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Who Will Win the 2004 U.S. Presidential Election?
He projected the outcome of the 2004 election based on a mathematical formula that is accurate for every election since 1932:
According to his formula, the next election will be decided as follows:
Isn’t it cute when the R’s whine that they lost an election?
Fear Itself, there’s a formula? Why even bother with the election part? 
Those people had a peculiar thought, but a formula will never be able to predict a chaotic event like an election, too many variables.
I vote straight ticket Democrat but frankly none of the candidates are that appealing to me right now. There is one reason the Democrats have started to lose big, and it is probably the reason Gore is not running in 2004. The wheels of the party are coming off. They have no direction, they have no real relevant touchstone issues, they have no identifiable alternative to Republican policy.
Clinton did a smart thing – he made a hard turn to the middle and pursued centrist politics. He was able to win the presidency twice because of it especially with the Republican party split by Perot.
Well, the reverse happened in 2000. Bush took the Republicans hard to the middle with “compassionate conservatism” and managed to win a presidency with the Democrats slightly split by Nader. It’s why it was so hard much of the time to tell Bush’s policies from Gore’s. Well Bush got the middle with Nader’s help, and once the middle is Republican, you are not going to convert it back to Democrat just by preaching middle politics again. So in 2002, the majority of Democrats, eager to preach coalition, centrist, populist politics especially after 9/11 are left high and dry. The Republicans out-milquetoasted them.
Gore is not really a leader. He isn’t going to be the one to initiate a change in direction. The Democrats need a strong leader who has clear, discernable messages which are clearly non-Republican. Neither Lieberman (who I would have a problem voting for because he is too socially conservative and yes I am Jewish) or Kerry or anybody big right now I think will be the person to do it.
My suggestion. The reason that a bunch of knee-jerk liberals (myself included) would vote for a conservative like McCain is because he is not afraid to speak his mind. He is not afraid to leave the center of the party. He is not afraid to be outspoken. Not all of his policies are easily reduced to 10 second sound bites. They are the same reasons (I think) that The West Wing is popular. That fictional president is more than a bit outspoken some of the time, and he isn’t afraid of it. In fact he likes it. He has complicated policies which he isn’t afraid to explain to the American public. He doesn’t think the world can be reduced to Evil Versus Good, he doesn’t think that there is a cookie-cutter solution to every problem. I think people like politicians who are truthful and uncompromising, even if they don’t agree with all of their principles. Especially if they don’t underestimate the American public. Gore, Bush, Lieberman, and the kroo are most definitely not like that.
We need less milquetoast in politics, and I think the Democrats have to raise some rabble in order to get their voice back. There is a lot to criticize the Bush administration about – a one dimensional economic policy, a oversimplistic view of the world and America’s place in it, a nearly nonexistant environmental policy (and especially the entanglement with oil companies), an inaction on corporate fraud, and so many smaller things. They have to start blaming things on the Bush administration, attacking them for their missteps. In 2000, we were pursuing an engagement policy with North Korea and Iran and perhaps making headway. This was discarded by Bush. Perhaps this has caused us problems. Small things – whatever happened to Cheney’s notes from his energy policy meetings? Were oil company bigwigs in on the decisions? Big things – universal medical care that works, Social Security, etc. It is clear what needs to be done. I just don’t know who will do it.
I’d like to modify this a bit. Republican rhetoric took a hard turn to the middle.
And if the Democrats don’t improve their rhetoric in response, they’re going to have a tough time of it.
Always happy to be of service. 
They certainly have to have some ideas they’re willing to fight for, year in and year out.
I’ve pretty much said my piece in my Memo to Democrats thread that minty referenced, so I won’t re-argue that. But a few things:
I’m not saying moving left will or won’t work for the Dems; just that it can’t be ruled out. But what’s helped the GOP is that, from 1980 to the present, it’s been clear what the GOP is about, like it or loathe it. They’ve stuck with a set of core principles and made the case for them, over and over again.
GWB did not so much run to the center, as pretend to. He can legitimately claim that his very conservative stances on any of a host of issues are exactly what he campaigned on. You might say he pushed a conservative agenda, with moderate body language, and hoped that moderates would read the body language. It worked.
Clinton’s centrism, up to 1994, included national health care. I’d say his true move to the center was in 1995. It worked for him against a weak GOP cnadidate. But he did nothing to build up the party by doing so.
Any formulas to predict the winners of upcoming Presidential elections are less than reliable, to say the least. We’ve only had 54 Presidential elections under the present Constitution. We’ve only had 18 from 1932 to the present. You can always plot a curve that fits a handful of data points, but that doesn’t mean it has predictive value. Did you know there’s a wonderfully simple formula that gives you the first 40 primes, which are as unformulaic a group of integers as there are? After that, the formula breaks down, of course.
The incumbent @ evens v unknown DEM? That’s marvellously generous offer Sam. Excuse me but I’ll pass.
But what say you mull over how “much better” over 3-1 you’ll offer and then get back to me. 
Can I say horseshit in GD?
Regards,
Shodan
I think Gore wants to be President still. His hope is that Bush is re-elected. That way, voters may be sick of 8 years of GOP rule, Gore can come in and save the day.
If Bush loses in 04, then Gore has to wait until '12.
That’s why he offered a lot of help in '04.
Yes, I lived In Kucinich’s distrcit a while bakc and met the man. He seesm to really care and he’s to the left.
I don’t know what being goofy looking has to do with running the country, though…
edwino, said what I was trying to say. Only in english, and with grammar…
Al Gore is certainly a student of history. This has happened before: a former legislator and eight-year VP of an administration overseeing unprecedented economic prosperity loses a very narrow race to his challenger, drops off the political radar screen for another eight years, and then comes back to win the presidency.
I’m just surprised he didn’t include the phrase “You won’t have Al Gore to kick around anymore” in his press conference.
'Tho I suppose that’s not a comparison the Gore folks would like to make…
Of course, Dewey, it helped that the guy Nixon lost to got assassinated, and his successor found himself in the ultimate quagmire abroad, and in the most serious period of domestic unrest in generations at home.
Kucinich: are we talking about the guy who was mayor of Cleveland when the city declared bankruptcy? That Kucinich?
Hey, a lot can happen in six years…maybe Gore’s banking on (1) this Iraq thing not working out so well and (2) regular servings of pretzels in the Oval Office. 
Yeah, but the most likely thing that happens to a politician that neither holds nor runs for elective office for most of a decade is, he drops off most people’s radar screens. And it’s a lot harder to get back on than to just stay there in the first place.
Another thing about Nixon: he ran for President (the second time) in an era where only a few states had primaries, and party insiders could still choose any nominee they wanted to. (In that same year, the Dems nominated Hubert Humphrey. IIRC, Hubert hadn’t won a single primary.) I remember reading an article early in 1968 that said Nixon had the GOP nomination all but locked up, because he already had the support of so many of the state and local party officials who would choose the convention delegates.
It was a different game then. It’s true that now, a candidate can lock up the big donors ahead of time, which gives him one hell of an advantage (e.g. Bush in 2000), but it still has to be run by the voters.
That’s the guy. Dennis Kucinich has greatly improved his political techiques and know-how since he left the Cleveland mayor’s office in 1981. Back then he was quite dictatorial and the business big-wigs who actually ran the show here weren’t about to take any orders from the boy mayor. That’s what caused Cleveland’s default: bank notes which the banks had routinely rolled over for the previous (and subsequent mayors) were called when Kucinich was in office. He took his defeat (to now Senator Voinovich) like a man and went back to the trenches and the grass roots. In the early 1990s he ran a great campaign to defeat an incumbent Republican state legistator, and then he did the same thing to beat an incumbent Republican congressman. Kucinich has learned and matured quite nicely since his tenure as mayor of Cleveland.
It could happen. Clinton was a failed Arkansas governor.
Gadarene:
The Americans for Democratic Action, a group which monitors and scores voting records for the House of Reps, gave Lieberman a score of 75% in 2000 and 95% in 2001. A score of 100% would mean he voted “liberal” 100% of the time. A score of 0% would mean he voted “liberal” 0% of the time.
http://adaction.org/senatevr2000.html
http://adaction.org/Senate2001fullVR.pdf
Comparatively, in 2001 noted centrists McCain and Jeffords rated 40%, while Kennedy and Kerry rated 100% and 95% respectively.
I’m gonna change my position of yesterday a bit. See post on first page for reference. Al Gore right now is obviously not equipped to lead the Democratic Party anywhere. Any values he espouses are quickly scoffed at as him being a “new, reinvented Al Gore.” He waffles, he seems out of touch, he seems stiff, etc. Obviously not presidential material, so he withdraws early.
Well, the media are treating this like his political career is over. Maybe he is pulling a “You won’t have Nixon to kick around anymore because, gentlemen, this is my last press conference.” We all know that he has issues which are close to him – namely the environment. Let’s say he continues on his current course – maintain a high visibility, talk a lot about a set of issues, perhaps he can join with some nonprofits and become their spokesman. He doesn’t need to embrace the middle-of-the-road view to get himself elected. It is a very good position for a man truly wishing to reinvent himself into a principled leader. This time, with feeling.
Gore looks at McCain as a man not afraid to stick to his values, not afraid to take unpopular views, not afraid to buck populist viewpoints. Gore is 54 years old, and maybe he thinks that in ten years he could be a Democratic McCain. Maybe Gore is thinking long term.
Picture this. First, you go on television shows and you mock the old Al Gore stereotype until it is dead and buried. Check. Next, we will have him as a spokesman for issues close to him. Perhaps we start seeing him at rallies against Bush policies. Against clear cutting, against war, against WTO without concern for the little guy, against nukes, whatever. Ten years of this and his image is as reclaimed – there is a short memory for many things in politics. He is now the liberal’s McCain. We see books, we see speeches, we see op-eds, we see goodwill visits to other nations. In ten or twelve years he will be in his mid-60s and a spring chicken for the presidential race.
Give it a thought. Gore may very well be the next Richard M. Nixon.