IMHO - A Vital Key is Wrong in Allan Lichtman's 13 Keys

[Charlotte Little]

I present this humbly...

Allan Lichtman's tenuous prediction about Trump winning is actually quite odd.

Professor Lichtman gave the score of "0" to Key #12 - "Incumbent charisma: The incumbent-party candidate is charismatic or a national hero." Really? ZERO????!!!

Um... isn't Hillary the first woman ever in history to be nominated for president of the United States? And, isn't that alone charismatic and worthy of national hero status? (Whether she wins or not, my God has she taken a sexist beating for the women's team!) I mean, how many before her have been nominated? Isn't she a complete exception to the rule?

Think outside the box, please. Just as Lichtman claims Trump to be an outlier, Hillary is a bigger one. If she wins, it's history. What could possibly be more charismatic than that?

And please...do NOT for one second think that there are not millions of women in this country who are jazzed by this. Of course, there will be some who are not (who prefer a man in charge), but I think the demographics support this history-in-the-making more so than slamming it down.

I could be wrong. I'm no political guru (and I like Professor Lichtman and his willingness to already admit he could be wrong this year; says a lot about his character), but I think that's a key being seriously overlooked.

Also, as the race tightens, Johnson falls farther down. I don't believe he'll hit 5% at all. And Jill Stein? She can go *$#% herself (sorry - really despise that woman for so many reasons!).

That's my two cents and what brought me out of lurking this year. Oh, and apologies if anyone has already made this point. I've been obsessively vacillating between here and the Twitterspheres in search of positive outcomes, so I might have missed a thread or comment by another member about this.

BTW, I think Hillary is exemplary in every way. I've got her back 100% and find all the other "chatter" complete distraction. Shore up and move forward! We cannot afford a world disaster that is "Trump!"

[still_one]

1. There is absolutely no scientific basis for Lichtman's prediction. It is about as

valid as if the NFL wins the super bowl we will have a bull market

I agree with your points, and Obama campaigning with Hillary is going to show him wrong

[unblock]

4. there's far more merit to lichtman's model than that.

it's based on very reasonable predictive factors, back-tested to i think 1860, and he's used it to predict forward in 1984.

if there's "no scientific basis" for it, then how the hell do you propose any predictive model can be deemed to have a "scientific basis"?

[still_one]

6. The polls are the predictive model. I wonder what model he used when he was

running in 2006

[unblock]

14. The polls are not as great as people think

Dukakis was up 17 points before losing.

[DeltaLitProf]

16. But by now in the cycle

. . . he was fading badly.

And polls now are not what polls were then.

[unblock]

17. True, polls become more accurate as election nears

Lichtman's model lets him predict well in advance in most cases. He should have predicted Hillary long ago but got caught up in the media circus and felt the need to hedge.

[DarthDem]

2. Lichtman's . . .

. . . prediction is embarrassing to him, or should be. Punxsutawney Phil he's not.

[unblock]

5. it's a fascinating model, and puts the focus on the right things, but yes,

he really copped out this time.

he should have just said it all comes down to the third-party key and whether or not johnson can get 5% of the vote. he felt pressure to "call" the election when he should have either left it at that or waited until it became more clear whether or not johnson could reach that threshold.

[tblue37]

11. He might be doing what Bill Maher is doing--and what I always do--i.e., warning

everyone NOT to get complacent and think that Hillary has this in the bag.

If he is as scared and disgusted about the possibility of a Trump win as most sane people are, he might be willing to publicly miss predicting the winner, thus taking a hit to his reputation as a guru, just to terrify people into GOTV by predicting a Trump win.

[still_one]

3. I wonder if he successfully predicted his 2006 Maryland State Senate race loss?

[Foggyhill]

7. Many of the races he "predicted" were already won by the time he did.

Incumbent generally has the advantage and if the economy is going well or improving, there is also an advantage.
That explains 1984, 1988, 1996, 2004, 2008 and 2012.

Economy goes real bad explains 1992 and 2008 (could add Perot, but I think it's likely Clinton would have still won if he wasn't there).

2012 is borderline, but could be explained as a latent effect of bad 2008 economy + incumbency advantage.

So, we're left with 2000, which should have gone to Gore (and in a way it did).
Considering how close it was and how it was decided, nobody can really claim it either way

So, wth is he blabbing about with his so called predictions?
Seemingly based on 1992 and 2000; that's not a lot of data points and there were other reasons than third party for 1992 going the way it went than third party.

So, again a so called "model" is kicked to the curb.

If he's right, it won't be because he's proved it; there is not enough data to make this determination.

[still_one]

9. here is an interesting comparison

http://dailybruin.com/2016/08/15/experts-predict-clinton-win-during-hammer-museum-lecture-2/

[GoDawgs]

8. Is 'incumbent charisma' even a quantifiable value?

Its completely subjective, there's no formula or functional measurements of it, certainly no 0-12 scale for it.
Lichtman is a male-can he even be considered an authority on female charisma?

[Charlotte Little]

10. Well, My Point...

...actually.

[bettyellen]

13. Yes, that's exactly what I thought too...

When I saw the headline I thought I bet past of his method would be skew make subjectively.... Not surprised one bit.

[MFM008]

12. If he says he saw 2000

I'll call him a liar.
You can say chimp won but the how was unseeable.

[pnwmom]

15. Thank you, Charlotte. I agree with you that even though many men cannot understand

how anyone can find Hillary charismatic or even appealing, millions of women CAN. (Including my millenial daughter.) And Hillary inspires us!

[davidn3600]

18. Not all women think that way. Women are not a voting monolith

I understand Hillary is viewed as inspiring to some women out there. But not all women see her that way. That's the reality. I know several women who passionately say they will vote for Donald Trump. One such woman I work with every day. And there is no way to convince her otherwise. She's a Republican...she's pro-life...and that's all there is to it. She's not going to change. She drives around with a Trump bumper sticker. It is what it is.

And I know another woman who doesn't vote. Not political at all. She's not registered to vote, has never voted, and has no intention of ever doing it. She flat out believes elections make no difference. She thinks every politician is in it only for the money. I think I was actually close to getting her to think about supporting Bernie by explaining he's not the same as "the others." But when he lost....that hope died. She's totally tuned off to the election now.

These are personal anecdotes, but my point is you can't make assumptions of how people think based only on which social category they are part of. People are individuals. Each individual has a mind of their own. You can't forget that.