[Buckeye McFrog]

I remember plans for the Dukakis Inauguration were well underway when the tank photo hit.

[kitkat]

Thanks, Kas.

[Eva]

Thanks for adding some sanity to the web site, today. I've got something else to discuss and I haven't been able to find a single thread that was serious enough to discuss it. When I am doing research on Yahoo, I am getting messages that I do not have permission to visit this or that (National Review Onlne) web site on this server. So, then I went back and clicked on cashed and the web site came up, but then it disappeared with the same message, with the added caveat that if I insisted on visiting the web site, I was doing it at my own risk. That was the second time, in a week that I had gotten that message. I don't remember the first web site. I just finished reading Brad Thor's book, The Black List, and this sounds like something right out of that book. Has anyone had a similar experience?

[Doctor 2Brains]

for later

[VanDeKoik]

I still have this curious little observation about presidents elected in the 8th year of a decade that I think will play out this year.

Eve since 1888, no president elected in a year ending in 8 has ever won reelection, or finished their 2nd term in the case of Nixon.

1868* Grant (Honestly the only thing that saved him was Reconstruction and his history in the Union Army)

1888 Benjamin Harrison - Lost in 1892

1898 William McKinley - Didnt live to run again.

1908 Taft - Lost in 1912.

1928 Hoover - Lost in 1932.

Truman 1948 - So unpopular he didnt run again.

Nixon 1968 - Did win in 1972 didnt finish his 2nd term.

G HW Bush 1988 - Lost in 1992.

Obama 2008 - Loses in 2012

[LS]

I would like it if people would stop with the 1980 comparisons, for the following reason: John Anderson was polling huge-—21%-—at this point in the 1980 campaign. What happened was that all those liberal/moderate Republicans he was appealing to came to Reagan. (All but 6%) So that made up a massive amount of Reagan’s comeback. There is no third party candidate this time around.

That said, I still think the polls are badly oversampling Dems and that Romney is slightly ahead in a “real world” sample. When you factor in turnout models, my prediction of 310 still stands.

[TomEwall]

“Incumbent Democrat presidents usually aren’t reelected. Do you know Bill Clinton is the only Democrat president to be reelected since FDR?”

Only two ran for re-election, Carter and Clinton. So they’re 1 for 2 when they run, which isn’t much of a sample to go off of.

All incumbents have either lost or won by a greater margin when re-elected than when they were first elected. If Obama wins, he’ll be the first to win by a lesser margin (baring some unforeseen disaster whereby he wins by more then 7%).