Thursday, October 9, 2008

US Election - Prediction?

If you are wondering if I will be making a prediction re the US election, the answer is 'you betcha!' But you will have to wait a little while. Although I have a pretty fair idea in my own mind of what the outcome will be, some tweaking of the electoral map will be necessary up until early November. There are a couple of states that are not exactly on everyone's radar, and which I will be looking at rather closely.

I will not be basing my prediction on polls, as they are notoriously inaccurate and skewed on a variety of fronts. When you have a country as big and as disparate as America, and with the vote in many states being pretty evenly split between Democrat and Republican, relying on polling data is a nightmare.

This is why I - along with tens of thousands of others - will be basing my prediction on nothing more than a combination of gut instinct and past voting patterns, especially where those patterns appear to be cyclical.

Psephology is an inaccurate science. Psephologists might disagree with me on that, but show me one who is right 100% of the time. In any case, it is not a subject that someone as partisan as I can do much with, other than have a bit of fun.

So stay tuned for my prediction in the dying days of this campaign!

No comments: