Predicting the Weirdest Campaign Tactics for the 2016 US Presidential Race

As the 2012 US presidential campaign concluded, it was widely regarded as the strangest in living memory, possibly since the late 19th century. The author, a political junkie and professional futurist, notes that reality is catching up with near-future fiction. The article outlines ten predictions for the 2016 race, based on trends observed in 2012. These include campaigns run as infomercials, as demonstrated by Newt Gingrich and Herman Cain; the diminishing role of fact-checking, as stated by Romney pollster Neil Newhouse; the escalation of campaign spending beyond the $6 billion spent in 2012, with the potential for $10 billion-plus campaigns; the shift of controversial ads to online platforms like YouTube and Netflix; increased foreign interventions, citing David Cameron and Bibi Netanyahu; the avoidance of global crises like climate change and the euro crisis; the blending of parody and actual news; the potential for engineered October surprises, such as geoengineering chaos; more intimate microtargeting using personal data; and increasingly absurd data visualizations. The author suggests that these trends could lead to even more surreal and unconventional campaign tactics in 2016.