Predictions are a fool’s game, except if you are a TV pundit, in which case your predictions, delivered early enough, become either brilliant or forgotten. (You probably don’t recall that one time presidential hopeful Gary Hart not only predicted a smallpox attack on the US in 2003, but also a preemptive strike on Iran by Bush in the run up to the 2006 election.) Here’s a rather unqualified prediction from Larry Kudlow:

Some things in life are quite simple. Here’s one of them: Sen. John McCain is going to be our next president. How do I know? For starters, McCain will have a unified Republican party — conservatives and all — working hard for him. He’s also going to win over the Reagan Democrats, the Bush Democrats, and the Perot independents. These folks demand a strong military, want government off their backs, and are sick and tired of growing federal deficits and out-of-control spending. McCain’s their man.

If you recall, it was the cross-over Democrats and independents who helped elect Ronald Reagan twice and put Papa Bush in office for what was expected to be a Reagan third-term. When Papa Bush waffled, they went to Perot. But they came back to support the Gingrich Congress and later stayed with George W. Bush in 2000 and 2004. In 2006 they walked away again, penalizing a GOP Congress that embraced heavy spending and corrupt earmarks. But now they’ll come back. McCain is tailor-made for this group.

Just think of McCain in a debate versus Hillary or Obama. Remember McCain’s zinger about Hillary’s $1,000,000 earmark for a Woodstock Hall of Fame museum? He said he didn’t know much about Woodstock because he was “tied up at the time.” It was a killer line and we’ll hear it again.

McCain is also good news for business and the stock market. He wants to cut the corporate tax and keep dividend and cap-gains tax rates low. He’s tough as nails on restraining government spending and blowing up earmarks. On top of all this, he’s a very strong free trader who knows America can compete with the rest of the world. Stock market fears about a new wave of tax hikes should be put aside. It ain’t gonna happen after McCain is sworn in. Neither will protectionism. So far as I can tell, high taxes and diminished free trade are the biggest worries for business and stocks. Investors can cast their fears aside.

Okay then. We’re glad that’s settled. We can go back to sleep. But why does Kudlow’s ringing endorsement somehow remind us of one from a few months ago that boldly predicted that the McCain candidacy was dead and that Fred Thompson would win both the nomination and the general election?

This entry was posted on Saturday, February 9th, 2008 at 1:08 pm and is filed under Democrats, General, Republicans. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.