An ally! Really?
I’ve taken so ludicrously, shamefully long to respond to a couple of posts (DAY JOBS!!) that I have decided to do so in new posts, rather than hope people are still checking for comments after old posts.
I’ll copy the post I’m responding to here, then respond.
Here’s one:
I want to commend you for being so adamant about Lichtman’s system, but I warn you not to expect many to listen. I’ve been a fan of the system since I read the book in ‘92, and have advocated for it on blogs across the Internet. But I can’t tell you the number of times people have either utterly ignored the points, or tried to rebut them with irrelevancies or falsehoods. Thanks to the ignorant press, many out there truly believe elections have turned on Reagan saying “There you go again”, the Weinberger indictment in ‘92, the swift-boaters, the DUI of 2000 (which is said to have been the only thing that prevented a Bush landslide)
I’m sure you know of Occam’s Razor — which is frequently mis-stated as “the simplest explanation is probably correct”, but is actually “When considering an issue, cut away all but things that are truly relevant”. I’d say no profession is more disdainful of Occam than political punditry, which spends the vast bulk of its time on things that aren’t germane in the least.
In a way, I’m glad about this election, which may finally put the lie to the media contention that Willie Horton and Boston Harbor torpedoed an otherwise completely electable Michael Dukakis. The GOP is clearly planning to run the precise same campaign this year — with media assistance — but the Keys circumstances are so wildly different that the result is certain to be the opposite. How will our press corps justify themselves in that aftermath?
By the way, how many Keys do you see ultimately falling this year? The only ones I see as clearly staying up for the GOP are third-party and social unrest. Scandal is probably not quite bad enough to fall, though Scooter Libby, Alberto Gonzales and heckuva-job Brownie push it into gray area. And incumbent party contest is devilishly hard to pinpoint. Surely McCain’s nomination was half-hearted and achieved solely through the combo of split right-wing votes and winner-take-all primaries. But McCain may top Lichtman’s 2/3 delegate standard.
The rest, though — mandate, incumbency, short and long term economy (technically not a recession yet, but tell the public that), policy change, foreign policy disaster and lack of success, incumbent non-charisma and challenger charisma (yes, I assume Obama) — this is one of the surest elections in American history. (If you tilt either contest or scandal against the GOP, it’s 10 negatives, the most in all the years Lichtman surveys)
Once again, thanks for taking up the standard of intelligent election coverage. At least some of us are on your team.
END
RESPONSE:
Wow! A believer. How exciting. I don’t think I know any others, except for Lichtman. I know a few people who see Lichtman as having a point. But as to real believers, I don’t think so.
As for frustration, tell me about it.
I love the points you make about Willie Horton, Swift Boats and all that. You are completely right.
I have been writing about this subject since 1986. For a while, my column got some national distribution (because the New York Times Wire distributes columns from the Cox wire. Cox is the chain that owns the Dayton Daily News, site of the aforementioned day job. To this day, when I have a Lichtman related column, I put it out on the wires.
Some readers, at least in Dayton, have picked up on the subject. I am identified locally with this subject more than any other. It’s an icebreaker in conversation. People I know and don’t know ask me about the latest prediction.
But as for journalists, forget about it. Nothing.
I finally got so frustrated, I wrote a book. And, trust me, that means REALLY frustrated, because I’m not a guy who likes to go home from a day of writing and start writing.
Then I couldn’t get the book published. I’ll let others decide whether that was because of the quality of the book, which is mention at the top of this blog and still available, because I self-published it.
Then I failed completely to get reviewers to pay any attention to the book.
Completely.
And yet, the fight goes on.
(But perhaps you can see why sometimes I’m a little slow about posting.)
We should keep in touch and exchange notes. Thanks for writing.
As for this year’s keys: At this stage, Lichtman is only calling seven against the Republicans:
House seats moving in D direction;
no incumbent on the ballot;
bad long-term economy;
no policy change;
foreign policy failure;
no foreign policy success;
and no incumbent charisma.
The key on turning many of the keys is the word “major.” It means MAJOR.
So, on scandal we’re just not there. The Libby and Gonzalez things are too ordinary. Something has to touch the president directly.
As for a recession this year, technically we’re not there yet. That’s mainly because the low price of the dollar is helping exports. That keeps the economy growing very marginally. But I think you’re on to something when you say the public certainly feels a recession. Close call.
As for Barama’s charisma, this is perhaps softest of the keys. Charisma is something that sometimes just emerges. JFK’s charisma really only became apparent, Lichtman says, after the first debate with Nixon. Suddenly JFK had a sort of star quality, with the “bobby soxers” jumping and screaming. Their have certainly been signs of that with Obama. But I’m not ready to turn the key, and neither is Lichtman. Personally, I don’t think Obama is in a league, say, with Reagan as to personal connection with people. But there is some sort of phenomenon at work here; I can tell that in Dayton, Obama got the biggest and most enthusiastic crowd I’ve seen any politician get here in 24 years. But Hillary won the state. We’ll see.
No on social unrest.
On incumbent party unity: At a certain stage Lichtman was assuming the Rs would be divided enough to turn the key against them. But, as you say, the 2/3-of-the-delegates seem to be there for him. This might relate to Romney having given up fairly early.
No third party.
In sum: The incumbents can only lose five keys. They’re losing seven. If they lose recession or challenger-charisma, it’s lopsided. (But that does not mean a prediction of a lopsided victory).
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As a Republican and conservative I find myself trying to do this year what Tom Q did on ‘04