User:AD/Check

This page exists to record my idle political predictions, to check my accuracy and get a sense of my own ability to predict the future.


 * After the House passes a CR tied to the Vitter thing (which is basically fuck you, staffers) then the Senate will again reject it, going into shutdown (high confidence). There will not be a clean CR or a temporary extension before this time (high confidence).  The shutdown will continue for an uncertain number of days, based on the degree to which the public loudly blames the GOP; with low confidence, I would suggest it would be reasonable to see a four-day shutdown and a ten-point drop in generic GOP polls (along with a five-point drop in Obama).  However, I would not be surprised to see a number of possibilities within a week's span.  A shutdown longer than a week would be possible, but mildly surprising.
 * Two scenarios seem likely to end the shutdown: a clean CR as the GOP caves completely in the face of public scorn, and some sort of mild concession that's served up as face-saving. I would be surprised if something else ended the shutdown (low-medium confidence), although there might be some sort of legislative trick that I don't know, since my knowledge of the intricacies of both congressional procedure and governmental budgeting is very limited, decreasing my confidence in this prediction.
 * Verdict: I did fairly well. The government shut down (easy to predict) and the GOP polling fell off a cliff, although Obama's approval held steady, rather than dropping.  The end happened pretty much exactly as I thought, as well: a huge GOP collapse and surrender, with perhaps the mildest of fig leafs to hide behind in the form of the slightly stricter scrutiny of income for Obamacare recipients, although no one is under any illusions about who just massively lost here.
 * Not the hardest of things to predict, especially now in hindsight, but pretty good.