Looking into my crystal ball:

In 2013, after months of debate, Congress will pass a law the day before the automatic cuts to Medicare and Defense are triggered. This law will extend the Bush tax cuts and raise the retirement age and/or change the COLA calculation formula, and contain the cuts needed to avoid the trigger. Republicans will say although it wasn't optimal, they had to do it to stop the Dems from raising taxes. Obama will say it is good fiscal policy and will save the economy.

Cool...

Don't have an answer for that one. I'm much less certain about who will win the presidency than I am what will happen if Obama wins. I think it could go either way.

it might be the better outcome

but it's far from cool

Just disaster, or worse disaster.

change this if they really want to. This doesn't have to be this way and if and when we get angry enough to do something, your whole scenario could very well fade away into a possibility that didn't happen.

Here is hoping that the 50 - 50 chance that I see leans the other way in the months to come.

I think even if we could build a truly massive popular movement today, it will still take a few election cycles to really make significant changes with it. But the House would look pretty good!

I hope something changes between now and then to make that politically impossible... short of some crazy Republican becoming president, that is

Unless the rethugs vote him in as their best candidate!

Obama may not be looking very good right now, but remember, there are only four options: Obama, a Republican, some third-party candidate, or staying home. Most people opt for the fourth option. Any of the first two could win.

We may think that none of the crack pots can win but after living in Ohio and seeing and election stolen before my eyes...well I don't know who might be picked as the winner. All I know is that it is getting very tiresome to always be on the other side of the President. Someone who I worked my butt off to get into office. In fact I don't know one of my campaign worker friends who would do it again. Will they select Obama for us? That might be how it goes down.

And I totally disagree, they definitely have a chance. Anyone from that GOP clown car could win the primary, and whoever does is suddenly The Candidate, with all the media coverage and being taken relatively seriously that that entails. A candidate like that could bring out the Dems just out of fear, out of a sheer "oh my god, we can't let that person win" factor, but can that substitute real enthusiasm? I guess we'll see if Bachmann wins the primary.

So it's way too early to call this election. But I will say this: if a crazy like Bachmann or Palin or Cain or... it actually hardly matters which one, they're all crazy... wins the Republican nomination, the damage they'll do to the public discourse in the U.S. will be devastating whether or not they win. It's just too much crazy with way too big a megaphone.

Don't forget that part of it.

I could see soldier pay and veterans' benefits on the chopping block, like the deficit commission wanted

It just won't lead anywhere... :puke: