Office Pool 2008
With apologies and thanks to William Safire…
1. The total that Mayor Bloomberg spends on his presidential campaign will be a) $0 b) $500 million c) $1 billion d) $1.5 billion e) $2 billion.
2. The surprise breakout nonfiction bestseller of the year will be a) Natan Sharansky's "Defending Identity" b) Jonathan Mahler's "Hamdan v. Rumsfeld: A Historic Challenge to the President" c) Steven Waldman's "Founding Faith: Providence, Politics, and the Birth of Religious Freedom in America." d) Jonathan Rosen's "The Life of the Skies" e) Jennifer 8. Lee's "The Fortune Cookie Chronicles: Adventures in the World of Chinese Food."
3. On his way out of office, President Bush will pardon a) CIA interrogators b) Conrad Black c) Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno d) the Rev. Al Sharpton.
4. The biggest scandal of the year will involve a) Ambassador Gargano in Vienna b) the Clinton presidential library c) Senator Reid's Nevada land dealings d) Communist Chinese espionage in America e) Alan Hevesi's dealings as sole trustee of the New York State Common retirement fund, newly unearthed by Attorney General Cuomo.
5. Governor Spitzer's biggest accomplishment of the year will be a) reviving the moribund Republican Party of New York as a force opposing him b) using his take-no-prisoners prosecutorial tactics to force a mysterious resignation of his main rival for Democratic dominance in Albany, Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver c) appointing Rep. Charles Rangel as New York's first black senator to replace President Hillary Clinton, only to see Mr. Rangel turn down the job to remain in his more powerful post as chairman of the Ways and Means Committee. d) Making tort reform as the centerpiece of a bold plan to rein in malpractice premiums for the state's doctors, and thereby betraying the trial lawyers who funded his gubernatorial campaign.
6. The biggest story of the Beijing Olympics will be a) pro-democracy demonstrations on the streets brutally crushed by Chinese officials b) a steroids scandal eliminating top Western athletes c) pollution slowing performance of athletes in track and outdoor endurance sports so that not a single world or Olympic record is set. d) China winning the medal competition with America and Russia, asserting itself as a world sports superpower on its home turf e) Mass defections of Cuban and North Korean athletes to the American embassy in Beijing.
7. The dictator who will no longer be in office at the end of 2008 is a) Bashar Assad of Syria b) Fidel Castro of Cuba c) Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran d) King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia.
8. The winner of the bid for the railyards on the West Side of Manhattan will be a) Related, in a victory for its anchor tenant News Corp. and its chief executive Rupert Murdoch, and one last demonstration of Related chief Stephen Ross's clout with Daniel Doctoroff. b) Tishman Speyer and its anchor tenant Morgan Stanley, in a sign that the financial industry still rules New York. c) Vornado and Durst, making Vornado the king of the West Side, given its plans for the nearby Farley Post Office-Madison Square Garden-Penn Station-Moynihan Station site, and in a demonstration that the team's anchor tenant, Condé Nast, and its chief S.I. Newhouse Jr., are not to be denied.
9. The Democratic vice presidential nominee will be a) Governor Phil Bredesen of Tennessee, a centrist white Southern male chosen by Senator Clinton to balance the ticket and reassure voters worried about a first woman president b) Vice President Gore, a centrist white Southern male chosen by Senator Obama to reassure voters worried about his lack of foreign policy gravitas and Washington experience. c) Governor Ted Strickland of Ohio, an ordained minister chosen by Senator Clinton to counter Governor Huckabee at the top of the Republican ticket and to capture Ohio's electoral votes for the Democrats.
10. The Republican vice presidential nominee will be a) Senator Frist, chosen by Governor Romney to smooth relations with Capitol Hill and send the message that the Romney administration will make health-care reform its top priority. b) Senator Lieberman, chosen by Senator McCain in an effort to wrest the independent vote away from Mayor Bloomberg. c) Condoleezza Rice, chosen by Governor Romney in an effort to defuse the excitement of having a black or a woman at the top of the Democratic ticket. d) Christopher Cox, chosen by Mayor Giuliani in an effort to win California and smooth relations with conservatives and with Capitol Hill.
11. The dominant issue in the presidential race will be a) terrorism, driven by a spate of deadly terrorist attacks in Western Europe and an Iranian a-bomb test b) the economy, driven by a 10% drop in the S&P 500 index and a quarter of negative U.S. GDP growth c) Judicial appointments, driven by the sudden death of a Supreme Court justice and President Bush's inability to win confirmation of a replacement in a Democrat-dominated Senate, as well as the opportunity the issue has to expose the gaps in the record of independent presidential candidate Mayor Bloomberg d) trade and China, driven by a spate of fatalities traceable to contaminated imported toys or food.
Send your picks by 5 p.m. December 31 to editor@nysun.com. Entrants will be judged at the sole discretion of the Sun.
