Prediction for 2012: Romney-Rubio, Obama-Clinton :: Political News and commentaries

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January 3, 2012

Prediction for 2012: Romney-Rubio, Obama-Clinton

So says Robert Reich, along with the reminder that political predictions, economic forecasts, and astrology differ in only one respect: Astrology has a fairly good record of being correct:

Since my New Year's prediction that Obama would select Hillary Clinton for his running mate in 2012 (and Joe Biden would become Secretary of State), I've been swamped by requests for my GOP prediction. Here goes.

You can forget the caucuses and early primaries. Mitt Romney will be the nominee. Republicans may be stupid but the GOP isn't about to commit suicide. The other candidates are all weighed down by enough baggage to keep a 747 on the tarmac indefinitely.

For his running mate, Romney will choose Marco Rubio, the junior senator from Florida. Why do I say this?

First, Romney will need a right-winger to calm and woo the Republican right. Tea Partiers are attracted to Rubio -- an evangelical Christian committed to reducing taxes and shrinking government. Rubio's meteoric rise in the Florida House before coming to Congress was based on a string of conservative stances on state issues.

Rubio is also a proven campaigner, handily winning four House elections starting in 2002, and then beating popular incumbent Republican governor Charlie Crist in the 2010 Republican primary -- with the help of Tea Partiers.

Moreover, he's only 40, thereby giving the GOP ticket some youthful vigor.

And he's Hispanic -- a Cuban-American -- at a time when the GOP needs to court the Hispanic vote.

Reich goes on to predict that the Obama-Clinton ticket will win, hands down. A scenario that Reich doesn't envision but that could make his prediction become a certainty is if Ron Paul runs as a third party candidate and takes up to 10% of the vote - almost all of which would take away from the GOP ticket.

For the sake of the country, Americans had better hope that Riech's prediction doesn't come true.

Posted by Hyscience at January 3, 2012 1:33 PM

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