Time for some fearless predictions from your friendly, non-connected, politically naive front pager. It’s a dirty job but someone has to do it if only to make BooMan’s political analysis on these matters look even smarter and more prescient than they normally do:
1. DADT (Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell) will not be ended by a Presidential Executive order. Not going to happen. Obama and the Dems do not want to have GOP ads and robo-calls running this Fall suggesting they support the homosexual agenda GLBT community. Maybe it will happen after November’s elections are over. Maybe.
2. Immigration Reform is DOA. What if anything will happen will be the Dems making noises about it while they pray the Republicans kill off their chance to win the Hispanic/Latino vote.
3. The Climate Bill is deader than the growing dead zones in the Gulf of Mexico. Again, Dems don’t want Big Oil running ads against them this Fall, and they are hoping the GOP’s support for more offshore drilling in light of the massive BP clusterf*** (not to mention the skyrocketing price of seafood, etc.) will backfire in the Fall. Also they do not want that disaster to be blamed on the Government regulators who rolled over for Big Oil the past decade, since as the GOP will remind everyone, this is Obama’s government now. And frankly, too may people are still confuse by the propaganda campaign against the overwhelming evidence that burning fossil fuels is rapidly changing our world for the worst to make this a viable legislative goal. Kerry is simply going through the motions at this point to keep the progressive wing of the party happy.
4. The GOP will not regain control of the Senate or the House, but they will come dangerously close. This will make it harder than ever to get anything on Obama’s agenda (much less the progressive movement’s wish list) accomplished in 2011-2012.
5. The war in Afghanistan will not be won. If anything matters may get worse. But you already knew that.
6. Unemployment benefits will not be extended. I’m actually hoping that I’m proven wrong on this one, but between the “Fiscally Conserva-Dems” in the House and Senate and the Republicans’ intransigence on anything that might make matters better for people out of work thanks to Bush wrecking the economy. I honestly thing Repubs want unemployment to rise in the hopes that anger at incumbents will hurt the Democrats more than them this Fall. I see an extension of benefits as a 50-50 proposition at best.
7. The DOJ and the Pentagon will continue following Bush/Cheney policies on surveillance, interrogation, “black” prisons, violations of civil liberties, etc. They will claim they are employing a softer/gentler approach in those states where progressives are a major faction of the party, but that will be merely lip service to hide the fact they have failed to follow through on their 2008 campaign promises. The excuse: enough Dems in red states and swing districts don’t want their party to appear soft on terrorism. They could give a crap about screwing over their base on this issue for that reason alone. It’s immoral and short sighted and demonstrates a lack of leadership and political courage at the very top. But what else is new.
8. Gates will stay on as Defense Secretary. Obama doesn’t want a fight over another major cabinet appointment, not when he’s trying to get Kagan appointed to the Supreme Court this Summer. Trying to get a Democrat appointed as Secretary of Defense would cause too much drama at once in the Senate and would be counterproductive from a political standpoint. Frankly, I suspect that Gates will continue as Defense Secretary as long as he wants the job.
Well those are my predictions. Tell me why I’m wrong or add a few yourself. And be sure to bookmark this post so you can say I told you so if I’m (per usual) completely wrong.
