The Odds Look Good For Any Democratic Presidential Candidate In 2008

[DemocratSinceBirth]

December 2, 2004

The Time-for-Change Model and the 2004 Presidential Election: A Post-Mortem and a Look Ahead
By Alan Abramowitz

The good news for Democrats is that 2008, unlike 2004, will be a time-for-change election—one in which the president’s party has controlled the White House for two or more terms. There have been 16 such elections in the past century, with the incumbent party winning 7 times and losing 9 times. Since World War II, the track record of the incumbent party is even worse: 2 wins and 6 losses.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

1. http://www.emergingdemocraticmajorityweblog.com/donkeyrising/

http://www.emergingdemocraticmajorityweblog.com/donkeyrising/

[nadinbrzezinski]

2. Assuming Diebold is taken care off

[merbex]

4. Florida is gone forever thanks to Evoting machines

unless we do something

[nadinbrzezinski]

7. We are... ACT LOCALLY

and I mean it

[4_Legs_Good]

3. At least we don't have to worry about the Redskins anymore!

I hate all of these "indicators"

david

[DemocratSinceBirth]

5. I Think These Indicators Are Bit More Scientific

nt

[pocoloco]

6. jGame Over?

That was then
This is now!!

[depakid]

8. Ahem... in case you didn't notice

Damn near all of the nifty poly sci and economic models failed MISERABLY to predict the outcome of last election.

Why would 2008- especially this far out- be ANY different?

[liberalpragmatist]

11. Actually, most predicted a Bush win

That being said, you're right that we shouldn't get too hooked to them. They're not foolproof. And even the professors who put them together cautioned in October that their models didn't take into account the war and that Bush could well have lost b/c of that.

[fujiyama]

9. It's still pretty meaningless

I checked out donkey rising, all the time during the election, even though I knew he was telling me what I wanted to hear most of the time.

But at this point, I don't have the same confidence about politics or people in general (either '06 or '08). They saw what happened the past four years. They still voted for this shit. And if the party does something really stupid like nominate Hillary, we can forget about '08.

[Julien Sorel]

10. Essentially the playing field is more even,

as opposed to fighting uphill, as we were doing in both 2000 (party of a two time incumbent) and 2004 (against a one-time incumbent.) But we can still blow it by nominating a dud, and refusing to look closely at what needs to be reformed within the party.

[JI7]

12. unless Republicans run some McCain type

i'm guessing Chuck Hagel could probably fit into this also.

they will run as reformers of the system.

[proudbluestater]

13. Assuming we go back to PAPER freaking ballots, that is. n/t

[Donna Zen]

14. The odds change if we run against an incumbent vp:

I believe that they will retire Cheney and appoint the successor-king. They know that Cheney cannot run--hell, he can hardly stand up--and they will chose the next toadie.

I've always thought it would be Frist.

[WI_DEM]

15. The odds were pretty good for us this year too.

[robbedvoter]

16. Which is why we did win

[Catherine Vincent]

17. Oh please! The odds were in our favor in 2000 and 2004.

Look what happened!

[OneBlueSky]

18. no way, no how . . .

not unless we uncover and expose the entire spectrum of election fraud that took place this year . . . enough so that public opinion demands the kinds of changes that will make for honest voting procedures . . . barring that, we have no chance in 2008 . . . they'll just program the voting machines to make sure that the Republican wins . . . again . . .