First, we must start with baseball…as that is more important than anything else.
There is not consensus amongst the Bearing Drift brethren.
Kirwin, habitually, picks the Phillies.
Big shocker from Krystle: “The New York Yankees will come back stronger than ever with Jeter. Look for them to win the 2011 World Series (fingers crossed).” [Not!]
Then, of course, Leslie has to chime in: “The healthy Red Sox will dominate the AL East, with a line-up that looks like this: Jacoby Ellsbury CF, Dustin Pedroia 2B, Carl Crawford LF, Adrian Gonzalez 1B, Kevin Youkilis 3B, David Ortiz DH, J.D. Drew RF, Jarrod Saltalamacchia C, & Marco Scutaro SS.” [Yea, right.]
The Northern Virginia faithful continue to lament Jeffrey Maier’s early entrance into the big leagues when he made that stellar catch in the 1997 World Series (he’s now in the Yankee’s organization), but they still say this is the Orioles year! [dream on]
But my man, Sic Semper T himself, gets it right: “Y’all go right ahead and keep sleeping on the Tigers. Remember they led the AL Central at the All-Star break last year before Magglio Ordonez got injured and they were forced to bat a rookie behind Miguel Cabrera. I will say though, if Los Tigres add any more Venezuelans, Chavez might try to annex Motown.” Bottom-line: The bengals take the flag!
OK…onto politics….
Miss Wasilla will form an exploratory committee, tease everybody for months a la Fred Thompson, and then either decide not to run or run for a couple of months, dropping out when the mockery of her ignorance has intensified conservative worship for her enough that she can make even more obscene amounts of money mouthing platitudes she doesn’t understand. Romney and Huckabee are running for sure.
Jim Webb will announce that he will not run for re-election in 2012, creating a Democratic free-for-all. Republicans won’t be much better off with their own internal snow ball fight as Allen, Marshall, and Stewart all enter the nomination race.
George Allen won’t go a week without saying “positive, constructive ideas” or “stay strong for freedom” or “dictators and oligarchs and cartels”. Football references can be expected almost hourly.
Jim DeMint’s star will continue to rise. Many new members of Congress to follow his lead on issues dealing with fiscal issues, especially newcomers Rand Paul and Marco Rubio.
Economic slowth will continue until an Obama-Boehner spending cut deal (triggered by the continuing crisis in Europe) is reached in the summer (thus triggering a Dem base revolt that will only be quelled by a premature Afghanistan withdrawal); unemployment will be at or near 10% for all of 2011.
Obamacare will be declared constitutional by one federal court and unconstituitonal by another.
Joe Manchin, and Ben Nelson will launch a Senate version of the Blue Dog Democrats. Joe Lieberman will offer support, and at least two other Dems will join, giving this new group the balance of power in the US Senate.
Jerry Brown will balance California’s budget without raising taxes, then announce for President calling for an immediate withrawal from
Afghanistan (he will do this before July).
Rush Limabugh will stun his listeners (save those who have listened since 1994) by coming out in support of the NFL players’ union.
Stunned to lose the PR war, the owners knuckle under to the NFLPA, and the season starts on time.
The Virginia state budget will need to be reduced by roughly $1 billion. A legislator will finally be brave enough to recommend privatizing maintenance of subdivision roads; that will be a retiring legislator (and not necessarily by choice). There will not be tax increases, unless fee increases count.
Ralph Smith and Johnny Joannou have their districts disappear.
At least one large county’s redistricting plan will be rejected by DOJ.
The Republicans will pick up 3 seats in each legislative house.
While some small, locally based efforts to educate conservatives will bear fruit, overall the anti-intellectual wing of the Tea Party will
continue to mock calls to grow in knowledge and reason, to its own and the country’s detriment. Tea Partiers in Virginia will work harder to unseat Republicans they agree with 90% of the time than to unseat Democrats they never agree with.
Sen. Yvonne Miller will say something stupid before Sine Die.
Bobby Mathieson will run again, and have another negative campaign while offering voters little else.
Many long-term Delegates will claim to run for just one more term.
State Senate Democrats, despite repeatedly voting to raise taxes, will campaign as “fiscal conservatives.”
Sen. Saslaw’s hair will be mussed at least once.
Del. Robin Abbott will mess up parliamentary procedure at least weekly, and after she forgets asking if a Delegate will yield for a question for the 20th time, The Speaker will shut off her mike.
Democrats who say they support non-partisan redistricting will sing a different song when the State Senate Democrats redistrict in a purely partisan fashion.
Gov. McDonnell will be vacationing near Des Moines and Nashua more than usual this year.
Democrats, running nominally conservative candidates, pose strong challenges to Bill Stanley and Greg Habeeb in the 19th Senate and 8th House districts, respectively, yet still come up short thus allowing the GOP to win the first legislative elections of 2011.
Buoyed by their strong showing in the special elections, Virginia Democrats nominate a host of Blue Dogs for the General Election, but
they experience mixed success as the GOP holds the House of Delegates and picks up the state Senate.
Finally, the Virginia Tech Hokies shock America by coming from behind to defeat sports media-darling Stanford in the 2011 Discover Orange Bowl and (as usual) Sen. Mark Warner takes credit for the Hokies’ victory, “radical centrist” that he is.
Happy New Year, Bearing Drift! 🙂
