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Or, "Don't hold your breath."

Via SpeakerTweaker on Facebook this morning comes a link to Joe Huffman's blog, and while he probably does belong on the list of People Smarter Than I, this time I think he's off base:

Toast

Prediction: If Obama doesn't pull some serious magic out of his hat in the next week or so on at least two of these issues, he's toast. Not just lightly toasted, but burned-to-a-crisp toast. Utterly humiliated. A defeat that will be compared to Carter for the rest of US history.

I'll admit, I want him to be right.  But I don't think he is. 

Here's where my fellow Republicans go wrong, every damn election: underestimating Democrats. 

Neocons, Social Conservatives, and Libertarians will fight amongst ourselves.  We place primacy on individualism.  We always have.  It's why we're Republicans (even if only nominally).  Likewise (seemingly), Socialists, Progressives, and Greens will fight among themselves, and it is because of this that we're repeatedly fooled into thinking they're also individualists.  They are not.  No party that spends its convention repeating "We're in this together" is going to fail to band together for the election.

Let me repeat myself:

No party that spends its convention repeating "We're in this together" is going to fail to band together for the election.

Any one faction of Democrats may truly think that Obama's a failure.  This does not translate into failing to vote for him.  Part of it is that many of the same people who are unhappy with the President seem to have transferred their Bush Derangement Syndrome over to Mitt Romney; I've already lost track of the heartfelt "Romney would be a disaster for this country" pronouncements.  After all, how many of us were happy with Bush in 2004?  We still voted for him, though, because of the alternative.  It's just hubris to think that's not going to happen this time around, in Obama's favor.

But what about those independents?

Look, most independents aren't.  I have friends who fancy themselves such, and around half of them are Democrats.  Most of the others, naturally, are Republicans.  That's the way it goes. 

Much of the American electorate is apathetic, frankly, and unlikely to vote.  I don't think for a second that Obama will have the pro-O out turn that he did in '08.  But nor do I think the Right half of the electorate is fired up enough to turn out and drive him out, either.  Not with Obama-lite as the alternative.

Bottom line: color me unimpressed with the landslide predictions.  After all, haven't we been here before?

While we're recycling election-year predictions, let me trot out my own, previously (I believe) only heard in my old Gen Psych class:  Unless Obama is caught on tape murdering kittens, he'll win.  And even if he is, it'll be a close one.