Least Likely Events In 2008 That Actually Happened

Nosimplehiway

Imagine we had made predictions on this board in January 2007 for historical events in 2008. Of the ones which eventually came true, which were the least likely?

My guess is that if someone had posited: "The Democrats will win over 360 electoral votes in the 2008 presidential election, including Indiana and a majority of the EVs along the southern Atlantic coast. An African-American will be on the Democratic ticket. The Republican ticket, which will include Sarah Palin, will fail to win a popular vote majority in Montana."

I think this may have been dismissed as ASB, except for a long and complex scenario involving assassinations, third party candidates and the annexation of Canada.

What do you think is the least likely thing to occur in 2008, from the persepctive of January 2007, that actually did come to pass?
 
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Anaxagoras

Banned
1. The price of oil in the middle of 2008 will be about $140 a barrel, but will drop to around $40 by the end of the year.

2. Spain will win the Euro Cup.

3. The Turkish Prime Minister will visit Armenia.
 

Wolf

1. New Mexico will have Democrats representing all of its Congressional Districts.
2. All three of them will be elected with more than 50% of the vote. (In 2006 my congressional district was decided by 874 votes.)
3. Pete Dominici will retire
4. Joe Biden would be vice-president elect
5. The Democrats would carry Indiana, North Carolina, and Virginia in the election
6. Lehman Brothers, Bear Stearns, Merrill Lynch would all cease to exist
7. The economy would tank
 

Jon0815

Nosimplehiway said:
Imagine we had made predictions on this board in January 2007 for historical events in 2008. Of the ones which eventually came true, which were the least likely?

My guess is that if someone had posited: "The Democrats will win over 360 electoral votes in the 2008 presidential election, including Indiana and a majority of the EVs along the southern Atlantic coast. An African-American will be on the Democratic ticket. The Republican ticket, which will include Sarah Palin, will fail to win a popular vote majority in Montana."

I think this may have been dismissed as ABS, except for a long and complex scenario involving assassinations, third party candidates and the annexation of Canada.
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In January 2007 it was already conventional wisdom that the Dems were the heavy favorites to win the White House in 2008 (altho based on Iraq, not the economy). A Dem blowout in the Electoral College would not have seemed like an outrageous prediction.

Obama announced his candidacy in January 2007, and altho Hillary was favored to beat him, it would have seemed very plausible that he would end up on the ticket as her VP. Even a prediction that he would beat her wouldn't have been considered ASB, just unlikely.

Palin was probably still unknown to many on here in early 2007, but once they learned who she was, I don't think most would find it ASB that an attractive female governor would be selected as VP.

The two items that I think would have been seen as most unlikely and closest to ASB, would be the GOP candidate losing Indiana, and only winning Montana by a 2-point plurality.

What do you think is the least likely thing to occur in 2008, from the persepctive of January 2007, that actually did come to pass?
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That by the time the "surge" ended, violence in Iraq would have fallen so dramatically that Iraq would hardly be a major issue in the campaign. The conventional wisdom in Jan 2007 was that the surge was almost certainly domed to fail, so in 2008 Iraq would again be the #1 issue, and a millstone around the neck of all GOP candidates (when of course the millstone turned out to be the economy instead). Even most surge supporters thought its chances of success were dicey at best. A prediction in January 2007 (several months before Harry Reid declared "This war is lost"), that by the time of the next election, there would still be 140,000 US troops in Iraq, and Iraqi civilian deaths would be down by 80%, while US combat deaths per month would be down to low single digits, would have seemed crazy.
 
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