The University of Virginia’s Larry Sabato, in the latest edition of his must-read Crystal Ball, points out that tht common political wisdom of New Year’s Day is often wrong when it comes for President:
Jan. 1, 1960: If Democrats nominate the very young, Catholic John F. Kennedy, they will throw the election away.
1964: President Lyndon B. Johnson, a “Southern conservative,” could be opposed by a Northern liberal in the primaries.
1968: LBJ’s got a tough fight, but he’s the favorite for reelection.
1972: President Richard Nixon is losing to several top Democrats in the polls; Vietnam could sink a second president.
1976: Jimmy Who?
1980: If President Jimmy Carter can “whip Ted Kennedy’s ass” in the primaries, he’ll surely defeat far-right Ronald Reagan in the fall.
1984: Reagan, called a “failed president” after a deep recession and little progress in foreign policy, looks to be the sixth consecutive president to leave office early.
1988: Vice President George H.W. Bush is a wimp. He’s drawn major GOP opponents, and the electorate seems ready to switch back to the Democrats.
1992: No way can President Bush, the liberator of Kuwait, lose to some scandal-drenched hick from Arkansas.
1996: Ever since the 1994 GOP landslide, it’s preordained that President Bill Clinton will be a one-termer.
2000: Clinton escaped ouster over the Lewinsky scandal, but it’ll ensure no third term for Democrats. Plus, Vice President Al Gore is a dud on the trail. George W. Bush will win easily.
2004: With solid leads in the polls and Gore’s endorsement, how is anyone going to stop Howard Dean?
2008: It’s Hillary Clinton for the Democrats, of course. John McCain’s got no shot at the Republican nomination, that’s for sure.
2012: The economy is weak and President Barack Obama is very vulnerable. Republicans take to saying, “Even my dog could beat him.”
2016: It’s Hillary Clinton for the Democrats, of course. The Republican finalists will be Donald Trump and Ted Cruz.
There are many analysts and pundits who talk and write with great ceertainty as if they possess a crystal ball. And many of them are later proven to be partially or totally wrong. The only certainty elections results sometimes underscore is is in how impressed they were with how much they (thought they) knew.
But Sabato is the real deal: he has an excellent record when it comes to political analysis and deals with data and the analysis of it. So whatever he writes needs to be taken with less of that grain of salt it’d be wise to use when reading most other analysis, or watching many self assured analysts or anchors who appear on any of the cable networks.
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.