Peter Schorsch
After batting only .400 in 2014 with my five “bold” political predictions, my goal for 2015 was to improve my political prognosticating.
How did I do? Well, if I was a baseball player, I’d be headed to the Hall of Fame. But as a political prognosticator, it looks like I need more batting practice. That’s because (and this is assuming nothing Earth shattering occurs in the next four days), I hit .400 again in 2015.
Here’s the breakdown:
Fortunately for my record, but unfortunately for the thousands of Floridians in need of medical marijuana, my prediction that it won’t be available until at least 2016 is the sad reality. The failure of the Legislature to pass a “glitch bill” to fix the problems with the Charlotte’s Web legislation it created in 2014 meant that the fate of medical marijuana and Charlotte’s Web remains in the incapable hands of the Department of Health, which only recently awarded five regional licenses for growers to cultivate and distribute the drug. I hate to repeat this prediction, but there likely won’t be full-scale medical marijuana in Florida until it’s approved by voters via the referendum process. Meanwhile, the sick and dying suffer.
Another prediction that proved right was the forecast that the House and Senate “will pass the fewest bills in its history in 2015 as lawmakers punt to an early 2016 session.” While no one could have predicted the epic meltdown in the Legislature that this Spring, it probably was not difficult to envision this Legislature being so unproductive.
Two solid hits right off the bat. Unfortunately, three strikeouts follow.
I don’t know why exactly I predicted something as silly as “Charlie Crist will not be a candidate for anything, probably ever again” considering what kind of political animal Crist is, but I also could not have predicted the Florida Supreme Court ordering the state’s congressional districts redrawn in a way that tailored a seat perfect for Crist.
Equally silly was the prediction that “Marco Rubio will not be a presidential candidate by year’s end,” although by May I was already offering a course correction, writing that Rubio is “the second-best bet to win the GOP nomination.”
As for my fifth bold prediction, that “one of the major Florida newspapers will cease daily publication in 2015,” no matter how hard the Tampa Bay Times and The Tampa Tribune work to make this happen, it’s doubtful either of the two will fold up shop. They may continue to lay off their star journalists and their buildings may be up for sale, but come Jan. 1, 2016, they’ll be delivering newspapers still. Whether they’ll continue to be doing so on Jan. 1, 2017 remains to be seen.
So I went two-for-five in 2015. Look this week for five “bold” predictions for 2016.
