Posted on 01/02/2009 6:17:21 AM PST by publius1
.... Ed Rollins, Republican strategist
The biggest story will be the continued violence in the Middle East -- the Israel/Hamas war and the uncertainty of whether we can pull our troops out of Iraq and Afghanistan.
While most Americans and our new president will be focused on the ongoing economic crises, the national security team of Hillary Clinton, Robert Gates and retired Gen. James Jones will be in a crisis-a-day mode for the foreseeable future.
The secondary story will be who plays the role of the the loyal opposition to the new president. With the diminished role of the Republican Party, does it become a true opposition party led by the conservatives building for the future, or is it a party that crosses the aisle to seek compromise with the Democrats and the new president? More: Politicians who fell from grace
And does John McCain play the lead role in becoming the facilitator for compromise? If the Republican Party is not effective, does the national media become the opposition voice?
(Excerpt) Read more at cnn.com ...
Jeffrey Toobin, senior analyst
The overarching political issue of 2009 will be the economy. It appears that President-elect Barack Obama will benefit from widespread goodwill and -- though this is not certain -- a sense that things are near the bottom.
The great unknown is whether there will be any turnaround. If there is, look for Democrats to take credit. If not, look for them to continue to blame the Bush legacy.
The economy will be central in two very different political races. The Virginia governor's race will help establish whether the commonwealth has become a truly blue state. It's an open seat because current Gov. Tim Kaine is ineligible to succeed himself. The Dems are mostly low-profile names, except for Terry McAuliffe, the great Clinton fundraiser, who wants to run for the first time.
The other race is for New York mayor. Mike Bloomberg engineered a change in city law to allow himself to run a third time, and he looks like the favorite to win. But will the city's major economic problems prompt a serious challenger to emerge? I'll be watching.
James Carville, Democratic strategist
2009 will be a year in which the Republican Party will be confronted with a near-catastrophic ideological rift. Read about a prediction that 'pains' Carville to make
There is no obvious Republican leader on the horizon, and the party is caught between its Southern/talk-radio base and the rest of the country on whether they should oppose or cooperate with Obama's administration.
The combination of the lack of an obvious leader and the general political combustibility of the Republican Party will lead to a dangerous fissure that will plague it until the 2012 election cycle.
Hilary Rosen, Democratic strategist
Will President Obama's solutions for the economy bring people together?
Obama made a lot of campaign promises -- ones I know he intends to keep. But fixing health care, creating a new energy policy, investing in education and providing for middle-class tax relief cost a lot of money.
With an economy in tatters, how the new president marries this aggressive agenda to the all-important task of fixing the economy will be the biggest story of 2009.
He starts with two things that few presidents have had: a huge amount of good will from the American people and, importantly, a citizenry that wants to participate in the new agenda. They don't care which box they checked on Election Day. They care about their fragile paycheck.
It will be an exciting year, sure to start with more stock market scares and more layoffs. But I have a hunch that by next New Year's Eve, we will be remarking that the big political story of 2009 was the success of President Obama's first year in office.
Donna Brazile, Democratic strategist
2009 will present us with the most fundamental break in American political economy discourse since the election of Ronald Reagan in 1980.
What is the role of government? Is government the problem (Reaganomics 1980), or is government is a fundamental part of the solution (Obama 2008). This is an epochal shift.
Fareed Zakaria stated in Newsweek that "governments are more powerful than markets." There is a need for a new balance between the state/government and markets. Market fundamentalism failed (markets are not self-regulating as the banks, Bernard Madoff, WorldCom, etc. so painfully illustrated).
The question: What kind of government? This will be the challenge of the new president, his administration and the new Congress.
Leslie Sanchez, Republican strategist
The most interesting political story in 2009 will be the surprisingly disharmonious relationship between Obama and the congressional Democratic leadership.
Obama will want to lead from the center, while Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid will continually pull him left. To complicate matters, it should be noted that Reid is the GOP's top target to defeat in 2010.
Paul Begala, Democratic strategist
After the campaigns of Jimmy Carter, Walter Mondale and Michael Dukakis, (the Mount Losemore of modern Democratic politics), Democrats finally stopped blaming the voters.
And so began a great conversation about what it meant to be a Democrat. The conversation took place over organic tofu in yurts in Santa Barbara, it was fueled by Chassagne-Montrachet in Georgetown, and was concluded while scarfing down pimento-cheese sandwiches in all-night bull sessions in the basement of the governor's mansion in Little Rock.
What came from that painful reassessment was the New Democrat movement embodied by Bill Clinton, and now carried to the next level by Obama.
Now it's the Republicans' turn.
The GOP needs to ask itself tough questions: Are they the party that believes so deeply in science and technology that they believe we can shoot a supersonic missile out of the sky, or are they the party that believes humans walked the earth with dinosaurs a few thousand years ago?
Are they the party that reaches out to African-Americans, or are they the party that hands out the racist song "Barack the Magic Negro?"
Are they the party of conservative intellectuals like David Brooks and the late William F. Buckley, or are they party of anti-intellectual know-nothings like Rush Limbaugh and Ann Coulter?
Are they the party that feels so morally superior to gay Americans that they would deny them equal rights, or are they the party that covers up for Larry Craig, Mark Foley and the Rev. Ted Haggard?
Are they the party that believes economic incentives should be targeted to a tiny, wealthy elite (like Bernard Madoff and Ken Lay) -- or are they the party that believes hundreds of millions of middle-class consumers drive the economy?
Mark Shields says there are two kinds of political parties: those that seek out converts and those that hunt down heretics. Fundamentally, that's the choice the GOP will wrestle with in 2009. If they're interested in seriously thinking this through, I know some excellent yurts in Santa Barbara.
****
My favorite, hands down, is Paul Begala, because he's the silliest. But I do love the underlying theme of all these people here, that Obama has solved all the contradictions in the Democrat Party, leaving republicans to ponder a future in which it has to decide between Star Wars & Creationism.
To which my response is, Hunh?
“does the national media become the opposition voice?”
BWAhahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha
[deep inhale]
BWAhahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha
[deep inhale]
Repeat until comatose.
That Barry O will get lighter and lighter, develop a southern accent, and start building houses for the poor...
Begula is an idiot — he doesn’t even know that the term “Barak the Magic Negro” is from a very liberal L.A. Times columnist.
The real question for Republicans is: do we stand for true Conservatism or will we stand for nothing at all, like the past 8 years? The Republicans will continue to lose until the party rediscovers its Conservative roots.
I can’t wait to see how much McCain bends over for Obama and helps to pull Obama outta the fire. In effect, McCain will be the shadow president helping Obama navigate the waters. McCain can’t help it because he is a RINO.
Did the story about how the RNC accused Bush being a Socialist ever get posted on here. I must have missed it because they are right. Bush bungled big time. What a disgrace he has been as a president.
Wishful thinking. Wishful thinking on the part of an administration clueless about and unable to deal with real economic issues.
We're in for a bumpy ride...
Obama’s feet of clay become evident. Everyone in the media pretends not to notice.
You mean the big O will end up like Jimma Carter? ROTFLOL
That’s good, that’s very good.
Bush wasn’t perfect. But he was NO disgrace unless you are a SOCIALIST/LIBERAL.
I didn’t agree with some of his decisions, but he maintained HONOR as president.
History will be much kinder to GWB than we can even believe now.
I am a fiscal conservative and he was a disgrace beyond belief. If libtards were honest, they’d admit they loved how bush spent. Only thing that the leftist goons were mad about is the use of Military. Put a D next to Bush’s name and the libs would have had a love fest with him. Bush is 90% RINO. His only highlight is judicial picks with exception of Meir. that might have been the moment we really saw the real RINO BUSH until someone slapped him in the face and told him, “WTF ARE YOU DOING NOMINATING HER!”
That is funny. If you deviate just slightly from the latest re-interpretation of Marxism, the Democrats will call you a heretic, as the ultra-liberal but not Marxist enough Lieberman found out. Which party has enforced near-uniformity on abortion, climate change, defense, gay “marriage,” illegal immigration, gun control, etc.? The Republicans are all over the place on these issues, although for most of these issues tending toward one side. The Democrats are much more lock-step on most of these issues, yet it is the Republicans who are the rigid idealogues.
btw, I didn’t ask for him to be perfect. I only wanted to act like an actual conservative republican not a compassionate conservative which is Rove speak for “I am really a Southern Democrat running as a Republican.”
Funny how so many so called conservative republicans on here are still hood winked thinking that Bush is a conservative.
From the article:
“Now it’s the Republicans’ turn.
...Are they the party that reaches out to African-Americans, or are they the party that hands out the racist song “Barack the Magic Negro?””
Fearless prediction on my part:
The Republicans can “reach, reach, reach out” all they dare for the votes of blacks, and in 2012 will end up getting a whopping 7% of that vote, instead of the 5% they got this past November.
- John
Predictions for 2009-—
Obama fixes NCAA BCS bowl mess ....federal government will now determine Bowl matchups.....2010 Rose Bowl features Bryn Mawr College vs Wellesley College.....ESPN hails this matchup as the first step in equality and fairness in sports
Bush restored the honor and decency of the office. After the “alley cat” debauchery that was Clinton, we needed a respectable man in the Oval Office again. And we got one.
Bush’s twin downfalls were his refusal to rein in spending and his refusal to respond to the insults, BDS and outright lies spoken against him.
He should have imposed spending discipline on the Republican party by swinging a much heavier veto pen, and defended the presidency from all the insults by defending himself. But those issues are moot.
One lingering question — was GWB secretly brilliant with his loose spending policy? He certainly appears foolish, having let the Congress overspend like a mob of drunken sailors. But was that really a mistake … or fiendishly intentional?
Zero will want to maintain current spending and add much, much more as he delivers us to the Promised Land. But can Zero really raise the spending level substantially without triggering a taxpayer revolt? DId George add the very last straw that the camel could still support?
That being said, I think the top 2009 news story will be when Barry Soetoro is revealed and Barack Obama is then disqualified to serve in the office of President of the United States.
There are such great, pendulous and hyper-inflated egos in the corruptocrat party that this will certainly be true, to some degree.
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