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Some quick predictions on Election 2008 as we limp towards Florida and Super Tuesday.

The best bet that’s jumping out at me now is a GOP victory in the 2008 presidential race. If you’re doing smaller bets on Intrade, look at a Democratic victory in NH.

1. Thompson will drop out soon. I give him three days.
2. I think that Guiliani will drop out soon. I don’t think he will survive a week after an underwhelming performance on Florida going into Super Tuesday.
3. I think that Huckabee will struggle past what will probably be a disappointing performance in Florida, but it will be clear that McCain has won the nomination before the votes are counted on Super Tuesday. Huckabee’s loss in South Carolina to McCain was devastating. (Huckabee’s concession speech sounds like an audition for McCain’s VP pick).
4. I think Edwards is also on death’s door, but less likely to drop out in the next few days than Thompson. I think he’ll press on to Super Tuesday, but will drop out after it’s clear that it will be virtually impossible for him to play kingmaker at the convention. If either Obama or Hillary were unable to produce a majority on their own, they would need to bid for Edward’s support. But, when you factor in the Democratic unelected “superdelegates” (ranking Democratic leaders and elected officials), the chances that Edward’s pledged delegates could push someone over the top are highly unlikely.
5. I expect that the Democratic race will still be kind-of-competitive after Super Tuesday.
6. Clinton’s win in Nevada was highly interesting. Hispanics broke heavily for Clinton and, perhaps surprisingly, blacks for Obama. As late as a few weeks ago, polls showed that Clinton had a seemingly-insurmountable national lead among blacks. I suspect that this suggests that Obama will win blacks in subsequent contests.
7. There are unsettled murmurings that the Clinton campaign is deliberately raising questions of race to cut Obama off from white voters. I have no idea. For whatever reason, the Clinton campaign has committed a few possible-gaffes, like suggesting that it took a Senate-experienced president (LBJ) to actually achieve the ideals of MLK, Jr. Admittedly, I’m not black, but my impression looking in is that these comments have not endeared her to blacks, a crucial Democratic voting bloc. With all due respect to Republicans, they virtually cannot keep the black vote competitive, but we might see a somewhat dampened level of black turnout if Hillary is eventually the nominee. I feel increasingly comfortable betting that the GOP will retain the White House.
8. I do not think that Senator Clinton will take Barack Obama as her running mate if she wins the nomination. The two don’t complement each other very well. One is a Senator with little executive experience and few spinnable legislative victories and the other is, too. It appears that the election will increasingly hinge on economic concerns and I think anxious voters are more likely to break for executives rather than legislators.
9. If Senator McCain wins the nomination, I predict that he will take a strong social conservative as his VP. Maybe a governor, but probably not Huckabee.

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