Last year, I learned that the prediction game is a tough business. I started off on a roll, but went down hill from there.
I said that Thom Tillis would win the primary outright and the race would see unprecedented amounts of money from outside groups. I got both of those right. Then I predicted that Kay Hagan would be re-elected. Obviously, I got that one wrong.
However, my reasoning wasn’t too bad. I said that Republicans would spend millions demonizing Obamacare but it wouldn’t be the driving issue in the campaign. I surmised that without it, Republicans would lack an issue with enough resonance to fire Hagan. I didn’t count on ISIS and Ebola.
I predicted that the General Assembly would be out in five weeks. In fact, they were in session for almost 12 weeks. I predicted correctly that they would give teachers and state employees small raises and stay away from divisive legislation. That was pretty close to right, though the raises for some teachers were substantial.
I said that Democrats would pick up a handful of seats in the legislature. I was partially right. Democrats picked up three house seats but Republicans picked a Senate seat. That was the end of the good guesses.
I said that Phil Berger, Jr., would easily win his primary and be elected to Congress. In fact, he lost a runoff to Mark Walker who easily won his election to Congress.
I also predicted that Houston Barnes would beat Keith Crisco in a primary to challenge Renee Ellmers who would face a tough primary. Barnes didn’t even run and Ellmers handily defeated her primary opponent and went on to defeat Clay Aiken.
I did predict that the economy would finally begin to pick up and that’s right. And I correctly said that Obamacare would not be the disaster Republicans were predicting. However, I also said we would have a status quo election. In fact, we had a GOP wave.
I’ll try again this year.
Thomas Mills is the founder and publisher of PoliticsNC.com. Before beginning PoliticsNC, Thomas spent twenty years as a political and public affairs consultant. Learn more >
Thread Contributors: If you haven’t experienced it before, welcome to the wild and warped voicings of one “Gregorius Caroline du Nord” (see above). He emerges on various internet comment forums on occasion to dish out hard-to-follow, often hateful, and meandering rants, most always attacking Obama and anything not of an arch-conservative nature. This was one of his tamer and less profane pontifications (despite the “crack ho” comment); unfortunately, it can and usually does get worse. Of course, you are free to respond to him and volley with him, although I don’t know why anyone would want to. Just giving y’all a head’s-up…….
Thanks Mick, how’s that music career coming along? Haven’t caught your act yet but I intend to.
Yes friends Mr. Voilland and I have a little history. He got me thrown off the N&O comment section with his whining, and of course those little Trotskyites over there were only too happy to oblige. He’s not real good at debate, but he excels at the Stalinist/Alinsky tactic of shutting up or shutting down dissenting opinion. He claims to be a gentleman and a scholar, but he’s just a garden variety thug with an CUNY degree who has lived off government grants most of his adult life. New York got too expensive for him so now he’s down South now telling all us Rednecks how stupid we are.
Good to hear from you Mick (his name is Mike but he likes to be called Mick…it’s the music thing I guess). I’ll introduce myself the next time you’re playing the grand opening of a holistic herbal shop (or something) in Pittsboro.
Grigorous – Tillis only won by 40k. I wouldn’t write off the Democratic party quite yet. Especially with the nutbags you have running your party.
Well it’s not MY party Paul, at least not most of it. But I would say this, as I’ve mentioned before Kay Hagan used the Wake County Democratic Party for her re-election NOT the NC Democratic Party. I would say that YOUR party has MORE than its share of “nutbags”. Wouldn’t you agree?
I predict you leftists will continue to say things like ” the economy… begin to pick up” when everybody with a job (and most especially those without one) know that is complete and utter horse %¢#2. I predict you people will still be whining about the wealth gap when your President is the main CAUSE of the wealth gap (http://takingnote.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/12/18/the-wealth-gap-is-getting-bigger/). I predict no matter how well the state is run or how many gains are made in spite of the hair brained policies of Washington, you people will STILL complain, and for what? At least on the national level you guys are sitting pretty. If the Scoop Jackson / Sam Nunn wing of your party still existed (which it doesn’t) and controlled the Congress (as do the establishment Republicans) I would sit back and keep my mouth shut. You guys are gonna get everything you want (see the recent budget deal) and take none of the blame if (actually not if, WHEN) things go bad.
Look I know it’s hard, those wounds are still fresh from November. But Kay Hagan was a lousy candidate…and she ran a lousy campaign! Any half-assed candidate would beat her in an off year election. North Carolina is just like the rest of the country, just a notch or two right of center. The only reason Hagan won in the first place back in ’08 was because she was running against the Republican Party establishment’s homecoming queen (since 1970) and the old girl wasn’t all that sure where Charlotte is located… exactly.
So buck up kids, Boehner is gonna give you everything you want, and take the blame as well. By the way some say it’s blackmail. Some say the NSA tapped his phone and that’s why he rolled over like a two-dollar crack ho (what do you think that CIA report from Feinstein was all about?). Regardless, from the conservative perspective we’ve got Lord Haw Haw leading the invasion of Europe and there’s not a helluva lot we can do about it.
Mike L. Yes, it was Ebola, ISIS, SSM, and even the ruling of no-guns at the State Fair that seemed to fire up the regressive element across the state. A perfect storm of those things hitting the news just before Nov 4. The irony with the last two is that (1) full civil rights for homosexual will, within a few years, not be a major issue in any state (even Tillis believes that and has said so), and (2) it was GOP conservatives McCrory and Troxler who decided to ban concealed-carry weapons at the Fair.
Adding a bit to the irony I’m a Democrat who is planning on voting for Republican Steve Troxler if he runs for re-election in 2016 b/c of his actions related to keeping guns out of the State Fair…I don’t plan on giving Pat the same courtesy however, he just has too many strikes against him in my book to allow me to “cross over” to vote for him…
I’ve also heard that the legalization of Same Sex Marriage in NC so close to the November elections more than likely helped Republicans (esp Tillis) as it probably drove supporters of GOP candidates (who are pretty much/if not all against marriage equality) out to the polls…
Here’s one prediction for 2016 that we can all bank on:
The GOP will seize upon any and all issues (large or small), then drench them in fear-mongering words and tactics in trying to win any electoral race.
The mis/disinformation thrown around by Republicans about the Ebola and the ISIS situations just before the election was fear-mongering at its best (worst). Notice how both Ebola and ISIS have become Page Two issues since election day? The US is not beset with anything approaching an Ebola outbreak (and never was going to be, either), and the Middle East just continues to be the decades-old political and religious fanatical mess that it is.
And of course in NC, we saw fear-based and slanderous ads in state races. In my state senate district, this was epitomized by Barefoot’s attacks on the profession of his opponent’s spouse—complete with an ugly, cigar-smoking actor posing as that spouse and implying that his wife can be bribed and bought.
It’s clear the GOP will use any contorted logic and other means to enflame the emotions and cloud the thinking of voters. Again, bank on it happening again, in spades, come 2016. Given the success of this approach in swaying uninformed voters, one is tempted to suggest to the Dems that they try doing the same. But I for one cannot abide by, nor encourage, such mindless, hurtful, and malicious tactics—even in politics.