no. he pretty much just looks at the GDP growth rate for the year of the election, the rate of inflation, and the number of qtrs in the preceeding term that were greater than 3% or so. I think market performance and unemployment may also be factored in.
You plug in those figures and it pretty much tells you who’s going to win. Defnitely who wins period and within 1-2 pts of the actual total. His final total was for data through Sept 30 and he had the GOP getting about 48%. Once you factor in that thet 3rd qtr started in Oct and was the worst qtr of growth in 25 years and factor that in, the 46% it ended up with is about right.
My point wasn’t to pump McCain, just to point out that given the date, he did about as wlel as could be expected or hoped for. If the economy was the same as it was in 2004, he would have won, arguably with a greater % than Bush did. The economy was much, much worse in 2008 so he lost. Not his fault really, but it happens.