Predictions

I hate wishy-washy predictions that people make to look smart (i.e. A democrat will win the White House next year). I can get that kind of Delphic ambiguity along with my Chinese take-out. I want bold, rash, crack-inspired predictions -- the speculative equivalent of going "all in" in a game of poker or putting your mortgage on the line for the exacta at the races. I usually don't find these, but today I did:

How well can Ron Paul do? Here’s a fun scenario. With $5.3 million in the bank now and a fundraising target of $12 million for the fourth quarter, Paul will be able to spend competitively in the early primary states, especially New Hampshire, which already has a libertarian culture, a strong antiwar backlash (even within the GOP), and the Free State Project. I think Paul will finish in the top three in New Hampshire, ahead of two of the big four (Giuliani, Romney, McCain, Thompson). He’ll beat McCain, knocking him out of the race, and Thompson, who will find his campaign on life support going into Feb. 5’s super-duper Tuesday primaries. Romney will win Iowa but lose New Hampshire and won’t win Florida or South Carolina. Thompson might win South Carolina, but not Florida. Going into Feb. 5, Giuliani will be the Republican frontrunner by default–he’ll pick up more support from McCain’s collapse–yet the floundering Romney and Thompson campaigns will hang on, with Paul picking up momentum the whole time, as the clearest and brightest alternative to Giuliani.

I think the likely outcome is that Giuliani picks up the GOP nomination and chooses Huckabee as his running mate.

Now that, ladies and gentlemen is a prediction! And you, Daniel McCarthy, have balls of steel.