Political Predictions...

It's Caucus Day. All political eyes are on Iowa tonight. While blogging, I am watching live coverage on multiple channels and multiple sites such as Iowa Caucus Results.com and more. Coverage multi-tasking occupies my mind while the hourglass sands trickle down...

I used to have a knack for political predictions. Well, at least once I accurately predicted - rather early on in the campaign cycle - which candidate would become the nominee and who he would pick as his running mate. Other times I've been able to predict who would win an election (Bush Sr, Clinton, then W - only because I knew Gore didn't have a snowball's chance in Hell after he picked Liebermann - OMG, "Joe-mentum" was my Senator when I lived in CT, and I didn't like him then.) Anyway, I digress. I have a yet-to-be-disproven theory about presidential politics: no candidate with an unusual name will ever reach the White House. Americans want a president who has an "American-sounding" name. Example? Bush, Clinton, Carter, Nixon, Johnson... all plain 'ol vanilla names. Only a handful (Eisenhower, Kennedy) had a hint of European ancestry. So if you subject the current candidates to my non-scientific litmus test, you'll find that Kucinich and Obama might as give their concession speeches now. It's that simple.

Clinton. Gore. I called it back in '92 before Clinton actually announced. I was working in a clothing store in Louisiana at the time, and I told the boss that Clinto would pick a fellow Southerner. He laughed. At the time I was a proud Southerner (how quickly that would change!) and was pleased at the choice.

Maybe I was just pleased to be right. My desire to be right knows no party lines. :)

But here and now, in 2008, I'm predicting that Hillary will grab the Democratic nomination and pick John Edwards as her running mate. She knows he balances her appeal: he's handsome and charming, he's seasoned (Obama isn't), he's well-versed in the political machine (Obama is still green), and he's dedicated to improving health care and foreign policy.

Clinton-Edwards. I could support that ticket. (Edit 5/08: well that obviously won't happen now!)

That's my two cents' worth on political predictions...