I do not routinely follow Karl Rove but his predictions for 2015 are interesting. After recapping how his last year’s predictions fared, he offers his predictions for this year:
Now to 2015. Populist anger will grow more on the left than on the right. Hillary Clinton will run for the presidency; Sen. Elizabeth Warren , after flirting with the notion, will not. Neither will Vice President Joe Biden , but he will make more gaffes.
A surprising number of prospective Republican candidates will not run or get off the launchpad because of money-raising challenges. It will not take $88 million to win the nomination like it took Mitt Romney in 2012, but it will take close to that sum.
Aware that a 2015 Ames Straw Poll would undermine the credibility of the 2016 Iowa caucus, state GOP officials will reluctantly forgo the expensive (for candidates) ritual. By October, the GOP presidential front-runner will still poll around 25% nationally among Republicans.
Given a choice between conciliation and confrontation, Mr. Obama will liberally threaten to use his veto. Democrats will eventually rebel against defending his obstructionism. By year’s end, polls will show voters blame him for gridlock.
Republicans will send the president a stream of measures on jobs, energy, spending restraint, health care, border security and immigration that will pass Congress with healthy Democratic support, producing the first sustained period of bipartisan legislation during the Obama presidency.
Despite veto threats, GOP House and Senate members will take tough votes on issues like entitlement and tax reform, producing a governing conservative vision for 2016.
He also predicts on-time budget resolutions from House and Senate (I’ll believe it when I see it), a Supreme Court vacancy, further waxing by European populist parties, and further expansion of the Islamic State. There are others but not nearly as interesting.
I think he’s giving Congress (Republicans & Democrats as parties, and the institution as a whole) way more benefit of the doubt that it deserves.
“Despite veto threats, GOP House and Senate members will take tough votes on issues like entitlement and tax reform, producing a governing conservative vision for 2016.”
Ha! The most interesting possibility is effects of the relationship between Democrats and the President, which don’t appear to be all that good. Rove seems to think Democrats will rebel, but I doubt it. Democrats may not carry the President’s water, but they sure as heck won’t help the GoP produce a “governing vision.”