PREDICTION TIME.....

Cross Posted at Daily Kos

Now that the Republican Primaries are all but over, a friend of mine and I were discussing the 2012 Election. His opinion was that the President was going to crush Mitt Romney  in a landslide. He put the popular vote at 56% President Obama - 43% Romney.  Needless to say, skeptic that I am, I disagreed saying that I thought the vote would be close and that EITHER President Obama OR Romney could win but, that it would be 50.1 - 51% vs. 49.9% - 49%. 

Now why do I say that? Well, even though I live in a Blue State (Thank G-d!) and I live in the Bluest of Blue areas (Doubly Thank G-d!!!!)  - SF Bay Area, I do hear from people that also live here and that are somewhat normal people (though maybe not so much) that they would vote (and I quote) for a "potted plant" before they ever vote for President Obama. Now, if I am hearing this here, I can only imagine what I would be hearing in many areas of the country that are not so liberal or progressive. Many friends from my past (Facebook) and so forth are all looking at voting Republican as well. Hardly a reasonable place to form an opinion but hey.... it's what I have. 

I think that many people underestimate the power of Obama Derangement Syndrome (ODS). It is real and there are millions and millions of Americans spurred on by the hate spread on Faux News OR on the subtle BUT  Romney supporting MSM that do blame the President for many of our woes AND ignore the damage done by a congress of "do-nothing Republicans". I also think many people underestimate the effect that the money freed up by Citizens United will have on the election. President Obama will be able to raise money (as he showed in 2008) but now he facing an opponent that can and will out raise him. Billions of dollars buys a boat load of votes and Mitt Romney will have more than a billion  dollars to play with in this election. 

ALSO, Mitt has Karl Rove, Roger Ailes with his entire TV channel (a highly rated one) in his back pocket), and much of the Main Stream Media plugging his side of the story. I think that the combination of Money, and Media Power will work strongly in Romney's favor. Oh and to add some CT in there (although this has been more than proven), don't forget various voting tricks that Republicans have traditionally played including things such as passage of successful voter suppression laws, Gerrymandering (though to be fair BOTH sides do that), and voting machine "calibration" errors.

ANYWAY - Let's have some fun with this and put ourselves on record for this election. You all see what I am saying. In November you can come back and say... "Man, what the hell were you thinking????" or you can say "Pretty darn close there pal". Either way, I am willing to put this out there. 

What do you think? 

Right Now  - Intrade has the President with a 60.7% of winning re-election