POLITICAL SCIENCE LOOK AT 2008

A quick note on political science in general. It really is not a science. Like economic laws, political science laws don't have the certainty of scientific laws. If I drop a ball, I know that it will fall toward the ground due to the law of gravity, however, I do not know that I will make money in real estate when interest rates are low or that the opposition party will gain seats in mid-term elections. The latter two might be highly probable, but not certainties.
Which is why it is so difficult to make money in the market and to forecast election results. The best one can usually do on these matters is to make happy guesses. So here are my happy guesses concerning the 2008 Presidential elections.
First on the Republican side:
The Republicans better hope that George Allen and Bill Frist get eliminated quickly. Allen basically is very similar to George Bush, only not as smart. He's a nice guy, who can play the political game very well, but I can guarantee that by 2008 Americans will be looking for a President who they think can accomplish goals, not just be their buddy. After all the screw ups that this Administration has had, competence will be a major factor in most people's choice for President, and Allen has just too much of that Mayberry RFD charm to be taken seriously. Frist on the other hand, might just be the worst Presidential candidate in our lifetime. He can't give a speech to save his life, he has proven to be a bumbling fool as Senate Majority Leader, and he had done everything to show that he is a puppet of the religious right. The Democrats are praying that he is the Republican nominee.
Mitt Romney, could very well be the nominee, he is handsome, eloquent, and at least gives the appearance of being competent. His biggest drawback is that he is a devout, practicing Mormon, and lets face it, Mormons are weird. They believed in polygamy, they consider that their current leader, Gordon B. Hinckley is God'’s chosen prophet today, and that there is a Mrs. God, that God is married. I seriously doubt that America is ready for a Mormon President, not to mention the fact that the power that the religious right has welded recently is fading fast, and probably will be a negative force by 2008.
Which would be a great sign for John McCain. The more the religious right implodes on itself, the better his chances are for winning the nomination. However, I have the exact opposite view of his chances from the conventional wisdom. I think that McCain has a great chance of being the Republican nominee, but that heis not likely to win the national election.
Why do I hold such a crazy belief? It has to do with political science or the lack of science in political science. McCain's numbers show that he is equally popular among all three major sections of voters; conservatives, liberals and moderates. He is at between fifty five and sixty five percent in all three sections. That sounds unbeatable. It is, if political science was a real science. But those numbers do not translate into actual votes. The art in political science is trying to guess how numbers will translate into votes. Here is my happy guess on this matter. The good news is that he probably will do fairly well among moderates, but getting only sixty five percent of conservatives will kill him. It is generally assumed that a candidate needs at least eighty percent of his base in order to win. McCain probably needs slightly less due to his overall popularity.
But the deceiving number is the fifty percent of liberals who like him. When asked in a poll do you like a candidate, it is easy to say yes. It is a completely different matter to actually pull the lever for him. I am guessing that maybe, and I mean maybe, five percent of the liberals that said they like McCain would actually vote for him, especially after they learn that he is pro-Iraq war, pro-life, pro-deathpenalty, anti-gay rights, and anti-affirmative action. McCain on paper is actually more conservative than Bush. So I really don't see him getting any more votes from liberals than Bush did, but I do see him getting quite a few less votes than Bush from conservatives.
The reason why conservatives like Bush is that he is dependable, they know his stance ahead of time on every issue. The reason why McCain is so popular among moderates is that he is not dependable, he is his own man, and his stance on any position can change at any time. That scares the hell out of conservatives, especially the religious right. The base that elected Bush twice, will not vote for McCain, they would rather stay home.
So McCain will get a little more that half of the conservative vote, a little more that half of the moderate vote and virtually none of the liberal vote. In a general election, he has no shot. But that is just a happy guess.
(I will analyze the chances of the Democrats shortly.)