Here are some electoral prognostications that everyone can look back on tomorrow and laugh at my utter idiocy:
-- Mara Giulianti loses Hollywood mayorship. Look, Mara may have all the money, but she knows she's in trouble. The desperation is evident in her frantic campaigning.
Case in point: When voter and mom Courtney Ortiz, a supporter of Peter Bober, told canvassing Mara workers that she wasn't supporting the incumbent, Mara paid her a special visit. Giulianti, in her Mercedes, and her assorted entourage, in a Porsche and Chrysler SUV, pulled up to her curb and came to her door. As Ortiz describes it, Giulianti proceeded to browbeat her about Bober, saying he wasn't any good.
When Ortiz said she was voting for him anyway, Giulianti told one of her comrades, "Well, if she doesn't want to participate in the government, she doesn't have to."
This illustrates the mayor's arrogance to a T (Ortiz describes the event in detail on her blog). And I think that kind of crap has finally reached its tipping point (oh, damn, Malcolm Gladwell got me). The city has been wracked with scandal for the past four years and Giulianti has played a leading role in it. By all rights, she should be awaiting sentencing for official misconduct with her (former) top ally on the commission, Keith Wasserstrom.
Part of me says voters will mete out a little justice today, another part of me screams, "As if!" I'm still betting Giulianti gets a vacation from office, though. Told you I was an idiot.
-- Here's an easy one: Hillary Clinton wins the now-meaningless Florida vote. She'll win South Florida convincingly. I'm going to be honest: I still don't know who I would vote for between her and Obama. I go back and forth. But the Florida mess with the non-delegates could pose a huge quandary. The Sentinel's Michael Mayo put it well in his column this morning:
Meanwhile, the Democrats (Motto: We've never met an election we couldn't screw up) have done a gang-buster job sticking to principles. So the party that screamed about widespread disenfranchisement and how every vote must be counted in Florida in 2000 now has no problem flushing away an entire 4.1 million votes.The nightmare scenario: the Clinton-Obama battle isn't settled before the convention and Florida's disputed delegation becomes the key to the nomination, this summer's version of hanging chad.
I've been thinking the same thing: Bill Clinton's first lady might be undone by the same state that foiled his vice president.
-- McCain wins Florida. This is a complicated-as-hell call so I just simplified it: Crist's endorsement is going to put McCain on top, which might just propel him to the nomination. That, in turn, would put Crist on the short list of VP candidates, though he'll never get it.
(MORE COMING)
