Predicting winner of presidential race

[ADGettis]

At a friend's blog, he wrote about an algorithm that was developed years ago by the Annals of Improbable Research based upon all past presidential races to predict outcomes of future ones. Obviously this is totally unscientific and is bound to prove wrong at some time, but since it was published it has proven accurate.

I applied this to the current candidates purely for fun. Obviously RP is going to win, so the formula's weakness is showing, but the comparisons you can draw are intriguing.

The formula awards points for the following:

From the research we have these circumstances which have a positive influence on the electability of presidential candidates:

Presidential Electability = 5*(years as President) + years as U.S. Representative + 11*(years as Governor),

+110 if the candidate has been a four- or five-star general officer in the United States Armed Forces,

+110 if the candidate has been a college or university president or chancellor,

+110 if the candidate is the child of a U.S. Senator

And it takes points away for the following:

Here are the negatives:

–110 if the candidate has been divorced,

–110 if the candidate has been a special prosecutor,

–110 if the candidate was the first adherent of a particular religion (e.g., Protestantism, Deism, or Catholicism) to be a major-party candidate for President,

–110 if the candidate was an officer of a lobbying organization at the time of the election.

Here are the results I get when running the numbers:

Biden: 0
Clinton: 0
Dodd: +6
Edwards: 0
Gravel: -110
Kucinich: -210
Obama: -110
Richardson: +80

Brownback: 0
Gilmore: +44
Giuliani: -220
Huckabee: +100
Hunter: +28
McCain: -106
Paul: +20
Romney: -66
Tancredo: +10
F. Thompson: -330
T. Thompson: +99

According to these admittedly less-than-scientific numbers, Dr. Paul would beat any Democrat except for Richardson. On the other hand, Giuliani and F. Thompson would be guaranteed to lose, McCain could only win if Kucinich was the Democrat, and Romney could only beat Gravel, Kucinich, and Obama.

Again, don't put your life savings on the line based upon these odds, but it looks like Dr. Paul is a much more potent candidate than Rudy McRompson.

By the way, when looking up their parents' occupations (I got all of this information from Wikipedia), I found out that Giuliani's father was a "mafia enforcer." Why hasn't this been reported yet?!? I know Wikipedia is subject to vandalism, so maybe it's just false. But maybe not!

 

[Shmuel Spade]

Interesting algorithm. Frankly I put my faith in the Weekly Reader poll, as they've predicted it correctly 100% of the time.

 

[angrydragon]

Interesting.
Why does Mike Huckabee have a 100?

 

[Spirit of '76]

I had a question here, but nevermind. I was looking at the wrong Thompson. :o

 

[ADGettis]

Why does Mike Huckabee have a 100?

10 years as governor. Meant to write 110.

 

[jd603]

Hillary will be nominated for the dems , as long as Bill stands along side her when she needs a boost in the polls.

I'm not completely sure about the republicans, but I know that NO pro-war candidate will win, period, unless they cheat massively or the people are swayed by another "terror" attack.

 

[ADGettis]

Hillary will be nominated for the dems , as long as Bill stands along side her when she needs a boost in the polls.

In all sincerity, I think it will be Obama. Dean was a sure thing in 2004 until he said something stupid, and Hildebeest is bound to do the same sometime in the next year.

That's my guess.

 

[njandrewg]

i think on the dem side, we'll see a Cltinon/Obama ticket.