More on the GOP Meltdown
Writing by abuhatem on Saturday, 7 of June , 2008 at 8:47 am
Every few days the nerd in me has to bring up more maps, look at more polls, and give more analysis concerning the 2008 race. Sorry, its an election year and American politics is my passion. Presidential elections without an incumbent in either party are the World Cup of political junkies.
I read an interesting article two days ago by the usually horrible Mort Kondrake who quoted political scientist Allan Abramowitz (known for his excellent early 90s work on Senate elections!), who said that Obama had extremely good odds in 2008. What interested me most about it is it quoted the one work that I have had in mind all cycle - Allan Lichtman’s Keys to the Presidency who’s formula has been right for every single presidential election in the past 15 cycles.
Litchman examines 12 or 13 variables which make presidential elections easy to predict. His work is actually, other than James Caesar’s analysis in Presidential Selection, the absolute best book any political junkie needs for viewing presidential elections.
The Kondrake and Abrowitz articles make clear the chances for an Obama landslide. Kondrake writes:
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…
Professor Alan Abramowitz of Emory University has developed an “electoral barometer” based on just three variables for predicting election outcomes, and it suggests that McCain is all but certainly set to lose this year.
In an article last week on University of Virginia professor Larry Sabato’s Crystal Ball Web site, Abramowitz declared that “it appears very likely that the Republican party is dealing with the dreaded ‘triple whammy’ in 2008: an unpopular president, a weak economy and a second-term election.”
Abramowitz has tracked the effect of those variables on the last 15 presidential elections and found that they accurately predicted the popular vote outcome in 14 and came close in the 15th.
The formula adds the incumbent president’s net approval rating (approval minus disapproval), the second-quarter election-year GDP growth rate multiplied by five (emphasizing the importance of the economy) and then (factoring in time-for-a-change sentiment) subtracts 25 points if the in-party is finishing a second term.
Bush’s net approval now stands at minus 40. The first-quarter growth rate was 0.6 percent and Bush is finishing eight years, meaning that this year’s electoral barometer currently stands at minus 62.
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.”
With oil prices yesterday reaching $138 a barrel, unemployment now at 5.5% which was a major spike, inflation higher than ever, and economic growth in fractional percentage points, a recession seems likelier than ever. Winning in a recession is hard enough. Winning in a recession with 8 years of republican rule and a president at 20% approval is something else. And with a charming candidate like Obama who mirrors the Gipper in his eloquence next to the absolutely horrid speaker of John McCain, the choice looks easy.
Abrowitz’s article adds graphical anlaysis, and argues that:
The Electoral Barometer has predicted the winner of the popular vote in 14 of the 15 presidential elections since World War II. There were five elections in which the Electoral Barometer was negative and the president’s party lost the popular vote in all five of these elections: 1952, 1960, 1976, 1980, and 1992. There were ten elections in which the Electoral Barometer was positive, and the president’s party won the popular vote in nine of these elections: 1948, 1956, 1964, 1972, 1984, 1988, 1996, 2000, and 2004.
The only election in which the Electoral Barometer did not accurately predict the winner of the popular vote was 1968. In that year the Electoral Barometer was barely positive at +2 and the candidate of the incumbent party, Hubert Humphrey, lost the popular vote by less than one percentage point.
The information required to calculate the final Electoral Barometer score for 2008 will not be available until August when the federal government releases its estimate of real GDP growth during the second quarter of 2008. However, it appears very likely that the Republican Party is dealing with the dreaded “triple whammy” in 2008: an unpopular president, a weak economy, and a second term election. Based on President Bush’s net approval rating in the most recent Gallup Poll (-39), the annual growth rate of the economy during the first quarter of 2008 (+0.6 percent), and the fact that the Republican Party has controlled the White House for the past eight years, the current Electoral Barometer reading is a dismal -63.
An Electoral Barometer reading of -63 would predict a decisive defeat for the Republican presidential candidate.
I have been thinking about Litchman’s barometer all cycle, and it appears that an Obama win is eminent.
In others news, the GOP is also seeing a meltdown in Congress. Is this the Great Depression FDR “New Deal” landslide all over again? The National Journal’s Cook Political Report gives the following updated odds:
With these changes, the GOP occupies 21 of the 27 seats now listed in the Toss Up column.
CA-04- OPEN (Doolittle)- Solid Republican to Likely Republican
CO-04- Marilyn Musgrave- Lean Republican to Toss Up
CT-04- Chris Shays- Lean Republican to Toss Up
IL-10- Mark Kirk- Lean Republican to Toss Up
NM-02- OPEN (Pearce)- Likely Republican to Lean Republican
NY-29- Randy Kuhl- Lean Republican to Toss Up
NC-08- Robin Hayes- Lean Republican to Toss Up
OH-01- Steve Chabot- Lean Republican to Toss Up
VA-02- Thelma Drake- Likely Republican to Lean Republican
WA-08- Dave Reichert- Lean Republican to Toss Up
All of these people on TV saying McCain is going to surprise upset Obama in Pennsylvania or Michigan are just trying to look for an excuse at not predicting an Obama landslide. While state-by-state polls may be close now, nobody ever pays any attention to polls until the months before the election at the very least. The fact of the matter, as I have blogged repeatedly, is that Obama landslides in Gore states along with a pick up of Colorado and New Mexico which are very very likely will offset the republican Florida advantage and give Obama the White House.
Category: American Politics
- Add this post to
- Del.icio.us -
- Meneame -
- Digg
No comments yet.
Sorry, the comment form is closed at this time.
