Predictions

Once again I have been assigned to write on my own blog site. Melissa keeps saying I should write on hers so there is new stuff, but then when I write she does not want it, it is too long or too political. Unfortunately I have been consumed by the presidential race this year, unfortunate because it is not going the way I would have hoped, and it keeps depressing me. I thought my native state of Virginia would come through and it almost did. It looked as thought Huckabee might pull off the victory. A win in Virginia would have changed everything. What conservatives need is for McCain to fall short of the required delegates to clinch the nomination. Then in the Convention if it is show that conservatives were voting against McCain 2 to 3 the party delegates who had voted for Romney could vote for Huckabee and pull off the miracle. However, that does not look possible, we needed Virginia. It looks now like a forgone conclusion that McCain will win the party and I also predict he will win the presidency, the reason for my prediction is history.
Those who know me well, know I predicted last year the race would come down to Huckabee/Thompson verses Edwards. Most thought I was crazy to predict Huckabee, but I had history to back me up. It turns out I am wrong on the person but right on the theory. My idea was that the president needed to come from the Sun Belt (California to Florida) because that is where all the presidents have come from for the past 40 years. The last president to win an election from the North was JFK, since then we have had Texas, CA, GA, CA, TX, AR, and TX. I hope you notice a trend. One reason for the trend is the shifting population base to the Sunbelt as the so called Greatest Generation and the baby bombers get older and move to warmer climates (my Mom and Dad), and one thing both generations do is vote, as opposed to the younger generations. However the larger reason is the shift in political geography. Starting in the 1860 election, the southern states voted for the Democratic party, they were so strongly Democratic that they became known as the “Solid South”. The South would stay solid up until the 1968 election, always voting for Democratic party except on two occasions when in 1948 the deep south voted for the Dixiecrat party and Strom Thurmond and in 1968 the same states voted for George Wallace. One both occasions the deep south voted for the candidate running on white power and segregation. In 1968 the rest of the south voted for the first time in over a 100 years for the Republican party and Nixon. Up until the 2004 election the South has continued to remain solid, but this time for the Republicans. There are just three exception when a few Southern states voted for a Democratic, in 1976 for Carter and 1982 and 1986 for Clinton, in all three occasions they voted for a southerner. This is the crux of my argument, the best way for the Republicans to win is to run a Sun belt conservative and the best way for the Democrats to win is to run a southerner. Running a North Eastern candidate has not work for over 40 years and so why would it work now. So I predicted early that even thought no one outside of Arkansas had heard of Huckabee, because he was the most conservative southerner (Thompson had not entered yet) that he would over time rise to the top. I was almost right. McCain was from AZ, a perfect state but he was way too liberal to win the Republican party. I guess I was wrong, kind of, (see other post about why the party has not gone liberal but Romney and Huckabee split the vote). Where I am right is I believe the next president of the US will be from the Sunbelt.
As for the Democrats I thought the only logical choice was Edwards. Obama had no experience and no substance, and even thought Clinton had been popular, I never thought she had a prayer to win the primary. Traditionally you never run someone like Hilary. Bush and Clinton and even W. were relatively unknown until they began the race. The point is when you start running you will make enemies, so why would you run someone who was already hated by half the population. Hilary is the kind of person you either hate or love, not a lot of in-between, and that is not a good way to win people. If Hilary wins, I do not think she can capture any southern states, Obama has a small chance by capturing the black vote. But McCain will capture the southern conservative vote, as well as conservative Democrats and all the independents. Edwards or some other southern conservative democrat would have been the Democrats best chance for victory, but lucky for us the Democrats have at time proven not to be that smart.
So my conclusion is, If McCain wins, which I am predicting he will, I had the correct theory, but just the wrong name.