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Mark Shields is a nationally known columnist and commentator. |
How to predict the 2004 election
You, too, can be a prophet, sage and seer
WASHINGTON (Creators Syndicate) -- Thanks to Christopher Cerf and Victor Navasky's "The Experts Speak," we have three more nominations for the Bad Predictions Hall of Fame.
1) New York Daily News columnist Jimmy Powers wrote after Brooklyn of the National League gave the major leagues' first contract to a black player: "We don't believe Jackie Robinson, colored college star signed by the Dodgers for one of their farm teams, will ever play in the big leagues. We question Branch Rickey's pompous statements that he is another Abraham Lincoln and that he has a heart as big as a watermelon and he loves all mankind." Jackie Robinson, after achieving superstar status, was elected to Cooperstown.
2) In 1965, before his election to the White House and 10 years before the last Americans evacuated Saigon and South Vietnam surrendered unconditionally to the communists, Richard M. Nixon had this to say: "We must never forget that if the war in Vietnam is lost ... the right of free speech will be extinguished throughout the world."
3) On the eve of the 1996 election year in which he would become the first Democratic president in 60 years to win a second White House term, the home office of American conservatives, the Wall Street Journal editorial page wrote this about him: " Bill Clinton will lose to any Republican nominee who doesn't drool on stage."
But fish gotta swim, and birds gotta fly, and those of us who follow and care about American politics gotta make predictions. For those among you who want to dazzle your neighbors, relatives and colleagues with your prophetic talents, here is the way to try and figure out the Nov. 2 winner between the Republican, President George W. Bush, and his Democratic challenger, Massachusetts Sen. John F. Kerry.
The published polls conducted by the major news organizations are thoroughly professional, unbiased and of next to no help. The Newsweek survey gives Kerry a razor-thin lead, and then, the Washington Post-ABC News survey and the CNN-Gallup-USA Today poll both show Bush with a small lead.
All polls, however, do agree that in 2004 George W. Bush is the undisputed president of Republican America and John F. Kerry is the unchallenged president of Democratic America. Bush regularly receives support from nine out of 10 GOP voters, while nine out of 10 Democrats have already lined up with Kerry.
Here is the secret decoder ring of 2004 presidential politics. Recall that the 2000 race between Democrat Al Gore and George W. Bush was about as close to a dead-heat finish as possible.
Here are questions you simply ask yourself between now and Election Day: 1) How many people do you know or meet who voted for Al Gore in 2000 and who now say they intend to switch and vote for George W. Bush in 2004, and 2) How many people do you know or meet who voted for George W. Bush in 2000 and now intend not to vote for him in 2004?
From my own limited and admittedly unrepresentative samplings, the second group -- with six months still to go in this campaign -- is larger than the first group, and if that turns out to be the case, then John Kerry will be the first former naval officer from Massachusetts to win the White House in 44 years.
Try it for yourself, and let me know what you find.
