I'd hoped he wouldn't because I knew if he came to "pass for a Liberal" let alone a "Progressive" as his campaign indicated, we'd be forever strapped with apologists who say "well, at least he's more liberal than Dick Armey" or some such. The bar for being labelled "Liberal" in this country was already so low that I suspect even Nixon could be so labelled. And that's the discussion we're bound to keep having from now on, thanks in no small measure to Obama's victory in 2008.

Obama's policies have turned us into a nation debating whether we should be as liberal as Nixon or as conservative as Armey or Bachmann. With Obama as the Left Sentinel, there is no longer a middle in American politics nor is there likely to ever be.

I'll not repeat my mistake of 2008. The only thing I will predict this go 'round is that if you go to sleep now and wake up in 3 years, review the implemented policies of the 3 years when you were asleep, you won't know if Mittens or Obama won. There's not as much guessing in this prediction because I have three years experience to draw upon.