Presidential predictions are pretty much bogus. Telling ahead of time who’s going to win has proven to be very unreliable. For the last three elections (probably more), I’ve seen all sorts of people use all sorts of indicators–economic-based, poll-based, even sports-based–about how such-and-such has “predicted” 14 of the last 15 elections (always after the fact, of course). Clinton just wasn’t going to be re-elected in 1996. No way could Bush win in 2000. And no way could he be re-elected in 2004. I think it’s clear that using these “predictors” is just another form of selection bias, and that we should pay no more attention to these than to people who tell us how to predict how many babies will be born based on the phase of the moon or how to make a killing in the stock market.
So I may be going out on a limb here with my prediction, but I think that history will bear me out. I will not attempt to predict who will win the Democrat or Republican nominations, or who will run under what third parties, or who will be our next President.
But I will make the following prediction: no matter who gets nominated, people on the other side will say that this person is so horrible that you must vote for their candidate to keep this very dangerous person out of office. Of course, those on the other side will say the same about their candidate. They’ll both be telling us that this election is so important, that this time there’s so much on the line, that this time you have to tolerate the lesser evil in order to save the country from certain doom. That it is so important that you just cannot waste your vote voting your conscience, since that conscience may take you to a third-party candidate and thus take a vote away from the only person who has a chance of beating this severe threat to our very way of life.
In fact, this will be the worst, most severe, most dire, most crucial, most vital election, where we all have to make the biggest, most important decision we have had to make…
…since the last election, when they were telling us the exact same thing, which was the worst since the one before that, which was the worst since the one before that…
That’s my prediction, and I’m standing by it.