Obama vs Romney 2012: O.k., who wins? Part I cont.

With only 5 keys left to decide the outcome, we start into more questionable territory.  The first 4 keys, entirely political and very specific in nature, plus Mandate key #7 are easy to determine.  The 2 economic indicators are also pretty straightforward.  Key #8 (social unrest) is admittedly vague, but even though it is difficult to assess when the key is turned, it is relatively easy to assess when it's not.  Perhaps that gets us closer to an accurate call, and clearly it's not something America has had to deal with during the Obama Presidency.

With remaining keys, however, we get into making judgement calls.  Calls that many political analysts believe discredits this model.  This may be a case of an imperfect design that has significant potential but could be made more exact.  Would it's accuracy survive such scrutiny?   Because of the ideal that underpins it, I believe it's potential is worth the attempt.

I believe metrics like these are useful, because when looking through the eyes of the average voter (disparaged by both parties as they may be) this metric seems to have accurately predicted the winner of the popular vote in every election since Lincoln was elected in 1860. A more partisan observer may have trouble with the vagueness of each statistic, but when an impartial assessment is made, I believe it's predictive value is persuasive.

We continue:

9) Scandal: The Administration is untainted by major scandal. Assuming Republicans were willing to concede the value of this method, they would cite this key as a definite strike against the President.  There have been a number of accusations made against the Administration about malfeasance and misuse of office. A number of these concern the President's handling of the Border with Mexico, starting with a program known as Fast and Furious where the U.S. covertly allowed firearms to be sold to agents of Mexican drug-cartels hoping to be able to trace them to those running the cartels and shut them down. In the process however, these weapons were used in the murder of both innocent civilians as well as a member of the U.S Border Patrol.

Other accusations include, Federal spending on Green energy technology companies which have been found to be major contributors to the President's re-election including Solyndra, which spent a half-Billion dollars but went bankrupt.  And more recently, you have questions into how seriously the President considers the attacks on our Consulate in Libya to be acts of terrorism by Muslim extremists which resulted in the death of our ambassador there.

Were the author here to make the call, he would likely say the 9th key holds for Obama. This one is harder for me as I find the President's liberal agenda wreckless and unrepresentative of American ideals.

Key 9?  What do you think?

10) Foreign/Military Failure: Whether the Administration suffers no major failure in Foreign or Military Affairs. Again many accusations can be made with regards to whether the President's foreign policy represents the true ideals of the country. I don't believe they do, however, as a metric the keys are meant to be a report card on what the Administration has set out to do.  For the purposes of this excercise the question is whether America has suffered a setback in it's foreign policy. If there had been another terrorist attack like 9-11 on U.S. soil this would obviously have been a major hit on President Obama.  Do the events in Libya comprise a major defeat in our political position in the world.  While the President's response to these event seem to be a manipulation of the truth it's questionable as to whether this amounts to a failure in foreign policy.

Key 10? What do you think?

11) Foreign/Military Success: The Administration achieves a major success in Foreign or Military Affairs. While many contest whether the President should be given the credit for an operation that has been years in development, there can be doubt that Presidents receive the blame as well as the credit for most of what occurs during their term of office. The capture and death of Osama Bin Laden occured as a result of his order to proceed even as we've learned there was at least one major advisor
(Valerie Jarrett) who opposed the operation. Result: The President holds at -3 with only 4 keys left undecided.

12) Incumbent Charisma: Whether the incumbent party's candidate is a charismatic figure or National Hero. Is Barack Obama charismatic? Many who claimed he was in 2008 now say that he is no longer or never really was.  I will admit that without a speech in front of him the President seems less eloquent on the stump, but one of the reasons I believe he was successful in being nominated for President and elected in 2008 was his disarming approach when he speaks. I can remember thinking when he was interviewed before his keynote address to the Democrats in 2004 that this really stood out. 

Whether President Obama is charismatic is a judgement call. He is not the equal of candidates like Roosevelt, Kennedy, Reagan, or Clinton. As the first black man elected President Barack Obama definitely speaks to the aspirations of many Americans even if his lineage could suggest that link is only skin deep in some respects.

Key 11?  What do you think?

13) Challenger Charisma: Whether the opposition party candidate is a charismatic figure or National Hero. This last indicator is the only key that does not concern the incumbent President. The only lever the opposition has to increase it's chances of winning the election.

Although I did not support Mitt Romney during the Republican primaries, he does have my vote in the November 6th General Election.  Having said this, even his supporters should admit that he's not a charismatic figure. Therefore the final key fails to fall against the President, who still remains at only -3 keys with only 3 keys left potentially undecided.

Obviously, there is room for interpretation. A Republican party analysis, would rightly address the President's weakness in foreign policy, which could yet emerge as a problem for him before election day. But they'd also need to make personal assessments about the level of corruption in his Administration, and whether he is charismatic.  Under this system the President could still be held accountable for Fast & Furious, Solyndra, and the Libya debacle (he still might), and fall 1 key short of the 6 needed to elect Romney. To get the 6th key they'd have to challenge Obam's claims to be a charismatic figure.

Given that Mitt Romney is not a charismatic figure and that Barack Obama was clearly responsible for the order that led to the elimination of Osama Bin Laden, the margin of error for determining an Obama loss is zero.  Scandal, a major failure in foreign policy, and Obama's lack of Charisma would all have to be satisfied in order to predict it.

So, while  you can see the weaknesses of this interesting thesis, it is clear that, to the extent it is predictive, it would tend to suggest President Obama's re-election.

There are 2 important caveats, however, that must now be stated:

First, in explaining how he came up with these keys, Prof. Lichtman broke down the success and failure rates of each of the individual keys in predicting the final result on their own.  It is therefore important to mention that Short-Term Economy #5 currently has a 100% success rate in predicting a loss of the Presidency.  That is, no President running for re-election when the country is in recession has been re-elected.  Not One.  Presidents have lost when the economy was good, but that is not the case this year and hence is one of the 3 keys that has been toppled in my analysis.  Which means, either the predictive value of key #5 will finally lose it's perfect score or Prof. Lichtman's 13 Keys will be undone.

Second. as I mentioned before, the Keys only successfully predict the winner of the Popular vote, so the possibility this whole analysis could be turned on its head by a repeat of the 2000 election is real,
and either one of them, Obama or Romney, could be the beneficiary. 

And so it is to this, the most fascinating part of the election, that I turn to next in Part II: The Electoral College.