Predictions for 2006

I hope that all of my regular readers, both of you, had a pleasant holiday and a happy new year. As for me, I seem to have started 2006 with a rather nasty head cold. Last night I experimented with a now-forgotten combination of medicines and I received these mysterious visions of the future:

• The February special elections will not change the status quo -- a progressive from Somerville, a conservative from Gardner and a Republican from Foxborough will end up going to Beacon Hill. Republican consultant Charlie Manning will use this as evidence that Mitt Romney would have been re-elected in a landslide.
• 2006 will be another banner year for Schadenfreude, as a number of Congressmen implicated in the Jack Abramoff and other scandals are forced to resign.
• The legislature will pass some version of health insurance reform with an employer mandate. The economic apocalypse that pro-business groups are predicting will not come to pass, but there will be a spike in the number of part-time and contract workers in the state.
• The game "What Can We Pass Over Mitt's Veto?" will continue to be popular on Beacon Hill. Democrats will be quick to remind voters that Romney is no moderate, hoping that some of that rubs off on Healey as she is forced to defend her boss's conservative stances.
• During the 2006 Constitutional Convention, opponents of marriage equality will get the required fifty votes to pass the first hurdle in getting their anti-marriage question on the 2008 ballot. The vote is close, however, and the chances that it passes a second time in 2007 are in doubt.
• Governor Romney will use the 2006 Winter Olympics as an opportunity to remind people that he was once in charge of the Olympics. "Remember the Salt Lake City Olympics?" He'll say to a national audience somewhere. "They were awesome."
• For the first time since 1986, a Democrat will be elected governor of Massachusetts. State Republicans claim this is good for the GOP as it will make them even more hungry for victory in the 2008 legislative races.
• On the Federal level, Democrats will make gains in both the House and the Senate, but unfortunately not enough to take control of either body. Charlie Manning will use this as evidence that Mitt Romney would have been re-elected in a landslide.
• During end-of-the year retrospectives of the Romney administration, Massachusetts TV viewers will once again be treated to images of the Governor without a shirt. Images of him wistfully holding a stick will unfortunately be forgotten.
• When one or more of these predictions fails to come true, I will courageously deny that they were meant to be taken seriously, despite the fact that I will gloat every time one of them actually happens.

And additionally, Globe columnist HDS Greenway presented today his medal of freedom winner predictions:

[Donald] Rumsfeld, Ahmed Chalabi, and former Enron chief Kenneth "Kennyboy" Lay were given medals of freedom by Bush in a Christmas Eve ceremony, as was Michael "Brownie" Brown for his work in the 2005 hurricane season. Happy New Year.

Michael Chertoff will, of course, feel slighted and therefore withhold help in the next big disaster. No one will notice the difference.

Fellow Mass bloggers David Eisenthal and the Blue Mass. Group also offer their predictions.