Political predictions for the next two years

This begins a series of posts prompted one week ago--on election night--when a friend of mine was gloating about the results. I made a few predictions to him and asked him some questions--and I am still waiting for answers from him. In the meantime, I have been doing some more research to back up my previous predictions.

To get things started, here are some of my basic predictions:

• The Republicans now must do something since they have gained much more power, but they aren't going to really do anything. In particular, they are not going to do much of anything different from a substantive perspective.
• Instead, the Republicans are going to play the political game of trying to make Obama look bad.
• One reason for the above two predictions is that the Republicans have no different substantive ideas than the Democrats.
• Another reason for the first two predictions is that the GOP faces a major internal battle, particularly with the Tea Party.
• The Tea Party--whatever that is exactly--is not going to change things.
• Unless the Republicans can prove me wrong on my predictions, Obama is going to be reelected.

I will explain my predictions in subsequent posts.