Long Range Political Prediction

Ordinarily, the only thing that long-range political predictions have going for them is that they are forgotten long before they are disproved.

But Dick Morris makes a strong case for the unlikelihood of Barack Obama's re-election in 2012.

It is essentially an economic argument. Economic slowdown, inflation (sharply rising food and energy prices), sustained unemployment, and a continuing crisis in the housing market.

This dark horizon is partly the administration's own doing. Part of it is international events like the Middle East revolutions that have driven up oil prices and the Sendai earthquake that has taken the world's third largest economy offline. As far as the Middle East is concerned, a wiser American foreign policy could have turned some of these events, such as those in Libya and a couple of years ago in Iran, to our advantage.

Here's Morris:

As the Rev. Jeremiah Wright said - outrageously and wrongly - about 9/11, "the chickens are coming home to roost." The policies of this administration - the disastrous overspending, the irresponsible borrowing, the social experimentation - all are magnifying and amplifying the impact of the recession. Relief is not going to come anytime soon.

Instead, the true legacy of the Obama years is likely to be stagflation and an entire decade wiped out by his policies, budget and programs. Long after he is gone in 2013, we will still be repairing the damage of his terrible decisions.

Of course, anything can happen in politics. Like the Republicans could put up a completely implausible candidate as they did in the 2010 Senate contests in Nevada and Maryland.