Keys To The White House

[Solitaire]

Trump Is Headed For A Win, Says Professor by Peter W. Stevenson

Based on the 13 keys, it would predict a Donald Trump victory.
Remember, six keys and you're out, and right now the Democrats are out — for sure — five keys.

Key 1 is the party mandate — how well they did in the midterms. They got crushed.
Key number 3 is, the sitting president is not running. Key number 7, no major policy change in Obama's second term like the Affordable Care Act.
Key number 11, no major smashing foreign policy success.
And Key number 12, Hillary Clinton is not a Franklin Roosevelt.

I've got a bad feeling about this.

 

[phiwum]

I've got a bad feeling about this.

Eh, it's a little bit of observation, with a pretty good string of predictions, but not what any sensible person would call a scientific analysis, I think.

That said, I'm not at all comfortable about where things are. That Trump has a real shot at the presidency is a bloody shame.

 

[Ladewig]

I've got a bad feeling about this.

The article explicitly states that what has been true for many elections may not apply to this election because it so different. The article then lists a dozen major differences between this campaign and every other campaign in the history of the country.

There might be reason to be scared, but these keys should not be a major component of such fear.

ETA
https://xkcd.com/1122/

That should help a lot.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

The article explicitly states that what has been true for many elections will not apply to this election because it so different. The article then lists a dozen major differences between this campaign and every other campaign in the history of the country.

There might be reason to be scared, but these keys should not be a major component of such fear.

ETA
https://xkcd.com/1122/

That should help a lot.

This ^. Not to mention the guy's prediction was made back in May, and he's not doing anything to update his 'methodology'. It amounts to picking some correlations and as long as not much changes you have relative success.

Interview in May, they say is updated but it's not clear what was updated.

LICHTMAN: Donald Trump has made this the most difficult election to assess since 1984. We have never before seen a candidate like Donald Trump, and Donald Trump may well break patterns of history that have held since 1860.

We've never before seen a candidate who's spent his life enriching himself at the expense of others. He's the first candidate in our history to be a serial fabricator, making up things as he goes along. Even when he tells the truth, such as, "Barack Obama really was born in the U.S.," he adds two lines, that Hillary Clinton started the birther movement, and that he finished it, even though when Barack Obama put out his birth certificate, he didn't believe it. We've never had a candidate before who not just once, but twice in a thinly disguised way, has incited violence against an opponent. We've never had a candidate before who's invited a hostile foreign power to meddle in American elections. We've never had a candidate before who's threatened to start a war by blowing ships out of the water in the Persian Gulf if they come too close to us. We've never had a candidate before who has embraced as a role model a murderous, hostile foreign dictator. Given all of these exceptions that Donald Trump represents, he may well shatter patterns of history that have held for more than 150 years, lose this election even if the historical circumstances favor it.

 

[phiwum]

The article explicitly states that what has been true for many elections may not apply to this election because it so different. The article then lists a dozen major differences between this campaign and every other campaign in the history of the country.

There might be reason to be scared, but these keys should not be a major component of such fear.

ETA
https://xkcd.com/1122/

That should help a lot.

You put it a lot better than I did.

 

[CapelDodger]

That said, I'm not at all comfortable about where things are. That Trump has a real shot at the presidency is a bloody shame.

It's a bloody fiasco.

Way to restore faith in the political process, people.

 

[CapelDodger]

The article explicitly states that what has been true for many elections may not apply to this election because it so different. The article then lists a dozen major differences between this campaign and every other campaign in the history of the country.

There are worse ways to fill column-inches (boy, does that date me). The Kardashians, for instance, or the latest amazing research on dowsing.

There might be reason to be scared, but these keys should not be a major component of such fear.

Quite.

https://xkcd.com/1122/

That should help a lot.

230 years of column-inches being filled. Excellent. (They're called cms these days, pronounced "semms", for column centimetres. Brexit will fix that. )

 

[CapelDodger]

LICHTMAN: Donald Trump has made this the most difficult election to assess since 1984. We have never before seen a candidate like Donald Trump, and Donald Trump may well break patterns of history that have held since 1860.

Why 1860? Apart from, you know, that? Is it that before 1860 candidates' hairpieces were even less convincing?

 

[plague311]

I thought I had read somewhere that he had already previously said that Hillary was going to win, but I can't find the article now so it might have been complete BS

 

[ddt]

Why 1860? Apart from, you know, that? Is it that before 1860 candidates' hairpieces were even less convincing?

My guess would be that since 1860, the same two parties have dominated the US political landscape. Even though they've morphed quite a bit since then in their outlooks.