13 Keys to the Presidency
Posted: Wed Oct 08, 2008 5:05 am
This blog post, which I also linked in Josh's electoral college thread, details a system that has picked the winner of the popular vote in every presidential election since 1984.
Key 1: The Republicans lost seats in the 2006 election.
Key 3: McCain, obviously, is not the sitting president.
Key 6: Long-term economic growth is not keeping up with the average from Bush's first term and Clinton's second term.
Key 7: No major changes in national policy during the past 4 years.
Key 11: No major foreign policy success in the last four years.
Key 12: McCain is not charismatic or a national hero (Being a POW is not enough to turn this key).
Allan Lichtmann, the creator of this system, is actually giving the Democrats seven keys in their favor because he still counts Iraq as a major foreign policy failure. I'm not sure that the success of the surge and the Anbar Awakening hasn't removed the taint of major failure from the Iraq War, so I'm only giving them six. However, six is enough, so that little debate doesn't matter.
Consequences of the Keys
To me, the real value of the Keys isn't even their uncanny ability to predict the outcome of the popular vote (though not the electoral vote; more on that later). The really interesting thing is that analysis of the major themes lying behind the keys gives you a powerful lens for evaluating other American elections.
Some of the major conclusions of the keys system:
In the crazy U.S. institutionalized two-party system, all elections are referenda on the incumbent party. This is important, because media hacks have been arguing since summer that this election is a referendum on Barack Obama, which is nonsense. If you've been screwing up enough as the incumbent party, demonizing the challenger doesn't work.
Media hacks don't know what they're talking about. Okay, you probably know this already, but the keys reinforce it in a really concrete way. Once you're down with the keys system, you can pretty much ignore the campaigns, debates, etc., because they don't matter that much. Also, you don't have to tear your hair out trying to figure out why some campaign tactics work sometimes and fail other times. For example, if you want to know why nasty, divisive conventions, sometimes work for the GOP (2004) and other times don't (1996), it's because the keys were going the Democrats' way in '96 and the Republicans' way in '04.
The electoral college is all that keeps things interesting. The keys predict the winner of the popular vote, but not the electoral vote. Therefore, if you're on the losing side of the keys, you have to try to keep it close and try to win the EC while losing the popular vote. Viewed in this light, McCain's selection of Sarah Palin is particularly disastrous. Her biggest impact on the EC has been to firm up Alaska and Montana in the McCain column. That's right, all she did was solidify states that should have been in the Republican column anyway (and the fact that they weren't tells you what kind of headwind McCain is sailing against). Meanwhile, Biden actually helps Obama out in the key swing state of Pennsylvania.
So basically, Obama is going to win the popular vote, and McCain squandered his one chance to make things interesting by selecting Palin.
Any questions?
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Going through the keys, there are six that are definitely false this year:Martin Gottlieb of the Dayton Daily News wrote:The Keys to the Presidency
By Martin Gottlieb | Friday, October 5, 2007, 04:14 PM
Here are Allan Lichtman’s “13 Keys to the Presidency” (to use the title of his first book on the subject). Refer to the post below for some background.
The keys have been used to correctly predict the outcome of every presidential election since 1984 (though there’s a dispute about 1992). And, applied retroactively, the system also accurately “predicts” the outcome of every presidential election since the Civil War, that is, in the history of the current two-party system, Ds vs. R.
If six or more of the following statements are untrue, the incumbent party is predicted to lose the popular vote.
Key 1 (Party mandate): After the last midterm election, the incumbent party holds more seats in the U.S. House of Representatives than it did after the previous midterm election.
Key 2 (Contest): There is no serious contest for the incumbent-party nomination.
Key 3 (Incumbency):The incumbent-party candidate is the sitting president.
Key 4 (Third party):There is no significant third-party or independent campaign.
Key 5 (Short-term economy):The economy is not in recession during the election campaign.
Key 6 (Long-term economy): per-capita economic growth during the current presidential term equals or exceeds mean growth during the previous two terms.
Key 7 (Policy change):The incumbent administration effects major changes in national policy.
Key 8 (Social unrest):There is no sustained social unrest during the term.
Key 9 (Scandal):The incumbent administration is untainted by major scandal.
Key 10 (Foreign/military failure):The incumbent administration has suffered no major failure in foreign or military affairs.
Key 11 (Foreign/military success):The incumbent administration has achieved a major success in foreign or military affairs.
Key 12 (Incumbent charisma):The incumbent-party candidate is charismatic or a national hero.
Key 13 (Challenger charisma):The challenging-party candidate is not charismatic or a national hero.
Key 1: The Republicans lost seats in the 2006 election.
Key 3: McCain, obviously, is not the sitting president.
Key 6: Long-term economic growth is not keeping up with the average from Bush's first term and Clinton's second term.
Key 7: No major changes in national policy during the past 4 years.
Key 11: No major foreign policy success in the last four years.
Key 12: McCain is not charismatic or a national hero (Being a POW is not enough to turn this key).
Allan Lichtmann, the creator of this system, is actually giving the Democrats seven keys in their favor because he still counts Iraq as a major foreign policy failure. I'm not sure that the success of the surge and the Anbar Awakening hasn't removed the taint of major failure from the Iraq War, so I'm only giving them six. However, six is enough, so that little debate doesn't matter.
Consequences of the Keys
To me, the real value of the Keys isn't even their uncanny ability to predict the outcome of the popular vote (though not the electoral vote; more on that later). The really interesting thing is that analysis of the major themes lying behind the keys gives you a powerful lens for evaluating other American elections.
Some of the major conclusions of the keys system:
In the crazy U.S. institutionalized two-party system, all elections are referenda on the incumbent party. This is important, because media hacks have been arguing since summer that this election is a referendum on Barack Obama, which is nonsense. If you've been screwing up enough as the incumbent party, demonizing the challenger doesn't work.
Media hacks don't know what they're talking about. Okay, you probably know this already, but the keys reinforce it in a really concrete way. Once you're down with the keys system, you can pretty much ignore the campaigns, debates, etc., because they don't matter that much. Also, you don't have to tear your hair out trying to figure out why some campaign tactics work sometimes and fail other times. For example, if you want to know why nasty, divisive conventions, sometimes work for the GOP (2004) and other times don't (1996), it's because the keys were going the Democrats' way in '96 and the Republicans' way in '04.
The electoral college is all that keeps things interesting. The keys predict the winner of the popular vote, but not the electoral vote. Therefore, if you're on the losing side of the keys, you have to try to keep it close and try to win the EC while losing the popular vote. Viewed in this light, McCain's selection of Sarah Palin is particularly disastrous. Her biggest impact on the EC has been to firm up Alaska and Montana in the McCain column. That's right, all she did was solidify states that should have been in the Republican column anyway (and the fact that they weren't tells you what kind of headwind McCain is sailing against). Meanwhile, Biden actually helps Obama out in the key swing state of Pennsylvania.
So basically, Obama is going to win the popular vote, and McCain squandered his one chance to make things interesting by selecting Palin.
Any questions?
[/b]