Joe Scarborough Says He's Betting on an Obama Win (But With Caveats!)

When it comes to the state of the 2012 Presidential race, MSNBC's Joe Scarborough has been emphatically sure of one thing for at least the past month: This race will be close, and straight calls are impossible. Today, on his show, Scarborough finally made a prediction, albeit one that was flush with caveats and hedges that may sound encouraging to its detractors.

Like most of his media compatriots, Scarborough is predicting an Obama win. But unlike those compatriots, Scarborough is making his prediction with a heaping helping of epistemological modesty.

"I've got to say right now, as a practicing politician of 20 years, If I'm betting, I'm betting on the president," Scarborough said, before adding a caveat that will make many conservatives happy.

"If you think about 1980, where every elite in Manhattan and Washington was sure Jimmy Carter was going to win — I don't care what they say now...Nobody saw the Reagan Revolution - nobody saw it coming."

So in other words, from Scarborough's perspective, heads Obama wins, tails it's 1980 all over again.

Conservatives nostalgic for a Reagan-level victory almost certainly don't mind those odds.