Predictions for 2008
Well, it seems to be the thing to do today, so I’m going to give it a go:
1) Canadian Politics:
There will not be a General Election in 2008. Instead, Stephane Dion will continue to die a slow death, withering away in front of our very eyes. Both parties will fail to gain traction in the polls, absent some outside defining issue. The Liberals will be afraid to go, the Tories will be afraid to go – fear of the unknown will keep everything frozen for another year.
Prime Minister Stephen Harper will again confound conventional political wisdom by agreeing to a request that Canada increase the size of its mission in Afghanistan as, with Iraq fading from the news and Pakistan spiralling into chaos, international support coalesces for emulating the Iraqi “surge” strategy in Afghanistan and possibly even northern Pakistan.
My MP, James Moore, will finally become a member of the Cabinet.
Carole Taylor will run for and win the job of Mayor of Vancouver and, quite promptly, discover what she should have already known: that it’s an incredibly frustrating job in which doing anything of value is pretty much impossible.
The other BC Carole, Carole James, will be forced out by a panicked BC NDP in the summer/fall when they see the 2009 Election coming and no chance of her beating Gordon Campbell. Coming full circle, she will be replaced by Adrian Dix.
With it broadly expected that Gordon Campbell will retire sometime after the 2010 Olympics, a number of people will begin manoeuvring for the Premier’s job in earnest. Despite her “exit” from Provincial politics, Carole Taylor will be the early front-runner, if she can avoid being dragged down by the Vancouver Mayor’s job and if she can avoid a conservative revolt. She will probably be successful on the first count – and unsuccessful on the second. With the end of Campbell’s tenure in sight, MLA’s from the old Reform/Social Credit wing of the BC Liberal Party will begin to express their concerns about the party’s leftward drift more openly. Will they find a champion? Probably.
The one name missing from the list of people lining up to be Premier of British Columbia will be former Deputy Premier and current CKNW Radio Personality Christy Clark (full disclosure: once upon a time, I was a member of her riding association). She’s a smart woman and both a provincial and Federal liberal. Whatever her husband’s current job, she’ll know that there are going to be two Liberal leaderships opening up in the next few years. She’ll also know that there’s an appetite among the estrogen-heavy Liberal membership for a woman leader. After all – lack of Federal experience seems to be no bar to the job. Gerard Kennedy nearly won the job last time and his principal accomplishment in life up until that point (prior, I suppose, to being Education Minister of Ontario) was running a Food Bank. But for the timing of her ill-fated run for Mayor of Vancouver, she could have been a formidable candidate last time around. This time…
Forget what the polls say: Ed Stelmach will call a General Election in Alberta and he will either lose or nearly lose. The Alberta PC’s have the stench, even across Provincial borders, given off by all decaying and defeated regimes.
2) World Politics:
There will be no General Election in Britain in 2008. Like James Callaghan three decades ago, Gordon Brown will hold on and pray for a miracle. He might wait all the way into 2010 looking to change things around. It probably won’t work. But, mind you, David Cameron is no Maggie.
After nearly a decade in the wilderness, Benjamin Netanyahu will return to power as the Prime Minister of Israel. However, his return to power will be no cause for celebration…
…because his return to power will be triggered by Iran’s public declaration – a surprise to no honest person with an IQ higher than room temperature – that it either has deployed or will soon deploy nuclear weapons. With that Olmert’s government will come tumbling down and, like Britain in the terrible spring of 1940; Israel will turn to the man who turns out to have been right all along.
Contrary to expectations, the Beijing Olympics will prove to be an embarrassment for the Chinese regime. They will be disrupted by activists. Frantic efforts will be unable to hide the terrible state of the Chinese environment, which will injure the health of some of the athletes. Entering the country en masse after years of stories about China’s rise, the international media will prove very eager to tell the contrarian story of how China is blighted by extreme poverty and generally filthy conditions.
Pakistan will continue to teeter on the brink. It may fall over. If it does – if, for example, something terrible happens to Musharaff and an Islamist takeover beckons – the world will be treated to the most frightening days since September 11th, or possibly the Cuban missile crisis, as an alarmed India threatens war and the U.S. Armed Forces launch a desperate operation to either capture or disable Pakistan’s nuclear weapons before they fall into the wrong hands.
Iraq continues to improve. The momentum there towards a fairly decent civil society is becoming irreversible. As this happens, the smarter Democrats try and claim credit for forcing the course change.
3) American Politics:
The world will be treated to the most confusing American Presidential election – and perhaps the most critical – since 1860. Barak Obama will win the Democratic nomination for President – after surprising Hillary Clinton in the early primaries and winning the endorsement of John Edwards.
John McCain will be the Republican nominee for President, after Mitt Romney defeats Huckabee in Iowa, but by a small enough margin to fail to get a bounce. McCain wins New Hampshire thereafter, as the many, many Republicans who despite Mitt Romney but merely dislike McCain gather around the latter.
In March, Ron Paul will be defeated for re-nomination in his own House seat by local City Councilman Chris Peden. His devoted followers will blame this on “neocons” or, when they think people aren’t looking, simply on “the Jews.” Shortly thereafter, Paul will announce an independent campaign for the Presidency.
At roughly the same time, Michael Bloomberg also declares for the Presidency as an Independent, putting a billion dollars behind his campaign.
Thus, we’re going to left with a four-way race for the Presidency, with three candidates who can potentially win the Presidency – and probably with all four polling high enough to make it into the debates.
The race will be ugly and chaotic. Indeed, I would not be at all shocked if it was the first Presidential race in a very long time to be marred by actual violence.
Bloomberg will take either Chuck Hagel or Sam Nunn as his running mate. Obama, looking to burnish his foreign policy credentials, will follow the model of inexperienced candidates for the Presidency in recent years and choose a gray-haired insider as his running mate. Chris Dodd or Joe Biden both seem plausible. Depending on the environment, John McCain can go four ways. He can reach out to Evangelicals by taking Huckabee as his running mate. He can choose the best-polling Republican and take Giuliani. He can try to mollify movement conservatives and take someone like Fred Thompson, John Kyl, or South Carolina Mark Sanford. Or, recognizing that the race is out-of-control he could make a bold decision and attempt a fusion ticket of sorts by taking Joe Lieberman as his Vice President. I happen to prefer the final option, simply because it enjoy the idea of the 2000 Democratic Vice Presidential candidate being elected as a Republican in 2008.
In the end, despite erratic polling, John McCain is elected as the 44th President of the United States. He wins only a plurality of the popular vote, but a smashing Electoral College majority. Democrats spend the next four years pointing out that a majority of Americans voted for candidates on the left of the spectrum.
Democrats keep the Congress. They hold the House by a very narrow margin – but pick up one seat in the Senate (the Republicans, though, partially offset their losses by electing John Kennedy to the Senate in Louisiana).
4) Everything Else:
The Writer’s strike drags on longer than anyone expected. This is one of those unfortunate cases where justice is on both sides – the writers deserve to be paid for all of their work, but the studios don’t have more money to give. This disrupts the pilot season, resulting in the renewal and even the revival of many on-the-brink shows.
Further, studios put a number of remakes and the like into production – in addition to scripts coming off the shelf after many years.
Reflecting the mood of the day, “No Country for Old Men” wins the Oscar for Best Picture. In a divided verdict, Paul Thomas Anderson wins Best Director for “There Will be Blood.” Meanwhile, Ellen Page wins Best Actress for “Juno” and Daniel Day Lewis wins Best Actor for “There Will be Blood.”
Tom Kratman’s novel “Caliphate”, due to be published by Baen in a few months, causes a stir on the blogosphere and draws a human rights complaint against Indigo/Chapters for carrying it in Canada.
1) Canadian Politics:
There will not be a General Election in 2008. Instead, Stephane Dion will continue to die a slow death, withering away in front of our very eyes. Both parties will fail to gain traction in the polls, absent some outside defining issue. The Liberals will be afraid to go, the Tories will be afraid to go – fear of the unknown will keep everything frozen for another year.
Prime Minister Stephen Harper will again confound conventional political wisdom by agreeing to a request that Canada increase the size of its mission in Afghanistan as, with Iraq fading from the news and Pakistan spiralling into chaos, international support coalesces for emulating the Iraqi “surge” strategy in Afghanistan and possibly even northern Pakistan.
My MP, James Moore, will finally become a member of the Cabinet.
Carole Taylor will run for and win the job of Mayor of Vancouver and, quite promptly, discover what she should have already known: that it’s an incredibly frustrating job in which doing anything of value is pretty much impossible.
The other BC Carole, Carole James, will be forced out by a panicked BC NDP in the summer/fall when they see the 2009 Election coming and no chance of her beating Gordon Campbell. Coming full circle, she will be replaced by Adrian Dix.
With it broadly expected that Gordon Campbell will retire sometime after the 2010 Olympics, a number of people will begin manoeuvring for the Premier’s job in earnest. Despite her “exit” from Provincial politics, Carole Taylor will be the early front-runner, if she can avoid being dragged down by the Vancouver Mayor’s job and if she can avoid a conservative revolt. She will probably be successful on the first count – and unsuccessful on the second. With the end of Campbell’s tenure in sight, MLA’s from the old Reform/Social Credit wing of the BC Liberal Party will begin to express their concerns about the party’s leftward drift more openly. Will they find a champion? Probably.
The one name missing from the list of people lining up to be Premier of British Columbia will be former Deputy Premier and current CKNW Radio Personality Christy Clark (full disclosure: once upon a time, I was a member of her riding association). She’s a smart woman and both a provincial and Federal liberal. Whatever her husband’s current job, she’ll know that there are going to be two Liberal leaderships opening up in the next few years. She’ll also know that there’s an appetite among the estrogen-heavy Liberal membership for a woman leader. After all – lack of Federal experience seems to be no bar to the job. Gerard Kennedy nearly won the job last time and his principal accomplishment in life up until that point (prior, I suppose, to being Education Minister of Ontario) was running a Food Bank. But for the timing of her ill-fated run for Mayor of Vancouver, she could have been a formidable candidate last time around. This time…
Forget what the polls say: Ed Stelmach will call a General Election in Alberta and he will either lose or nearly lose. The Alberta PC’s have the stench, even across Provincial borders, given off by all decaying and defeated regimes.
2) World Politics:
There will be no General Election in Britain in 2008. Like James Callaghan three decades ago, Gordon Brown will hold on and pray for a miracle. He might wait all the way into 2010 looking to change things around. It probably won’t work. But, mind you, David Cameron is no Maggie.
After nearly a decade in the wilderness, Benjamin Netanyahu will return to power as the Prime Minister of Israel. However, his return to power will be no cause for celebration…
…because his return to power will be triggered by Iran’s public declaration – a surprise to no honest person with an IQ higher than room temperature – that it either has deployed or will soon deploy nuclear weapons. With that Olmert’s government will come tumbling down and, like Britain in the terrible spring of 1940; Israel will turn to the man who turns out to have been right all along.
Contrary to expectations, the Beijing Olympics will prove to be an embarrassment for the Chinese regime. They will be disrupted by activists. Frantic efforts will be unable to hide the terrible state of the Chinese environment, which will injure the health of some of the athletes. Entering the country en masse after years of stories about China’s rise, the international media will prove very eager to tell the contrarian story of how China is blighted by extreme poverty and generally filthy conditions.
Pakistan will continue to teeter on the brink. It may fall over. If it does – if, for example, something terrible happens to Musharaff and an Islamist takeover beckons – the world will be treated to the most frightening days since September 11th, or possibly the Cuban missile crisis, as an alarmed India threatens war and the U.S. Armed Forces launch a desperate operation to either capture or disable Pakistan’s nuclear weapons before they fall into the wrong hands.
Iraq continues to improve. The momentum there towards a fairly decent civil society is becoming irreversible. As this happens, the smarter Democrats try and claim credit for forcing the course change.
3) American Politics:
The world will be treated to the most confusing American Presidential election – and perhaps the most critical – since 1860. Barak Obama will win the Democratic nomination for President – after surprising Hillary Clinton in the early primaries and winning the endorsement of John Edwards.
John McCain will be the Republican nominee for President, after Mitt Romney defeats Huckabee in Iowa, but by a small enough margin to fail to get a bounce. McCain wins New Hampshire thereafter, as the many, many Republicans who despite Mitt Romney but merely dislike McCain gather around the latter.
In March, Ron Paul will be defeated for re-nomination in his own House seat by local City Councilman Chris Peden. His devoted followers will blame this on “neocons” or, when they think people aren’t looking, simply on “the Jews.” Shortly thereafter, Paul will announce an independent campaign for the Presidency.
At roughly the same time, Michael Bloomberg also declares for the Presidency as an Independent, putting a billion dollars behind his campaign.
Thus, we’re going to left with a four-way race for the Presidency, with three candidates who can potentially win the Presidency – and probably with all four polling high enough to make it into the debates.
The race will be ugly and chaotic. Indeed, I would not be at all shocked if it was the first Presidential race in a very long time to be marred by actual violence.
Bloomberg will take either Chuck Hagel or Sam Nunn as his running mate. Obama, looking to burnish his foreign policy credentials, will follow the model of inexperienced candidates for the Presidency in recent years and choose a gray-haired insider as his running mate. Chris Dodd or Joe Biden both seem plausible. Depending on the environment, John McCain can go four ways. He can reach out to Evangelicals by taking Huckabee as his running mate. He can choose the best-polling Republican and take Giuliani. He can try to mollify movement conservatives and take someone like Fred Thompson, John Kyl, or South Carolina Mark Sanford. Or, recognizing that the race is out-of-control he could make a bold decision and attempt a fusion ticket of sorts by taking Joe Lieberman as his Vice President. I happen to prefer the final option, simply because it enjoy the idea of the 2000 Democratic Vice Presidential candidate being elected as a Republican in 2008.
In the end, despite erratic polling, John McCain is elected as the 44th President of the United States. He wins only a plurality of the popular vote, but a smashing Electoral College majority. Democrats spend the next four years pointing out that a majority of Americans voted for candidates on the left of the spectrum.
Democrats keep the Congress. They hold the House by a very narrow margin – but pick up one seat in the Senate (the Republicans, though, partially offset their losses by electing John Kennedy to the Senate in Louisiana).
4) Everything Else:
The Writer’s strike drags on longer than anyone expected. This is one of those unfortunate cases where justice is on both sides – the writers deserve to be paid for all of their work, but the studios don’t have more money to give. This disrupts the pilot season, resulting in the renewal and even the revival of many on-the-brink shows.
Further, studios put a number of remakes and the like into production – in addition to scripts coming off the shelf after many years.
Reflecting the mood of the day, “No Country for Old Men” wins the Oscar for Best Picture. In a divided verdict, Paul Thomas Anderson wins Best Director for “There Will be Blood.” Meanwhile, Ellen Page wins Best Actress for “Juno” and Daniel Day Lewis wins Best Actor for “There Will be Blood.”
Tom Kratman’s novel “Caliphate”, due to be published by Baen in a few months, causes a stir on the blogosphere and draws a human rights complaint against Indigo/Chapters for carrying it in Canada.
posted by Adam Yoshida at
7:33 PM
3 Comments:
Did you make predictions for 2007?
You do realize that, unlike you, Hillary, Obama, even Kucinich and Dean are all American citizens, who seek, or sought, public office to be of service to their nation?
What's that saying... America, love it or leave it.
You were never even here to begin with.
Please seek medical attention for your mental illnesses.
"In March, Ron Paul will be defeated for re-nomination in his own House seat by local City Councilman Chris Peden."
You lose
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