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Obama 'Guaranteed' 2012 Win, American University Professor Says
Lichtman's system is based on 13 political conditions that he calls "keys." The keys favor the incumbent president's party: When five or fewer of them are false, the incumbent party wins the presidency. If six or more are false, the opposition party wins. In 2007, Lichmann predicted that any Democratic candidate -- Hillary Clinton, John Edwards, or Barack Obama -- would have beaten John McCain.
Only four of the 13 keys (outlined here) are currently in the "false" column for President Obama. Counting against him are the facts that he has not achieved a major foreign policy victory, that his party will lose seats in the House of Representatives, and that per-capita economic growth does not exceed the two previous presidential terms. "True" keys include: there is no serious contest for the Democratic Party nomination, Obama has not presided over a major foreign policy failure, and his administration has achieved "major changes in national policy."
Lichtman, who described the keys theory in his 2008 book, "Keys to the White House: A Surefire Guide to Predicting the Next President," questions the widespread perception that presidential campaigns are "horse races" influenced by minor events and media coverage.
"The keys show that elections are not horse races in which candidates surge ahead or fall behind on the campaign trail, with pollsters keeping score," Lichtman said. "Rather, a pragmatic American electorate chooses a president according to the performance of the party holding the White House as measured by the consequential events and episodes of a term -- economic boom and bust, foreign policy successes and failures, social unrest, scandal, and policy innovation."
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Of course he will win. Look at all he has done already to help this country and its people in less than 2yrs. We have a brilliant POTUS and very strong. Look what the right has?? Nothing at all.
Obama 2012 for sure...no problem.
This professor hasn't been paying attention.
July 19 2010 at 4:36 PM Report abuse Permalink +6 rate up rate down ReplyThis guy is in la-la land, if he thinks that Obama is going to be a two term president...2012 can't come fast enough for us......
July 18 2010 at 4:49 PM Report abuse Permalink +11 rate up rate down ReplyI reviewed his poll and I found 6 areas he deemed as true, but were in fact false. This is one of these selective studies done to achieve a selected outcome. Once all the tax increases hit everyone will the polls read the same? It is said January we Americans will see the largest increase in taxes in U.S. history. I wonder with unemployment chasing these tax increases how it will effect the economic situation in this country.
July 18 2010 at 7:26 PM Report abuse Permalink +9 rate up rate down Reply@ enrickue....raising taxes on the wealthy and lowering them on the working and middle class creates economic growth. If anyone's taxes increase, it will be the wealthy, and rightfully so. It's Supply side versus Demand side economics and the only thing that increases under Supply side economics is national debt. That's a fact.
July 20 2010 at 9:47 AM Report abuse Permalink +1 rate up rate down Replyum has he seen the polls Obama has record low polls, tried to stop free speach via triening to stop foxnews, along with record unemployment and huge trillion dollar deficits, yeah he is a 1 termer.
July 18 2010 at 6:38 AM Report abuse Permalink +15 rate up rate down Reply2012 is a long time from now and a lot can happen in the mean time. Remember America, W bush took 8 years the bring us to the brink of disaster and Obama inherited the largest mess in history. He needs 4 more years to even make a dent in the mess bush left.
July 17 2010 at 4:21 PM Report abuse Permalink -18 rate up rate down Reply4 more years and America will be a third world country.
July 18 2010 at 10:20 AM Report abuse Permalink +5 rate up rate down ReplyKeeping things rather simple: Obama will win cuz, thus far, he's the only politicians equipped for the 21 st.Century; all others are political has-been fom the last century ; their mentality is such, they think they can still land the W.H. by shaking a few hands, kissing babies and telling their stupid Irish jokes -while having a total disregard for the issues.
Pay close attention and from them you'll see, they "NEVAH" discuss the issues; all they do is to show how how well versed they are at ducking pertinent and relevant questions.
Obama is the only straight-shooter willing to tell you, watch my performance, and if you don't like it, vote me from office; now there is a true politician that aint in it for HIS/HER personal job security.
Obama: a great president that is misunderstood because Americans just aint ready for the likes of him.
If you want an idea of the type of campaign the Republicans will run, just look to NJ. Our Governor did what you say the Republicans will do in the fall, he never said exactly what he was going to do.
Like you said, NJ voters didn't realy pay attention and put in Christie over all others, Republican and Democrats, who spoke the truth. Case in point: all the other candidates said they were going to do away with property rebates. Gov. Christie said he would never do that and accused others of raising taxes because they told the truth about what they would do. Needless to say, under the Governor's budget there are no more property rebates in NJ! Property taxes are going up despite all the talk about a "cap". (We just got a 1500 dollar "estimate" added to our taxes this week!)
Does the professor also do tarot readings? Predicting the election 6 months out is incredibly hard. If polls were always right there would be a Clinton in the whitehouse. For this person to claim he can predict an outcome based on these data points infers that American voters are some sort of automatons. It's insulting and frankly borders of plain old wishful thinking or simple arrogance
July 17 2010 at 11:47 AM Report abuse Permalink +16 rate up rate down ReplyPeople go to Tea Parties because, both sides, realize that both parties have become ineffective. Power is what parties want because that is where the money is. Watching Congress take taxpapyer money in the last thirty years to pay for their pet projects or pay off other elected officials has put this country into a tailspin. There was enough money to keep us out of debt. before these elected renegades raided the piggy bank.
July 16 2010 at 2:27 PM Report abuse Permalink +25 rate up rate down ReplyWHEN ALL THE DEBATES AND TRUTHS BEGIN TO SURFACE AMERICANS WILL REALIZE THAT THESE ARE THE SAME PEOPLE OF JUST A FEW SHORT YRS AGO ONLY A TAD BIT WORSE !
July 15 2010 at 7:14 PM Report abuse Permalink -10 rate up rate down ReplyNo way. I think the american people realize they need someone with business sense in that position. He's never had a business job and cleary is way over his head, at our cost.
July 15 2010 at 3:44 PM Report abuse Permalink +34 rate up rate down Reply
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