Brain Fertilizer: Prediction

September 17, 2004

Back in Dec-Jan or so, I said that if Howard Dean won the nomination, President Bush would win with 60% of the vote. I further blustered my way to a ridiculous assertion that if John F. Kerry (who seemed to be the absolute worst candidate this side of Cynthia McKinney) won the nomination, W would win with 65% of the vote.

I didn't really repeat that ridiculous assertion much after I made it, but I never retracted it, either.

With a little under 6 weeks to go until the election, I figured that as the Old Media support propping up Kerry's candidacy crumbles, this would be a good time to mention it again. It's seeming more and more possible all the time. In fact, if President Bush gets 62.5+% of the vote, I'm claiming prescience.

You heard it here first. Feel free to laugh.*

*But while laughing, check out Tradesports.com and their current standing for the election:

Presidential Election 
Bush 63.8 
Kerry 36.2

Posted by Nathan at 03:36 PM | Comments (7)

Comments

Rasmussen has Bush at 49, Kerry at 46.

Posted by: Jo at September 17, 2004 03:48 PM

Yes, I know.

Polls are not necessarily reliable, and have been getting worse because of the problems created by cellphones, answering machines, caller ID, consumer disgust, partisan leading questions, "push" polls, etc.

Which isn't to say the trading futures are any more accurate, but they do have the additional point of being people actually willing to put their own money up, and so perhaps a better indicator of more people looking at more factors with more experience and insight. Not necessarily significant, no, but you could make an argument that the futures are more accurate than polls.

Posted by: Nathan at September 17, 2004 03:54 PM

Now that's a --Rasputin-- poll that'll have Tsars getting nervous in their graves.

Posted by: Blogbat at September 18, 2004 02:10 AM

Congress.org has Bush at 54.3% and Kerry at 44.7%.

This is a site where you can get good information regarding all politicians, locate your local representatives, see who's running, etc. I would put a bit more stock in this poll because I assume the people who went through this much effort on a site such as this are probably much more likely to vote.

You should sign up if you've not already.

Posted by: Sharp as a Marble at September 18, 2004 08:12 AM

However, the Electoral Votes have Kerry at 303 and Bush at 235.

Now, can you imagine Kerry winning the election with only 44.7% of the popular votes? I'm willing to bet it won't be so important to the left any more while many on the right would all of a sudden find the Word of God in the popular vote.

Posted by: Sharp as a Marble at September 18, 2004 08:16 AM

I'm not sure if the "vote pledges" are more accurate, because, well, if people don't know about the website, they can't participate, so there's a big problem with population sampling.
I guess that's true of the Futures Trading/Betting, too, except that in the case of vote pledging, you are just putting in your one vote. But in the betting, it is people who study the issues, study the momentum, study the trends and the way the press is handling things and the candidates are handling adversity, and then making a wager as to who is going to win. So maybe it can't translate into a percentage, per se....but I still will be very interested to see what the final result in Bush's victory will be.

Posted by: Nathan at September 18, 2004 08:44 AM

And I have come up with yet ANOTHER new way to Fisk: blog-tooning, with links. To check it out, click on my link.

Posted by: Alec Rawls at September 18, 2004 05:54 PM

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