November 2004 Wild Cards

Ipse Dixit points the way to this Election Projection list of 21 reasons why Bush will win in November. Some are dubious (#16: Governor Schwarzenegger?) but quite a few are encouraging for the GOP (I especially liked #10: “Florida is much more Republican now”). Dodd then adds this one:

With only one exception since the presidency of Theodore Roosevelt, no one has been elected president who took more than 14 years to climb from his first major elective office to election as either president or vice president.

That’s good trivia, along the lines of “An incumbent who runs for re-election in a year ending in a 4 never loses.” Allow me to throw in some “wild cards” that would tip the balance even further to Bush (but change nothing if they don’t happen):

1.) Osama Bin Laden is caught or killed
2.) Dean runs on the Green ticket
3.) Nader runs on any ticket
4.) Teresa Heinz says or does something crazy
5.) Al Sharpton gives a racially-polarizing speech at the Democratic Convention
6.) A significant stockpile of WMDs are found in Iraq
7.) Rudy Giuliani replaces Dick Cheney in the VP slot

I'm sure there are more, but that's all I can think of for now. Of course, #1 would be a dark day at the DNC.