Since my New Years prediction that Obama would select Hillary Clinton for his running mate in 2012 (and Joe Biden would become Secretary of State), Ive 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 isnt 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. Rubios 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 Florida House elections starting in 2002, and then beating popular incumbent Republican governor Charlie Crist in 2010 with the help of Tea Partiers.
Moreover, hes only 40, thereby giving the GOP ticket some youthful vigor.
And hes Hispanic a Cuban-American at a time when the GOP needs to court the Hispanic vote.
Rubios only baggage is the son of exiles controversy his suggestion that his parents were refugees forced out of Cuba by Castro when in fact they moved to the United States before the Cuban revolution.
But this isnt the sort of slip that would keep him off the ticket. In fact, Romney has defended Rubio, saying I think the world of Marco Rubio, support him entirely and think that the effort to try to smear him was unfortunate and bogus.
Finally, and most critically, Florida is a crucial swing state. Rubio would help deliver it.
So it will be Obama-Clinton versus Romney-Rubio.
And whats my prediction for Election Day? Obama-Clinton hands down.
I warn you, though. Political predictions, economic forecasts, and astrology differ in only one respect. Astrology has a fairly good record of being correct.