Opinion: Nostradumbass returns, with new bargain predictions!

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So I continue my godawful record on making predictions, especially about the future. New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, subject of my long-ago Democratic-nominee fantasy (expanded and elaborated with even more bad calls here), has dropped out of the race.

I should blame myself, but it’s easier just to blame Bill Richardson. Starting with an armload of positives, he lost no opportunity to make no impression, succeeded again and again in not catching fire and (it can now be told) declined even to generate any enthusiasm from the L.A. Times ed board when he stopped in to see us long ago.

For all that, I thought he would be nuts to drop out before superduper Tuesday, when he might have gotten a California bounce. But given my record of lousy prognostication, maybe I’m the one who’s nuts.

I’m unbowed! Here’s a new prediction: By the time I’m 50, a NASA astronaut will have been taken to the International Space Station in a private vehicle. (If that seems too wild, consider this: I once believed that by the time I was 50 people would be travelling to Jupiter on a semi-regular basis.)

Sayonara, Bill. I’d say you’ve let me down, but as the Cavanaughs page at HuffPost’s campaign-donor database makes clear, I never actually gave you anything.

Update! Richardson camp denies he’s pulling out! I take it all back! Stick with my original predictions. I mean my other predictions, the ones where I turn out to be right.