... who will win the presidential election. Again. Allan Lichtman of American University (the headline may be taking liberties with the geography; on Google Maps, the college looks to be a couple of miles away from the river in Washington DC) has a system of 13 keys which has correctly predicted the outcome (with one asterisk; watch the video for an explanation) of every presidential contest since 1984. He's fitted the keys to the locks again to show us what's behind the door for 2020:
NB: I was going to refer to him in the headline as "Nostradamus". And whoever narrates the video calls him Nostradamus. But Nostradamus was a sham and a fraud. This guy seems like the real deal.
Nice record, but even the great Joe DiMaggio's streak ended, partly thanks to two brilliant stops by Ken Keltner. (You can look it up.) I wonder if Trump will bear the usual opprobrium for a lousy economy. Here is a Keltner: Everybody knows the economy looked good (lotta sugar rush) until COVID-19 came along. If Trump gets credit for what it was and a pass for what happened to it, that is one FALSE that becomes TRUE. (I am not inclined to give him a pass because the pandemic didn't have to be as bad as he made it. But the keys don't allow for that kind of nuance.)
ReplyDeleteLichtman himself mentioned a couple of potential Keltners, including voter suppression, which is alive and active. He didn't mention the miracle virus and/or miracle cure, to be announced on Oct. 21 and to be recalled with a "never mind" on Nov. 10, but that is another potential Keltner.
But I like Lichtman's approach, most of all, because it puts Teddy Whites "Making of a President" series on the remainders table, where it belongs. Now, if the pundits (I am looking at you, Dominic Montanaro) would just stop trying to be Teddy White, a lot of hot air would be saved -- unless they all try to become Allan Lichtman.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IwHMO-XSj3Q
You made me look, Tom. Look up who Sondheim was, that is. Hate to admit I didn't know.
DeleteKatherine, When I was a tot I wanted to a) write columns and editorials, b) review theater and c) cover baseball. I managed two out of three. Jim's post reminded me of White, who always reminds me of the Sondheim song, and, voila! this morning I am three for three.
DeleteAbout voter suppression, I hear this morning that Trump is advising Floridians to vote by mail. What even the heck?? Had you heard anything about that? Maybe he's finally figuring out that a lot of Republicans vote by mail. After he kneecapped the USPS.
DeleteCute song, Tom.:-). I know who Sondheim is, but now I need to look up Alan Chapman.
DeleteKatherine, re: Trump's 180 on mail-in ballots: he fired his campaign manager a week or two ago (probably a good move), so I think some of these reversals are related to new campaign advice. He's also appeared a few times in public wearing masks. None of this will be enough to undo the damage of being unserious about the pandemic for its first critical six months.
DeleteI think probably Gov. Fumbles got to him. While The Don has been hollering "Mail Fraud," Florida Republicans have been deluged with phone calls and emails from their party to -- vote by mail. The Rs lately have had a 50,000 vote advantage in mail-ins in Florida, so they like it.
DeleteGov Fumbles says "we," unlike the unnamed "they," don't send mail ballots willy-nilly to everybody. The Don seems to think we are the only state in which you have to ask for a ballot. For the primary, week after next, 330,000 out of 991,000 registered voters in Palm Beach County have obtained mail ballots. So far.
Well, I was relieved to see that a political "earthquake" is predicted by the six falses on his quiz. But I would feel a lot better if there were more falses.
ReplyDeleteI like the Lincoln quote that the best way to predict the future is to choose it. But that depends on who is doing the choosing. I have misgivings about a lot of the choosers.
Well, Jim, AU is indeed a couple of miles from the river. But DC IS on the river. Close enough.
ReplyDeleteGod, I almost switched it off when I had to listen about human steeplechase.
ReplyDeleteI think there's enough wiggle room in interpreting his keys--each of them likely have a large number of criteria--that his method isn't as solid or simple as it looks.
There is basically one key: Are Americans thinking in terms of ME or US, and which candidate most appeals to that?
We are in a ME phase right now:
--There is little concern for global issues, and distrust of outsiders is high; few people care of America is seen as a global team player
--There is a focus on individual finances and rights vs the welfare of all (my income, my taxes, my debt, my guns, my family, my business, my stuff) that will show up in greater income inequality, homelessness, morbidity and mortality rates, personal bankrupcies, etc.
--Interest in funding big infrastructure projects or public works that would foster civic pride is low
--Interest in funding exploration/pursuit of knowledge that would showcase the nation's collective expertise is low; going to Mars is too expensive and stupid, just a bunch of red rocks
--People are more concerned with MY kid's education than shoring up public education
--People seek comfort in the familiar and in echo chambers where MY ideas don't have to be challenge
Nobody is a more ME candidate than Trump, so I'm calling it for him.
75% of Americans want everybody masked. That is one thing all red-blooded Americans can do together. And the other 25% are nanny-nanny boo-boo.
DeleteI think this varies widely by area, Tom. And my guess is that a lot of he 75 percent think masks are a good idea in theory, but make little real effort to comply. If they forget a mask they won't bother to go home and get one.
DeleteJean - I didn’t watch the video. Just googled his name and got the two sentence summary.
ReplyDeleteAs usual, your summary of the situation in the US is right on. Sadly, I too think trump is likely to be re-elected.
In the world of professional football, the Chicago Bears were in the Super Bowl back in 2007 against the Indianapolis Colts. As part of the hoopla during the week leading up to the game, one of the local talk-radio guys produced an expert who had not 13 but 30 keys to predicting the outcome of the Super Bowl. The track record for this 30-key system was unblemished. The expert walked us listeners through his 30 keys, just like Lichtman does in the video above. The Bears had the advantage in something like 23 of the 30. I believe the Bears were the betting underdog, but on the basis of the Bears' dominance in these keys, this expert urged everyone to fly out to Vegas and place a wager.
ReplyDeleteThe Colts ended up winning, and it really wasn't very close. They had Peyton Manning, while we had some other guy at quarterback who emphatically wasn't Peyton Manning. The other 29 keys, it turns out, didn't really matter very much.
Donald Trump sucks as a president. I don't need 13 keys to figure that out.
And that was even before Jay Cutler!
Delete"Donald Trump sucks as a president. I don't need 13 keys to figure that out." Jim, Amen to that! I think even some of the "me" people can figure out that having Trump turn the place into a third world quasi-dictatorship isn't going to benefit them.
DeleteYou can think the Trump presidency sucks all you want. It's where he electorate as a whole is at and who votes. All the muddled messages are attempts to discourage voting, if not obstruct it outright.
DeleteI went to.my hair styling salon this morning for the first time since the quarantine. Decided I didn't want to do another hack-it-myself job. Anyway the stylist I got likes to talk about politics. I know her from church, and my eyes started to roll when she said that Rush Limbaugh said all these Covid statistics are an exaggeration, because people die from all kinds of causes all the time, and they're blaming it on Covid because they hate Trump. I started to try and explain how mortality statistics are arrived at. But then I thought, I don't have the time or patience for this. So I just said, "I don't like to talk about politics. How are your grandchildren?" It worked, she has a bunch of grandkids, and I didn't have to listen to any more politics .
ReplyDeleteThe one good thing about being stuck at home is that I haven't seen any of the usual dittoheads since March 19.
DeleteTom, you may find that your tolerance for idiots really dwindles during your home time. I am a Type A control freak by nature, and hearing b.s. and seeing idiots bugs me more when I do venture out.
DeleteJean, Living in Florida I don't expect to get out much before the fall of 2021. By your reckoning, I should be murderous by then.
DeleteDon't know about you. You probably know how to pray and offer it up. I may not make it to Thanksgiving without having bludgeoned some meatless eedjit with my Hurrycane.
Delete*maskless
DeleteI think the presidential election will come down to Trump vs. the Virus, and that Trump loses.
ReplyDeleteThink of all the families with elderly members who lost their lives, or had serious episodes or simply live in fear of the virus. Think of all the people whose work lives have been disrupted. Think of all the families whose childcare and kids schooling has been disrupted. There are a lot of people who are going to end up saying to themselves that all this did not have to happen, that Trump could have done better.
My simple election theory is the we choose the least of two evils. People did not choose Lyndon Johnson, they were more afraid of Barry Goldwater. At the time people said it was the end of the Republican party. A lot of people are going to say that Trump is just too much.
His problem is that he always wants to be at the center of attention, and that he really cannot do much about the virus. It is not going away by November, and there will not be a vaccine by then. And people now understand that Trump lies constantly so his promises about these things mean nothing.
Jack, I think your "lesser of two evils" theory is as valid as any. Hard to imagine how people could think of Trump as the lesser of two evils. But the single issue voters will do it, they'll say, "At least he's not a baby-killer".
DeleteKatherine, you also will hear "socialism" a lot from those who think Trump is the lesser of two evils.
DeleteDemocrats are not doing themselves any favors by being cowed by PC fanatics. I heard Loyola U expunged Flannery O'Connor's name from a building or something. Her racial attitudes underwent a lot of adjustment, but apparently did not achieve adequate levels of purity before she died. This is not far off from what HUAC did, scour people's past for any whiff of Com-Symp and then ruin their reputations.
Today Gov. Whitmer of Michigan declared racism a public health crisis and is requiring all state workers to undergo implicit bias testing and education. There are certainly ethnic disparities in health care and public safety that should be addressed now. But hauling everyone offline to make them submit to rinky-dink sensitivity seminars (if these bear any resemblance to the idiotic training we had to take every few years where I was teaching) strikes me as poor prioritizing.
Jack, Funny you should mention LBJ because that was the last time I voted happily for a winner instead of voting for the lesser of two evils.
DeleteYeah, I couldn't believe the thing about Flannery O'Connor. Apparently nowadays you have to qualify for canonization. Oh, wait a minute. Just because you got canonized doesn't mean they're not going to pull down your statue.
DeleteI don't know if there are statues of LBJ anywhere (perhaps depicting him sitting on a pot?) but if so, I'd fully expect today's iconoclasts to target him, too.
DeleteY'all too young to remember LBJ before the presidency, butin 1960 he was the Yee-haw Democrats' choice vs the uppity New Englander who couldn't pronounced Africer, Asier and Latin Americer. But I had a long talk in 1960 with a former governor, former senator of the Southern persuasion, who knew Lyndon well. He was pro-LBJ, but he had reservations, and it was his reservations about LBJ that convinced me he'd make a good president.
DeleteAs for how it turned out, it would have been great without Veet-nam, which he inherited. His tenure has always reminded me of a cartoon in Baseball Digest circa 1949: A pitcher is sitting on the rubbing table talking to the trainer, and the pitcher is saying, "One bad pitch. One bad pitch, Doc, and twelve runs score."
About all I remember from the elecction in 1960 was that my parents were Goldwater supporters. Dad had a bumper sticker on his pickup, AuH2O.
DeleteGoldwater ran in 1964.
DeleteThat's right, I wasn't thinking. Needless to say my folks didn't support Kennedy, though the sisters in school surely did.
DeleteA person could spend 100% the rest of their life purging prejudice from their mind. And, at the end of their life, having had done nothing to improve the lot of actual black people. At the other end of the spectrum, LBJ, who did so much he didn't have time to purify himself to heavenly perfection.
ReplyDeleteStanley, exactly. We don't have to be perfect to do the right thing.
DeleteI just don't know what the goal of bias testing and training is. Unless you can use Black Ops brainwashing techniques, you aren't going to change hearts and minds. In fact, there is often an unintended backlash and resentment as a result of mandatory programs.
Delete