Regarding the 2012 elections:

Pundits like to pontificate, and so do the rest of us. But really, there’s no way to predict what the 2012 election will be like, what the big stories will be, and what will ultimately happen.

It amazes me that pundits never talk about the effect of a running mate until summertime, when the running mate actually gets picked. It’s like collective winter/spring amnesia. The biggest game-changer in the 2008 election — other than the economic collapse less than two months before Election Day — was John McCain’s selection of Sarah Palin as his running mate. That didn’t happen until the end of August, and it had an enormous effect on the race (though maybe not on the actual result), giving the GOP ticket a huge injection of enthusiasm. Palin seemed to dominate political news coverage for the next two months.

If things go like they always do, Romney won’t pick his running mate for another eight months. When he picks that running mate, it will change the story one way or another. So maybe we should all stop speculating about what this election will be like until that happens.