Posted on 11/03/2004 12:00:02 AM PST by Congressman Billybob
It’s time for the chickens to come home to roost. Here are my predictions, word for word, from 30 August, 2004:
“It isn’t necessary to wait until the end of the Republican Convention to make this year’s predictions. Bush will have a 5% lead after the convention. That will increase to 10% by November 2, and the Electoral College results will be a landslide for Bush. At the same time, the Republicans will gain two seats in the Senate, and 11 seats in the House.
“Outside Washington, Republicans will gain one governorship, 121 seats in the various state legislatures, and a substantial number of other state and local offices. Lastly, all these specific predictions are minimums. Any results that don’t match my predictions should be greater than my numbers.”
For those who want to look it up, the title of that article is: “Why John Kerry is Now Toast.”
Up until the last minute the MSM (Mainstream Media) were nearly unanimous in saying that this election is “a statistical tie” or “too close to call.” Yet the actual result was that President Bush led by three percent as this is written, and will win the Electoral College by 281 to 259. Why was the MSM consistently wrong in reporting on the election on 1 November?
I got the direction right, but the strength of the victory wrong. Why did I get the dynamics of the race correct, more than two months in advance?
Many of you know me under my pen name on the Internet, as The (More er Less) Honorable Congressman Billybob from Western Carolina. Sounds like someone who just fell off the turnip truck, doesn’t it? Truth is, I am a Ph.D. dropout in political science from American University. (Done the course work; still owe them a dissertation.) I pay attention to statistics.
When the political scientists finish analyzing this election, here’s what they will find: Unions are the both the money and volunteer backbones of the Democrat Party. But unions have been shrinking steadily in their percentage in the population. Union households are now only about 14 percent of all households. On the other hand, households which have a veteran in them are now about 26 percent of all households.
In prior elections, that comparison was irrelevant. Though union households voted mostly (but not entirely) for Democrats, veteran households were roughly split between Republicans and Democrats. Not this year. In 2004 the veterans voted by a margin of about 65 to 35 percent for Bush. They also provided money and volunteers to the Republican cause like union members long have for Democrats. I think research will establish that the animosity of most veterans against Kerry, both for his exaggerations about his Vietnam service and lies about his fellow veterans when he returned, was the key to his defeat. Kerry’s votes against military funding and programs over his twenty years in the Senate also contributed to that result.
Here’s how I stated this decisive factor, more than two months before the election: “Kerry had already decided, along with his high-powered, top-dollar, experienced advisors, that he was going to feature his Vietnam experience. Rather than set it aside and deal with more recent subjects, Kerry decided to hang his campaign hat on his four months and 12 days on Swift Boats in Vietnam. His representatives forced that subject into the speeches of most people at the Democrat Convention. Kerry himself slammed the point home from his opening salute to the final paragraphs of his speech accepting the nomination. When John Kerry sat down after that speech, his campaign was already doomed to defeat.”
The fate of my other predictions are these: I said the Republicans would gain two seats in the Senate; they did gain two, as this is written (pending others in Florida and South Dakota). I said the Republicans would gain 11 seats in the House; they did gain three as this is written
At the state level, I said the Republicans would gain one Governorship in the eleven races this year; they gained one. I said the Republicans would gain 121 seats in the state legislatures; these results are not yet known, but the gain will not be as high as I predicted.
And as I said, if my numbers were off, the actual results should be higher. So here’s my final score card: Presidency, wrong by seven percent. Senate, right. House, low. Governors, right. State legislatures, right direction, wrong number by unknown amount.
The fundamental problem with the MSM is they are overstocked with people who can talk like they know what they are doing. But their bench is thin for people who actually do know what they are doing. There are people who really understand the dynamics of American elections. But they are more likely to be somewhere in the blogosphere than to be on the network news or published in the MSM.
As we used to say during a game of tag, on the playground of the elementary school at Salisbury State Teachers College half a century ago:
“Gotcha.”
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About the Author: John Armor is a First Amendment attorney and author who lives in the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina. CongressmanBillybob@earthlink.net
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Subtle.
Accurate!
my prediction..... Congressman Billybob running for Congress :)
You got this veteran nailed. The 35% of veterans for Kerry are probably almost all formerly drafted veterans and lifelong dems.
I did some interviewing here in NC -- I found among sensible Kerry supporters -- their lament and wish AFL-CIO Unions would come to NC. I pointed how, very succintly and point by point -- HOW UNIONS BANKRUPTED CALIFORNIA. And how forced Union Members have to pay "dues" against their will when those very dues are being used in political ways which are totally against an individual's political choices. All they could do is stare at me blankly. It was clear, these people had NO CONCEPT of how Unions have been destroying the economies of numerous cities, counties and possibly states in the United States.
[The Roe Effect is] "theory is that abortion is making America more conservative than it otherwise would be.
"[Assuming that] liberal and Democratic women are more likely to have abortions. [And] that children's political views tend to reflect those of their parents ... on average. Thus abortion depletes the next generation of liberals and eventually makes the population more conservative."
Don't feel too bad about the innaccuracies of some of your predictions, Congressman. You had the trend nailed and the direction zeroed. Even the Great Zogby missed those! Dick Cheney told us the numbers two weeks ago and we should have listened to him, 52-48.
But you probably could not have anticipated in your wildest dreams a scant two months ago just how deeply the MSM were in the tank for their stooges and the lengths they would go to throw this election to their friends. If it weren't for their stellar help, your 10% prediction would have held or been exceeded, IMHO.
The fact this election was so close when the other side was running such a dud should just give us pause to reflect on how much more serious work is needed to be done in this country to ensure our survival as a free people.
The numbers for Nevada county got as high as 144% of the public voting. Surprisingly the website shows 100% today.
Your results are pretty good, John. Predicting the outcomes of elections is a lot harder than most people realize. It requires a modicum of common sense and a willingness to listen to what Joe Sixpack is actually saying (or in some cases, what he is not saying).
So on two accounts, journalists fail those criteria. First, common sense. These are the people who Mark Twain advised us failed at ditching and shoe making. We cannot possibly hold expectations of journalists that are too low. Second, willingness to listen. Journalists substitute ego for brains. Listening to Joe Sixpack means they might actually have to come in close contact with said entity. Since they aren't likely to do that at a Washington/New York/Chicago/Los Angeles cocktail party, the very idea is just too low to contemplate. They would much prefer having someone collect exit polls for them so they can pontificate at a safe distance.
As much regard as I have for Brit Hume, for example, he was genuinely horrified last night when it turned out that exit polling data was utterly and completely bogus. He looked like a man caught with a flat tire and no tools.
Until and unless the media leave their elitism behind, they will continue to drift further and further out of touch with the reality of American politics. I have no solution for the overall mental acuity of the press, maybe it is our fault because we demand so little of them. On the bright side, elections should get more entertaining every cycle as we can now open up the office pool to bet on just how wrong the media's predictions will be.
144%?? I went to bed around 112 or 116%. After I emailed the link to all media I could think of and let the Secy of State's website know I had done so. Nevada County, CA lost 25,000 votes somewhere they had previously counted... must've gone over to NM to help Richardson in that one county that was going 100% for Kerry last night. Makes me ill!
County Name Nevada
Total Precincts 138
Precincts Rpt'g 138
% Rpt'g 100
Reg'd Voters 65,411
Ballots Cast 94,281
% Turnout 144.1
First Report Date-Time 2 8:11pm
Latest Report Date-Time 3 2:15am
Report Type*F
Wow. Just... WOW. I never found out how they voted - did you?
There was a suspicious event in New Mexico last night as well.
One county (Bernalillo County) showed 20,000 votes for Kerry, NONE for Bush. Heck, NONE for any of the other races.
More votes were eventually added to all of the races but did Kerry get an illegal 20k BUMP?
http://65.160.159.96/County2.htm
I think that the New Mexico result came from 1 precinct reporting before all of the others. Shouldn't be hard to determine JUST WHICH precinct that was. Looks like a county may have been stolen from Bush.
I remember that. A lot of shenanigans last night. And it made no sense, and we'll never hear "the rest of the story."
But we headed off so many of them before they hit (NAACP crack the vote, for one). I'm glad we're more vigilant now. Election 2000 gave us lessons put to good use this time around. For both sides. They can't use that "no mandate" nonsense this time.
I want to find that 28,000 For Kerry ZERO FOR BUSH OR ANY OTHER RACE precinct.
All I can find are the results of the county, not the individual precincts (414).
http://65.160.159.96/County2.htm
http://www.cabq.gov/
http://www.bernco.gov//upload/images/clerk/general04/completeResults.html
http://www.bernco.gov/upload/images/clerk/general04/resultsPage1.html
I was looking for that info as well - it is NOWHERE to be found.
We'll never know the precinct that had 100% turnout for Kerry. Because nobody cares, and noone will believe it anyway.
They'll say "Who cares? Bush already won NM. "
Drives me crazy.
At least we have the evidence of 144% turnout in a California county.
So the hard part was waiting and watching until 4 a.m. when some real numbers were clear, not the process of writing the article since that was already known. Working Rule #2: there is usually an easier way to a result. The hard part is finding it, not using it.
Cheers.
Billybob
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