{"id":5753,"date":"2011-09-01T01:05:29","date_gmt":"2011-09-01T08:05:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/?p=5753"},"modified":"2011-09-01T01:05:29","modified_gmt":"2011-09-01T08:05:29","slug":"13-keys-predict-an-obama-win","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/2011\/09\/01\/13-keys-predict-an-obama-win\/","title":{"rendered":"13 Keys Predict an Obama Win"},"content":{"rendered":"

Polls that have Barrack Obama in a dead heat with potential Republican opponents has many supporters deeply worried.  However, several years in the public opinion business taught me that polls are meaningless until the last six months before an election, and only slightly meaningful until the last couple weeks.  However there is an American University professor who has developed a prediction method he calls the 13 Keys, and Allan Lichtman has used it to accurately predict the outcome of every Presidential election since 1984.  He has never missed.<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\"1keys\"…The college professor developed his system back in 1981 and published the rather basic formula in his book, The Keys to the White House. Basically, the "keys" test the recent performance of the party that is currently in the White House; according to US News, if six or more of them go against the party in power, then the opposing party can start picking out the bands they want at the inaugural ball.<\/p>\n

"The keys have figured into popular politics a bit," Lichtman says. "They\u2019ve never missed. They\u2019ve been right seven elections in a row. A number that goes way beyond statistical significance in a record no other system even comes close to."<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s a brief rundown of how Lichtman scores Obama on the 13 criteria:<\/p>\n

1) Incumbent party picks up seats in preceding mid-term. Point Republicans.<\/p>\n

2) There is no serious challenger for the incumbent party nomination. Point Obama.<\/p>\n

3) The incumbent party candidate is the sitting president. Point Obama.<\/p>\n

4) There is no significant third party challenger. Point Obama.<\/p>\n

5) The economy is not in a recession during the election campaign<\/strong>. Push (Lichtman declares this one \u201cundecided.\u201d)<\/p>\n

6) Real per capita economic growth during the past term is at least equal to mean growth during the previous two terms. Point Republicans.<\/p>\n

7) The incumbent administration pushes through major national policy changes. Point Obama.<\/p>\n

8) There is no sustained social unrest during the previous term<\/strong>. Point Obama.<\/p>\n

9) The incumbent administration has no major scandals. Point Obama.<\/p>\n

10) The incumbent administration suffers no major foreign\/military affairs failure<\/strong>. Point Obama.<\/p>\n

11) The incumbent administration achieves a major success in foreign\/military affairs. Point Obama.<\/p>\n

12) The incumbent party candidate is charismatic<\/strong>. Point Republicans.<\/p>\n

13) The challenging party candidate is not charismatic or a national hero. Point Obama.<\/p>\n

Final score (again, we stress, on Lichtman\u2019s scorecard): 9-3-1, Obama wins\u2026 [emphasis added<\/em>]<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Inserted from <Slate<\/a>><\/p>\n

I highlighted four of the keys because I question Lichtman\u2019s analysis of them.  I don\u2019t see much improvement in the ecomomy, because of Republican obstruction. Social unrest is growing, based on the increase of hate crimes inspired by Republican rhetoric.  Afghanistan is a military failure.  To be sure, it\u2019s Bush\u2019s failure, but Obama assumed ownership of it when he opted to keep it going.  The twelfth should be point Obama, because he is certainly charismatic. So by my reckoning, the score is 8-5.  Obama wins.<\/font><\/p>\n

Lawrence O’Donnell interviewed Professor Lichtman.<\/font><\/p>\n

<\/embed><\/object><\/font><\/p>\n

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news<\/a>, world news<\/a>, and news about the economy<\/a><\/p>\n

I hope he keeps his perfect record.<\/font><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Polls that have Barrack Obama in a dead heat with potential Republican opponents has many supporters deeply worried.  However, several years in the public opinion business taught me that polls are meaningless until the last six months before an election, and only slightly meaningful until the last couple weeks.  However there is an American University […]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5753","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","category-5-id","post-seq-1","post-parity-odd","meta-position-corners","fix"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5753","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5753"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5753\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5753"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5753"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5753"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}