Predictions are hard, especially when they are about the future.

However, they are one the few reliable means to tests our analytical framework. It is just too tempting to massage either the framework or the data after the fact. To make it look as if you believed something consistent with what actually happened.

My framework for political actions is relatively simple. On the issues that they believe matter politicians of all stripes overwhelming fight for what they believe is right. Of course they are subject to the usual human temptations of aligning our beliefs with what it would be convenient for us to believe, what our friends believe and what high status people believe. Nonetheless, the ideological bent remains dominant.

Health Care clearly matters to most democrats. Therefore, I predict that their votes will remain largely unchanged in the face of the Brown disaster and that indeed, they will find a way to pass some type of reform before the mid-terms.

I don’t think this is in their electoral interests and I believe that many of the realize this. I think, however, that they will pass it anyway. Just as many Republicans stuck to their guns even as it became clear that the war in Iraq was a loosing issue.

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