thinking that conditions will worsen early in the year, creating a political demand for an economic outsider to reform (or rather revolutionize) the system. Or in a more sinsiter vein…are they central banking fans who think that Ron Paul’s election will spook the economy into a depression? The emphasis on oil as a fundamental factor would seem to exclude this latter interpretation.
I don’t know what these Danes are up to myself, but let’s eschew any Hamlet like equivocation and assume that they are Paulistas at heart. If so, the prediction provides plenty of food for thought…or rather angst. The timing is troublesome, since twelve months is a long time, and the Republican cards are likely to be dealt out pretty early in the year. That doesn’t leave much time for reaction to bad news.
In other words, I see the message of these melancholy Danes as just another wake up call for the Paulistas. The window of opportunity is now, with the onset of the Iowa caucuses, the New Hampshire primary, and all the other early year political events. If significant headway isn’t made within this time frame, all those thousands of people who just got political to help Ron Paul “for the first time in their life” can just go back to whatever preoccupied them before they became Paulistas, because the show will be over.
“To do or do not…there is no try!” That’s Yoda, not Hamlet.
