Four and a Half Models
There are four precedents that this presidential election appears to be on the course toward… miniature versions of these previous elections.
It’s possible that we’re stuck in a miniature version of 1988. George W. Bush and Karl Rove hope we’re stuck in 1988. A good awareness of what that election looked like is this: “Dumbest. Election. Ever.” It is in this context that the election would swing over “Swift Boat Veterans for Truth” — a lackluster Kerry failing the meta – test of “fighting back”, and amongst another group of the population for suggestions of “treason” / “patriotism”, and generally being too bland to hop onto.
It’s possible that we’re stuck in a miniature version of 1980. Here, the population really wanted to dump Jimmy Carter, but they had serious reservations about Ronald Reagan — a man who just recently had been regarded as way too far to the right. Thus, the election was nip-and-tug close right up to the end. Reagan showed sanity during the debates, which was enough to assure the undecideds that they may as well throw out all the bums and vote in Reagan.
It’s possible that we’re in a miniature version of 2000. What happened there, was Bush swung ahead with his convention, Gore swung ahead with his convention, and then everything balanced out to a ridiculous equilibrium, where the two candidates’ weaknesses and strengths cancel each other out (the classic polling question for 2000 was “in Man versus Scarecrow?”) that was determined by the fate of a batch of chads in Florida.
And then there’s this… Nothing as dramatic as 1936, of course, or 1948, but its possible that after this election the pollsters are going to have to completely scrap the time-worn means of doing these things, and start from scratch. Sooner or later, the shift in technology is going to bite the pollsters in the ass, and perhaps this is that election. The suggestion that this is happening now comes from the current jumpiness in the poll: if you notice we keep getting three or four polls on the news. Invariably one or two have Bush ahead by what seems like a ridiculous amount — these polls tend to be trumped up by right-wing talk radio and Drudge, and two or three show (and are confirmed by the Bush and Kerry house polls) that the race is deadlocked or close. What does this mean? The pollsters can’t figure out who’s voting…
Which, actually brings us to the 1998 Minnesota Gubernatorial Model, where Jessee Ventura was always in third place amongst likely voters, but on election day, a batch of unlikely voters voted him in.
By the way, take a good look at the current “electoral vote projection”. Kerry 211 Bush 307. Okay, now take out every state where Bush or Kerry lead by less than two percent (I’ll consider a three or four point lead to be enough on the edge of the supposed “Margin of Error” to mean that they’re likely ahead, supposedly.) Kerry 211 Bush 255. While we’re at it, change “New Jersey” to Kerry, as that poll result looks out of whack and appears to be an anomolie “outlier”. Kerry 226. Bush: 240.
Make of that what you will.