As a pundit, I feel dutybound to offer some sort of prediction for 2009. I certainly could do no worse than conservative columnist Cal Thomas did in the pages of USA Today (President Giuliani, no recession, Republicans regain control of Congress). So through the bleary hangover haze of early New Year’s Day, here are a few random predictions for the year.
McCaskill will remain a favorite on Sunday morning talk shows and on the national scene as a strong surrogate for Obama, but her popularity will continue to wane here in Missouri, her approval ratings bottoming out at a net negative 15 points. Being both the public face of Obama and the public face of concern over spending when the public wants more help, well, that’s not a way to win over Republicans or Democrats.
Republicans controlling the state legislature will be in no mood to raise taxes to cover budget shortfalls. The more savvy of the bunch will try to avoid looking like Blunt’s Grinch when he pushed social services cuts through in a far better economic climate.
Many Mizzou fans are gloomy with the departure of Chase Daniel and Chase Coffman. But QB heir apparent Blaine Gabbert is a far better pure passer prospect than Daniel, and Mizzou’s recruiting has picked up with the successes of the last couple of years. A three-game stretch against Nebraska, at Oklahoma State, and again at home against Texas will tell if I’m right or not.
Enough said.
So what are your predictions for 2009?
…for January 21st.
The legislation the Obama administration will proposes will be very popular. As a consequence, McCaskill’s popularity will increase.
Bond, on the other hand, will be between a rock and a hard place. He will want to oppose the stimulus package because he is a Republican; however, he realizes it will be necessary to help relief the budget shortfall. He will vote for it and lose support in the GOP base.
He will have even more problems with the national health care plan that will be proposed.
He will definitely join the core in opposing Obama’s judicial nominations, especially the replacements for Stevens and Ginsburg. He will even support the filibuster.
His popularity will fall and we will look forward this time in a year to a very, very tough election to replace him.
That she may get tapped to head up the GAO and employ her auditor skills – this scares me because I don’t think we could run for and win two senate seats in 2010.
…in the Kansas City Star has a different take on Claire McCaskill:
And seems to think Kit Bond (r – “King of Missouri pork dispensing”) is vulnerable:
I dunno, those October ’08 SurveyUSA numbers don’t exactly confirm that.