Not-stradamus

I made some predictions. How'd I do?

1. The Democratic leadership would continue to foolishly tack to what it and the MSM erroneously called "the centre", i.e. it would continue to move to the right and be Republicans whilst claiming to be an alternative.

Congressional level: They did not continue their tack to the right. There was no repeat of 2002, 2004 and 2006 where they sought to be the GOP.
Presidential level: They selected a reasonably progressive Senator as the nominee and won with him, and did so without pandering Right.
Result: seeker was WRONG.

2. The Democratic leadership would continue to "alienat[e] liberals and progressives by abandoning their objectives and principles...".

WRONG. See #1.

3. The Democratic leadership would continue to "alienat[e] independents because of their inaction on the war and their constant, demonstrated weakness...".

WRONG. See #1.

4. "[R]ecord low turnouts" [amongst Democrats and independents] in the 2008 elections.

64% voter turnout, "the biggest voter turnout since women got the vote in 1920", according to the Wall Street Journal.
Result? Not only was I wrong but I was WRONG WRONG WRONG.

5. "[S]urprisingly large GOP votes" in the 2008 elections.

McCain pulled 62,040,610 votes [Wiki, as of today's date], a drop of 6,031,257 from Bush's 2004 total, and in a year of record voter turnout.
Result? WRONG.

6. "[R]ecord levels of vote fraud in bellweather areas". I should have clarified that I meant GOP voter fraud. I should also note that I should have said "swing states". In any event, a prediction for high levels of GOP vote fraud, by which I mean voter suppression and perhaps computer theft like Ohio in 1984.

Result? If it happened, (and it probably did... or maybe it didn't) then it was too little to swing the election to McCain. I would be worried that the Democrats, secure in their majorities and with a historic president, will not do their utmost to correct the multitude of systemic cheats built into the system for the GOP.
Prediction result: INCONCLUSIVE.

Wow. Five out of six wrong, and the sixth is too early to tell and we may never know.

In my defence, I made the prediction in September of 2007, based only on the performance of the Dems in that Congress. I still think that they were weak, Chamberlainish turds. But in making the prediction I grossly underestimated the transformative effect of Barack Obama.

What I will be interested to see (and sorry, no predictions, I've learned my lesson), is whether or not Dem congresscritters who wouldn't say boo to George Bush or fight back against their GOP counterparts will suddenly stand up, dust off their knees and install a spine when it comes to being obstinate to a Democratic President.

I will also be interested to see just who, both on the Hill and in the new Obama administration, had the stones to undo the massive, massive damage done to governmental institutions during the Bush years. The number of hack appointees to career-level positions has been astounding. It is darkly and unamusingly ironic that the Bushies, having ridden roughshod over the civil service rules and legislation (in hiring unqualified people for career slots and using blatant ideological tests to do so) will scream blue murder and wave the law and paint the Dems as the bad guys as they try to smoke the cockroaches out of the woodwork. (And the CMSM will suddenly discover the story, the story that it for the most part avoided as the damage was being done.)