My prediction:
Your initial assessment is very good. 2008 will definitely be a realignment election. Much as the Reagan sweep of 1980 and re-sweep of 1984, the campaign may start close between the two major parties, but will break wide open for Clinton in October 2008. I predict that Clinton will take all of the Gore states (with landslides in states that were marginally for Gore, like MN, IA, WI) plus FLA, OH, NV, AZ, CO, MT and perhaps AK, even IN. She may lose NH, as Gore did. The GOP will keep GA, but barely. GA will be the next southern state to slowly move back into the blue column. I predict a similar vote turnout as in 2004, around 130,000,000 voters, and Clinton will take well over 70,000,000 of them.
The huge paradigm shift in the west will become more and more obvious, with MO slowly turning blue and the SE states of NM / AZ / CO (yeah, I know, is officially a mountain state) falling reliably into the DEM column. Clinton will sweep the east coast with figures over 70%, likewise California.
Her running mate? Could be Richardson, but I have a feeling she will tip Evan Bayh. Bayh has the perfect look for a VP and could win IN for the dems. Another candidate for VP: Gov. Strickland out of Ohio, who is on his way to becoming the most popular Governor in Ohio history. He is also a methodist minister and practically untouchable in the "family values" category.
Kucinich will fight up to the nomination and then will go into the trash heap of history. Likewise Gravel. The first middle-tier candidate to jump off the bandwagon will be Richardson, followed by Biden. Obama will stall in mid-campaign and at some time, Edward's "I'm for the poor" routine will no longer play.
a bold prediction indeed. you do realize that indiana hasn't awarded its electoral voted to any Democrat since gasoline was 33 cents per gallon and none us of were born yet. Of course it happened at a time when Republicans nominated Barry Goldwater, who was so far to the right that he scared most of the country, and handed Lyndon Johnson an easy victory (isn't it striking that neither party has learned to consistently nominate from the middle).
But it sort of trails off into weakness and abiguity in the end (e.g., "obama will stall in mid-campaign") and doesn't really offer any couter paradigm shift, which is what would be expected in any two-party system when one regional culture goes en masse from the less nationalistic to the more nationalistic party. Unless you're assuming a generation-long lag in the GOP, much like that inside the Democrat party in the late 1800s. It's possible. If the public is so fed up with the expense of the imperialistic projects that are at the heart of the neoconservative movement, and if the public has been sufficiently convinced that the problem caused by too much government involvement in health care (i.e., that we spend 16% of our GNP on it) will be cured by yet more government involvement in health care, then we may see that lag occur. Then the Republican party would have to undergo that long soul search--how to reconcile abject nationalism with compassion and morality, that sort of thing. Not necessarily a bad thing for them, assuming we could live with the consequences of Democrat party rule for a couple of decades.
Hmmm. I guess I'm not really predicting any of that. But yours is a bold and interesting read.
