Conservative Pundit: Empircally and Observationally - We are headed to a historic landslide defeat

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Fri Jun-06-08 02:47 PM
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Conservative Pundit: Empircally and Observationally - We are headed to a historic landslide defeat

This article http://www.centerforpolitics.org/crystalball/article.php?id=AIA2008052901by By Alan I. Abramowitz is currently picking up interest with conservative pundits and is featured today in an article by Kondracke here http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2008/06/mccain_needs_vision_to_beat_hi.html.

Here are the key points

1) Forget the polls at this point they are a poor reflector of General Election performance

Polling data seem to support the conclusion that despite the unpopularity of his party, John McCain has a realistic chance of keeping the White House in Republican hands. McCain has been running neck-and-neck with Obama in most recent national polls. In the May 21st Gallup tracking poll, for example, Obama held a narrow 47 to 44 percent lead over McCain.

The problem with such early horserace polls, however, is that they are not very accurate predictors of the actual election results. Polls in the spring of 1988 showed Michael Dukakis with a comfortable lead over George H.W. Bush and polls in June of 1992 showed Bill Clinton running third behind both Bush and H. Ross Perot. So recent polls showing a close race between McCain and Obama may not tell us much about what to expect in November.

2) Other indicators are more meaningful at this point

Instead of using early horserace polls, political scientists generally rely on measures of the national political climate to make their forecasts. That is because the national political climate can be measured long before the election and it has been found to exert a powerful influence on the eventual results.

Three indicators of the national political climate have accurately predicted the outcomes of presidential elections since the end of World War II: the incumbent president's approval rating at mid-year, the growth rate of the economy during the second quarter of the election year, and the length of time the president's party has held the White House.

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These three factors can be combined to produce an Electoral Barometer score that measures the overall national political climate. The formula for computing this score is simply the president's net approval rating (approval minus disapproval) in the Gallup Poll plus five times the annual growth rate of real GDP minus 25 if the president's party has held the White House for two terms or longer. Mathematically, this formula can be written as:

EB = NAR + (5*GDP) - 25.

In theory, the Electoral Barometer can range from -100 or lower to +100 or higher with a reading of zero indicating a neutral political climate. In practice, Electoral Barometer readings for the fifteen presidential elections since the end of World War II have ranged from -66 in 1980 to +82 in 1964. A positive Electoral Barometer reading generally predicts victory for the incumbent party while a negative reading generally predicts defeat.

3)The author's 'Electoral Barometer' not only accurately forcasts General Election victories but also is very accurate in measureing popular vote margins.

Table 1. Electoral Barometer Readings and Election Results since World War II

Barometer
Reading Year Election Result Popular Vote Margin
82.5 1964 Won 22.6%
73.0 1972 Won 23.2%
71.0 1956 Won 15.4%
51.5 1984 Won 18.2%
43.5 1996 Won 8.5%
22.0 2000 Won* 0.5%
13.0 2004 Won 2.5%
9.0 1988 Won 7.7%
4.5 1948 Won 4.5%
2.0 1968 Lost -0.7%
-5.0 1960 Lost -0.2%
-5.0 1976 Lost -2.1%
-22.5 1992 Lost -5.6%
-49.5 1952 Lost -10.9%
-66.0 1980 Lost -9.7%

4)McCain is facing a 'triple whammy', a negative 63

Following the author's formula it will not be able to process the data until August when the GDP final figures are available.

Here is what the Republicans are facing, the triple whammy:

- unpopular President
- weak economy
- a defacto second term election

Based on today's figures McCain's barometer would equal -63.

That would be the second lowest in history,

An Electoral Barometer reading of -63 would predict a decisive defeat for the Republican presidential candidate. The only election since World War II with a score in this range was 1980. In that election Jimmy Carter suffered the worst defeat for an incumbent president since Herbert Hoover in 1932. The second lowest score, -50, occurred in 1952. That was the last election in which neither the incumbent president, Democrat Harry Truman, nor the incumbent vice-president appeared on the ballot. Nevertheless, the candidate trying to succeed Truman, Democrat Adlai Stevenson, lost in a landslide.

5) The Conservatives may not be looking at our numbers but they are looking at this one.

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2008/06/mccain_needs_vision_to_beat_hi.html

A new scholarly analysis confirms that Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) has to perform miracles to win the 2008 election. So far, he is far short of doing that.

McCain�s speech in Louisiana Tuesday night fell embarrassingly short of matching Sen. Barack Obama�s (D-Ill.) eloquence, vision and delivery � demonstrating the distance McCain has to go to have a chance of winning in November.

If such a number holds, it �would predict a decisive defeat for the Republican presidential candidate,� Abramowitz wrote. �The only election since World War II with a score in this range was 1980,� when �Jimmy Carter suffered the worst defeat for an incumbent president since Herbert Hoover in 1932.�

The second worst occurred in 1952, when Democrat Adlai Stevenson tried to succeed Harry S. Truman with a minus 50 score and lost the popular vote by 11 points to Dwight D. Eisenhower.

The Abramowitz barometer is a short-cut variation on American University professor Allan Lichtman�s famed �13 Keys to the Presidency,� which adds such factors as wars, candidate charisma, scandal and the incumbent party�s performance in off-year elections to the economy and incumbency.

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During Bush�s claimed �small government� years, median income has fallen, the ranks of the uninsured have swelled, debt has mounted and prices have soared.

Voters clearly want �change.� McCain has a long way to go to convince them that his kind is better than Obama�s, even though � on the merits � it may well be.

At the rate things are going, history will repeat itself with a Democratic victory in 2008 and liberal domination of the government until voters change their minds again.

We have arrived at a very strange point. In trying to look forward to prospects in the fall we are finding it a lot easier to find metrics in common with conservative pundits than we did within our own party.

Beyond the academic indicators is the charisma of Senator Obama and the absolutely aggravatingly mindnumbing approach of Senator McCain.

Again from Kondrake:

Against Obama�s positive, eloquent, visionary uplift, McCain offered a negative, weakly delivered alternative that was even half-borrowed from Obama. A sign behind McCain read �A Leader We Can Believe In,� a lift from Obama�s slogan �Change We Can Believe In.�

But he offered no overriding vision to compete with Obama�s soaring, Kennedy-esque declaration, �America, this is our moment ... our time to offer a new direction to the country we love.�

Even though McCain has differed from Bush on Iraq War strategy, detainee policy, energy and climate change, McCain does back Bush policies on taxes, foreign policy, health care and (the environment excepted) free-market solutions to America�s problems.

McCain has nothing to match Obama�s promise to �invest in our crumbling infrastructure� and in human capital � early childhood education, the public schools, college education and scientific research.

To the contrary, McCain plans to curtail �wasteful spending� and freeze all government programs at current levels until he sorts out which work. �Public investment� is not in his vocabulary.

What Change? What Believe in? Talk about Change you can xerox. And all of this is coming from the cheerleaders for McCain.