The Boston Diaries

The ongoing saga of a programmer who doesn't live in Boston, nor does he even like Boston, but yet named his weblog/journal “The Boston Diaries.”

Go figure.

Sunday, February 18, 2007

Presidential Predictions

I remember hearing about the Curse of Tippecanoe back in 5th grade during the 1980 Presidential campaign, and so far, it was eerily accurate as a prediction of Presidential deaths while in office.

That is, until Ronald Reagan in 1981 (and unbeknownst to me, George W. Bush also survived an attempt).

So it was amazing when I came across An Algorithm for Determining the Winners of U.S. Presidential Elections (link via The Old New Thing) that has correctly predicted every Presidential election.

Every one.

And it's so easy you can put it in a spread sheet.

So, I decided to see who currently has the best shot at becoming the next President of the United States. I found a list of current Presidential candidates and applied the formula.

Presidential electability of the candidates for President in 2008
Name Pres. Rep. Gov. Other Total
Name Pres. Rep. Gov. Other Total
Democratic Candidates (*has not officially filed)
Joe Biden 0 0 0   0
Chris Doss 0 0 0 Child of Senator, Divorced 0
John Edwards 0 0 0   0
Mike Gravel 0 0 0   0
Dennis Kucinich 0 12 0 Divorced -98
Barack Obama 0 0 0   0
Tom Vilsack 0 0 8   88
Hiliary Clinton* 0 0 0   0
Bill Richardson* 0 14 6   80
Republican Candidates (*has not officially filed)
Sam Brownback 0 2 0   2
John H. Cox 0 0 0   0
Duncan Hunter 0 28 0   28
Mitt Romney 0 0 4 First Mormon -66
Michael Smith 0 0 0   0
John Gilmore* 0 4 0   44
Rudy Giuliani* 0 0 0 Divorced, Special Prosecutor -220
Mike Huckabee* 0 8 0   88
John McCain* 4 0 0 Divorced -106
Ron Paul* 20 0 0   20
Tom Tancredo* 10 0 0 First Evangelical -100
Tommy Thompson* 0 4 0   44
Libertarian Candidates
Steve Kubby 0 0 0   0
George Phillies 0 0 0   0
Christine Smith 0 0 0   0

But it's a total score of both the Presidential and Vice-Presidential candidates that win, not just the Presidential candidate (so there's a small outside chance that Giuliani could win, if he could find a Vice-Presidential candidate who is a corporate banker, president of a college and the child of a US Senator). I also think it's too early to really tell who will win at this stage; I'll know more after the caucuses and primaries of next year.

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