Forecasting A Nasty 2012 Presidential Campaign

Image via Wikipedia

By: Jack White

As many a would-be prophet can attest, predicting the future is one surefire way of making yourself look ridiculous. When your prognostication goes wrong, the only ones who look sillier than you are those who believed in the forecast.

Take, for example, radio Bible thumper Harold Camping, who whipped legions of evangelical Christians into a frenzy by claiming that the rapture, in which the faithful would be literally spirited up into heaven, was going to take place last Saturday. Lo and behold, we -- and he -- are still here. But instead of curing Camping of being a seer, that seemingly incontrovertible piece of evidence only forced him to revise his schedule. He now says the end of the world will take place on Oct. 21, and I hope he is right.

That's because the coming of doomsday this fall would spare us what I boldly predict will be the nastiest, most racially charged presidential campaign in decades, perhaps even since the Civil War. That's not because the developing field of Republican candidates is a pack of rabid race-baiters. Indeed, so far only one of them, the inimitable Newton Leroy Gingrich, has descended into that gutter with his charge that Barack Obama is "the most successful food stamp president in American history." CONTINUE....