I have been meaning to post this for awhile now. I confidently predict that Barack Obama will win a second term in 2012.  I also predict that the Democratic Party will gain seats in the senate and the house.

I would not put money on this, but I do not put money on anything (well, sometimes on my dresser).

Mitt Romney’s success in the private sector was at Bain Capital where he made lots of money by buying and breaking up companies, destroying jobs in the process.  Now Newt wants us to know that he was part of the effort to change the laws to allow Mitt to do what he did.

So neither of them care a whit about jobs.

So, last night Newt Gingrich and Herman Cain had a debate.  At one point Gingrich asked Cain “what about the campaign has most surprised him”.

“The nit-pickingness of the media,” Cain said, explaining that he had known “I would have to work hard, I knew I would have to study hard,” but that he was not fully prepared for the media onslaught — especially as it occurs when a candidate rises in the polls.

Good grief!  Mr. Cain, you are not qualified to be President if you are not able to even anticipate that running for president would cause you to be subject to the media’s scrutiny.

So, Mitt Romney has

compared the current anti-Wall Street protests to “class warfare.”

This is interesting.  If Obama is vulnerable next fall, it will be be due to the economy.  I fully expect that the Republican nominee will talk of little else.

I also expect the Republican nominee to be Mitt Romney.

All those people protesting Wall Street would not be there if the economy was humming along and unemployment was five percent.

Romney has now gone on the record of saying that people who want the economy to improve are conducting class warfare.  That does not strike me as the best way to woo the votes of those unhappy about the economy.

The most important factor influencing who wins the presidency in 2012 is the economy.  If the economy is showing improvement, then Obama wins.  If the economy has double dipped into another recession, things look bad for Obama.  And if the economy is similar to today’s, limping along in a slow recovery, then it will be a close race.

There is another factor that in certain scenarios is more important than the economy.  That factor is where the voters lay the blame if the economy is poor.

I have read a lot about Obama’s (and the Democrats) poor messaging and positioning.   But we have arrived at a point where Obama has managed to be on the correct side of the messaging and positioning.

The Republicans are holding the economy hostage.  They refuse to raise the debt ceiling unless it is accompanied with huge amounts of spending cuts and no increases in revenue.  The problem for the Republicans is that they are using the language of a hostage taker.  Obama initially asked for a clean bill, but quickly “caved” and entered negotiations.  Since then, it is the Republicans who have repeatedly insisted that it is their way or the economy gets it.

If Obama had stuck to his guns for a clean bill, he would have been just as much a hostage taker as the Republicans.  He did not and the Republicans are now looking at the possibility of taking the blame for a bad economy.

Saturday night I was at a charity casino night.  Buy a ticket, get an assortment of chips and try and increase them.  I got my initial chip allowance of “$30,000″  and headed for the roulette wheel.  At the end of the evening I had “$740,000″ in chips.

This was not entirely luck.  I used a system.  One chip on odd.  When I won,  I bet one chip on odd again.   When I lost, I doubled the bet.  So two chips, then four, then eight, etc.   Sooner or later the ball was going to land in an odd number and I would win.  (Try this with real money at your own risk).   After a while, instead of starting the process with a “$1,000″ chip, I started with a “5,000″ chip.  I raised the initial amount once I felt comfortable that I had enough money to survive a likely (i.e. short) losing streak.  Eventually, I was starting with a “”$15,000″ bet.

I believe the closest I came to bust was when, starting with a “$15,000″ bet, I did not win until I had bet “$120,000″.  So I had lost three times in a row.   If I had lost that fourth time, I would have been starting over.  I did not have anywhere near “$240,000″ in chips left to double my bet with again.

What does this have to do with the deficit?  As long as there are various entities ready and willing to buy bonds from the United States, then the deficit is not a problem.  But when there is no more money to put back us.…

This years deficit is irrelevant.  It might be made relevant if the government decided to spend three or four more trillion this year (maybe a little less, maybe a little more), but given the probable deficit, even with no cuts from congress, the deficit is irrelevant.  Next year’s is too.

The people making the decisions on whether to buy or not buy our debt are fully aware of the projected deficits.   But even so, they still loan us money.  This tells us that the marketplace (where conservatives usually worship) believes that our present deficits are not that much of an issue.

However, it is reasonable to assume that at some point the total debt combined with the projected deficit will become too much for those decision makers and they will start putting their money elsewhere.   Then we are screwed (just as I would have been screwed if the wheel came up even four times in a row).  The money will no longer be there.

In the meantime, the economic recovery continues, slower than we would like, but continues none the less.  Some of the reason for this growth is a large federal government spending deficit.  That deficit is stimulative.  Continuing economic growth is very important for the deficit/debt issue as a strong economy will do much to ameliorate the problem.

The Republicans want to slash current spending which will have a depressive effect on the economy and cost jobs and will have a small effect on the current deficit and might easily increase the deficit over the next couple of years (due to the slowed economy).    It is difficult to understand exactly what the Republican objective is other than they want to handicap the economic recovery hoping for a double dip recession and that the voters blame Obama.

It is their only hope for winning the white house in 2012.

More evidence that Mike Pence is thinking of running for president.  He contributed money to Republicans running for state office in Iowa.

I think he would have a better shot at  governor of Indiana (since the current gov is term limited and might run for pres himself) than he would have at president.  Still not getting my vote, though.

About seven months ago I posted that Sarah Palin was not going about things properly if she was planning to run for president.

Now she admits she is considering running for president (are you not shocked?), but she still avoids ad lib discussions of policy.

At this week’s Values Voter Summit in Washington the winner of the straw poll for President in 2012 was Mike Pence!!

This is just as I was beginning to think that Pence was more interested in being Majority Leader in the House than being President.

Note that the winner of the Vice President straw poll was also Pence, so the win goes to the second place Palin!

Yup.  That’s a ticket we can live with!  Pence/Palin!!

I came across this in Sunday’s Journal Gazette.  It seems Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels, frequently mentioned as a possible 2012 presidential candidate,  took a bite out of his shoe.  A recent ceremonial bill signing

was punctuated by tears and emotion as family and friends of an Ohio woman who was killed in Allen County gathered to watch Daniels sign a bill spurred by her case.

After initially behaving appropriately for the occasion and signing the bill, Daniels says to the Ohioans:

Anytime you all want to move to Indiana, lower your taxes, you’re welcome.

More compassionate conservatism I guess.