Barry Smith - In the Loop

As I take a break from my year-end vacation to blog a little, I think back to a lot of the changes that occurred during 2010.

There are the political changes that occurred, both in North Carolina and across the United States.

There were a lot of changes that took place for me too. For a little bit more than the first half of the year, I spent my working hours doing pretty much what I’d been doing for the past dozen years, covering state government and political news from the state capital. Then, as the end of July approached, it became my job to publish a new political website, M2Mpolitics.com.

This was a challenging role for me, one that caused me to get out of my comfort zone.

One tradition I hope to keep going, however, is taking a look at what I see in store for the new year. And, correspondingly, as it becomes time to change the calendar, look back at the previous year and grade myself.

Today, I’ll review how well I did during my predictions for 2010.

1. I said Republicans would take the U.S. House. I was right. Credit me with 10 points.

2. I predicted that Democrats would retain a majority in the U.S. Senate, though Republicans would make gains. At the first of the year, this was a no-brainer. The fact that during the political season pundits were even talking about the possibility of a GOP takeover was mind-boggling. I get another 10 points.

3. I said that U.S. Sen. Richard Burr, R-N.C., would go back to Washington, but only after winning the political fight of his life. Yes, he won, but no, it wasn’t as big of a fight as I thought it’d be. I’m a tough grader, so I won’t even give myself half credit here.

4. I correctly predicted that voters would give Republicans a majority in the N.C. Senate. Give me another 10 points.

5. I incorrectly predicted that Democrats would maintain a majority in the N.C. House and that Speaker Joe Hackney, D-Orange, would be poised to lead a Democratic majority. Hackney will lead Democrats, but he’ll be their minority leader.

6. I predicted that Congress would deliver President Obama a political victory by passing a health insurance bill. Congress did. I’ll take that 10 points.

7. I correctly predicted that Congress would fail in its attempt to pass sweeping immigration reform. This is beginning to sound like a broken record, and will probably be a safe bet next year. I’ll accept the 10 points for this one.

8. I’ll also take 10 points for correctly predicting that Gov. Bev Perdue would convince N.C. Supreme Court justices to keep life-termers behind bars.

9. I was wrong on my March Madness prediction, which included a remark that no North Carolina team would make the Final Four.

10. And my biggest prediction that went awry had to do with the Carolina Panthers. I said they’d rebound and make the playoffs. Ha! Their season was disastrous.

If my math is correct, I get 60 points out of a possible 100. I did better, much better, on my political predictions than I did on my sports predictions. Maybe I should stick to politics.