Here’s your “why the fuck not?” Thursday link: an American University professor has apparently successfully called the last seven presidential elections, via Slate:
Lichtman says that based on the 13 criteria he has used to correctly forecast every presidential election since Ronald Reagan’s re-election victory in 1984, Team Obama can rest easy. “Even if I am being conservative, I don’t see how Obama can lose,” Lichtman told US News.
First of all, before we go and start shopping for deals on mid-priced California sparkling white wine (patriotism!), we should note that Lichtman brags about the statistical significance of his system elsewhere in the article - and as someone who has taken at least one statistics class in his life, in no model of any kind is seven an acceptable sample size. So there’s that.
Second, several of Lichtman’s criteria are highly subjective. In particular:
8) There is no sustained social unrest during the previous term. Point Obama.
12) The incumbent party candidate is charismatic. Point Republicans.
13) The challenging party candidate is not charismatic or a national hero. Point Obama.
Several more seem entirely inconsequential: 2) There is no serious challenger for the incumbent party nomination. Point Obama. 4) There is no significant third party challenger. Point Obama. Those things never happen. My point about the fungibility of these criteria is that pretty much anyone with twenty minutes to spare could have called the following elections: 1984 - Reagen over Mondale, 525 - 13 1988 - Bush over Dukakis, 426 - 111 1996 - Clinton over Dole, 379 - 159 2004 - Bush over Kerry, 286 - 251 2008 - Obama over McCain, 365 - 173 I’m including Bush over Kerry on the grounds that John Kerry might have been the least inspiring candidate of my lifetime (I was born in ‘84). He’s the Democratic Mitt Romney, decades of experience notwithstanding. Anyways, Lichtman shouldn’t get any kudos for picking those elections. So that leaves us with 1992 (Clinton over Bush) and 2000 (rage). A quick glance at Wikipedia turns up this summary of ‘92: Bush had alienated much of his conservative base by breaking his 1988 campaign pledge against raising taxes, the economy was in a recession, and Bush’s perceived greatest strength,foreign policy, was regarded as much less important following the dissolution of the Soviet Union and the relatively peaceful climate in the Middle East after the defeat of Iraq in the Gulf War. So it may have been amiss of me to not include 92 in the foregone conclusion column. So therefore, the only presidential election of the last seven where the result was not practically a foregone conclusion was 2000. That means Lichtman has come up with a formula, much of which is entirely subjective and can swing either way he wishes it, that has successfully predicted six borderline obvious things and one not. If the Supreme Court was slightly less of a ridiculous institution in 2000, we wouldn’t even be talking about this now. Also, for what it’s worth, we’re eighteen goddamn months away from the election. The most important thing to glean from this is that Lichtman is obviously very proud about his streak, and taking into account the previous paragraph, one could question why he’d put his beloved formula on the line so soon. The obvious answer is that since the the Republican Party is going to end up nominating Mitt Romney, who is quite possibly the blandest human being in existence, Lichtman felt confident throwing it out there this early (during a slow news cycle) to get some press. Why Romney, you ask? Well, here’s your current poll numbers: Perry: 24.2 Romney: 17 Palin: 10.6 Bachmann: 9.3 Giuliani: 8.3 Yes, I’m stopping the list just before Ron Paul to piss Paul supporters off, because that’s one of my favorite pastimes. First of all, it’s fun to note that almost 1 in 5 Republicans support candidates that are not only widely reviled and unelectable but who are also not running for president. Google “Giuliani 2012” and you come up with hits scattered across the last six months that breathlessly announce that The Rudemeister is about to jump into the race. Google “Palin 2012” and Sarah Palin asks you for money. This leaves us with a group of far-right wingnuts prone to saying embarrassingly stupid things and Mitt Romney. Eventually, the far-right wingnut vote will split too many ways and the the GOP will sigh dispiritedly, pour themselves a tall glass of Canadian Club, and nominate Mittens. Sure, they’d rather have the fat guy or the “economist” who is not very good at math,* but that’s not going to happen. Finally, do you think Lichtman is a little peeved that Slate went with a picture of Obama instead of him? Smart money goes on yes. * Nothing gets 19centuryman’s goat more than any news outlet that feels compelled to refer to Paul Ryan as an economist. He has a degree in economics from Miami of Ohio. He’s worked for the Republican party ever since. He has never been employed as an economist. He does not have the academic credentials to call himself one (in his defense, I don’t think he does). His one contribution to the world of economics, as Krugman points out in the link above, was a colossal failure that not only failed to cut the budget deficit (and did the opposite), but also raised taxes on 95% of Americans and gutted Medicare and Medicaid. The Roadmap for America is almost beautiful in its stupidity. For some reason, pointing any of this out is uncouth. The Weekly Standard even went so far as to declare that Krugman “conceded defeat” in his battle with Paul Ryan after he, being a person with two rather important jobs and a personal life, got tired of arguing whether Ryan was a manipulative con man or just incompetent.
