Each year, we gather the brave to put their byline on predictions for the new year. Here are the 2012 prognosticators.
JOHN DERBYSHIRE Barack Obama will lose the U.S. presidential election in November. The GOP will win a record share of the non-Hispanic white vote.
Vladimir Putin will win the Russian presidential election in March. Among opposition parties, the Communists will poll exceptionally well.
The following things will get worse: public protests in advanced countries, inflation, weather, unemployment, Somali piracy, and the state finances of California, Illinois, New Jersey, and New York.
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The following things will get better: e-book formats, firearm sales, political corruption, access to TV programs without TV sets, job opportunities for auditors, Islamic terrorism, North Dakota.
The following things will become less popular in the advanced world: free trade, mass immigration, welfare, foreign aid, abortion, college education, ethnic diversity, politicians, helping the U.S. fight open-ended wars of choice.
The following things will become more popular in the advanced world: in-sourcing, border controls, jails, family life, vocational training, ethnic disaggregation, entrepreneurs, minding your own national business.
One or more of the following canoes will arrive at the lip of Niagara: the euro, the North Korean government, the finances of a major U.S. state or municipality, the student-loan system, Eric Holder, book publishing, China’s banking system.
JONAH GOLDBERG A non-white male or a non-male white will be the Republican vice-presidential nominee.
The U.S. Senate will be split 50–50 between the parties.
The Occupy Wall Street movement will become an even more obvious joke and a major liability for Democrats, particularly when it grows violent at the political conventions. The MSM will pretend it was agnostic on the movement all along.
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad will publicly lose a major power struggle.
Iraq will degenerate to the point where the “Who lost Iraq?” debate will be a major liability for the White House.
After the elections, George Stephanopoulos will let it be known he’ll stop hosting ABC’s This Week, making way for Jake Tapper.
Donald Trump will not run for president.
Joe Biden will eat an entire brick of cheese on C-SPAN. “This is a big f****** deal,” he’ll explain while chewing with his mouth open.
— National Review’s Jonah Goldberg is the author of Liberal Fascism.
HUGH HEWITT Mitt Romney will be the GOP nominee, and Marco Rubio the nominee for vice president. The Romney-Rubio ticket will win handily, an outcome made very easy to predict on election night when Pennsylvania goes Republican by a wide margin.
The House GOP majority will expand by a few seats, but the Senate GOP will pick up Virginia, Florida, Ohio, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, Montana, and one additional “surprise” seat while losing none. Scott Brown will win handily in Massachusetts.
Act of Valor will be the surprise blockbuster movie of the year, and when it opens on President’s Day weekend, the SEALs and other special forces will find themselves with a decade’s worth of recruits.
There will be a struggle between John Boehner and Eric Cantor for the speakership in late November.
Megyn Kelly will move into prime time, and The Five will re-air sometime in the evening when people can watch. Bob Beckel will be the man GOP-convention goers in Tampa Bay most love to hate.
Vince Flynn’s Mitch Rapp returns in early 2012 with the best-selling thriller of the year.
In an astonishing year of sports surprises, the Cleveland Indians’ rotation of Jimenez, Masterson, Tomlin, Carmona, and Lowe will lead the Tribe to the World Series the city has lacked since 1948. The Colt McCoy–led Browns will use draft picks Trent Richardson and Michael Floyd to make it to the team’s first-ever Super Bowl, and Urban Meyer will open the greatest era in Ohio State football with a perfect season, back-to-back 21-point wins over Michigan, and a national championship.
Oh, and the California housing market will boom.
— Hugh Hewitt is the host of the nationally syndicated Hugh Hewitt Show.
No, it's normal people talk for whites who are not of Hispanic origin. If you just said "white Americans", you'd be including both Hispanic and non-Hispanic whites. "Hispanic" is an ethnicity, not a race. There are white Hispanics, black Hispanics, and even Asian Hispanics. Just saying white Americans would not accurately describe the population that was being referred to.
The only reason I would not want my beloved Indians to win it all is that the death rate for the over-60 crowd would spike - all those people saying "NOW I can die happy!"
Sad though I am to say this, and I pray I am wrong, but Andrew Stuttaford is the closest to what I fear is going to happen especially on his first two points.
The difference I have is that I believe Gingrich would have pulled it off if there weren't so much opposition to his candidacy from so many quarters.
RE: "They will not, however, achieve the latter if the GOP’s presidential nominee is someone whom a large number of voters will go out of their way to vote against."
Yeh -- I immediately thought of Romney. Many conservatives won't bother to vote if he's the nominee. So as I said to some friends yesterday "there won't be any coattails of get-out-the-voting under a Romney candidate."
Lotsa luck, NRO editors, in trying to pump up the base for Romney. You sure didn't succeed with McCain.
I predict that Obama will lose reelection, but the republicans will NOT use this opportunity to elect someone who will actually get us out of the fiscal mess we're in; so it doesn't really matter.
Republicans will win both house and senate, Jim DeMint will be senate majority leader, Paul Ryan will get speaker of the house, and we'll FINALLY get somewhere.
Something cute and fuzzy will be a smash hit on YouTube and end up with a Disney contract. George Gershwin will make a comeback; clarinet sales will skyrocket. Apple will make some design tweak to some electronic gizmo they've created and millions will line up to purchase. Will and Kate will have a baby. Kim Kardashian will have a Brittany-esque meltdown. Scientists will discover that all the things they said last year that would make us stronger will actually kill us and all the things they said last year that would kill us will make us stronger.
Dogs will continue to increase in popularity as pets, over cats. However cats will have a surge in likeability when a blockbuster horror movie about a surviving Nazi scientist who manufactures a deadly disease that is spread by swastika shaped germs embedded on cyber-mice is released, but will soon suffer a huge relapse when an week old undiscovered body of an elderly women is found almost entirely consumed by her tribe of kitties.
All political bickering will cease to exist.
Economic uncertainty is a thing of the past.
Social differences are no longer a point of contention globally.
I thought you had more important things to write about. How will these childish predictions improve the behavior of the human race, which for the most part is as stupid as ever these days. If we are lucky, we might be invaded by a superior peoeple from a distant planet.
While I fear that Andrew Stuttaford's predictions are probably the closest to reality, I like Hewitt's the most even though Romney isn't my first choice. Except for that Ohio sports crap at the end, it looks pretty good. Go STEELERS!!! LOL
Detroit will become a federal district, like DC. The new entity will be called the District of De Troit, or DDT. The resulting loss of Democratic votes will cause Michigan to become a perennial red state. Detroiters will then enjoy the same high quality city services and public education as residents of DC. As a bonus, Detroit will have no representation in Congress.
Obama sends Seal Team 6 1/2 to Teheran to take out Little Squinty a week before the election. Iran declares war, Obama declares martial law and cancels the election. Joe Biden declares in the Senate, "I'm in charge here." As Barack disappears to Kenya for a two month family vacation at an undisclosed wild life park. Nancy Pelosi has Mayor Bloomberg autopsied (I'm feeling much better, really) just to see what's inside. Other than that, nothing changes...George Soros is puppet master.
I agree that gov. Romney is the best current Republican candidate (but I do wish gov. Pawlenty had stayed in the race). However, I really can't buy that polling "proves" anything, or that polling provides any facts other than that "a poll said X" - as we have learned from prior years, polls can be inaccurate predictors of the future.
