How To Predict the U.S. Presidential Election

I've been studying U.S. Presidential elections obsessively my entire life. I used to pore over old election maps as a kid. Recently I got out of the habit of doing that, but this year has really revived my interest in a big way.

My rule for predicting the election, one that I've formed through many years of thought and reflection, goes like this: each election is generally more about one of the two candidates, and that candidate will always win, with the margin of victory representing the difference in the level of the "aboutness" between each two candidates.

The buzz and zeitgeist of chatter, in the media and everyday life, generally centers around one of the candidates more than the other.  Sometimes it's nearly even, but most times not. Sometimes the election seems entirely about one candidate more than the other. The election will be won by this candidate, usually by a landslide.

For example, who was the 2012 election about? Obama or Romney? Of course It was much more about Obama. It was about him being dominant as President, and his framing this era of history as his own. Romney was sort of a goofy sideshow, one we knew wasn't really a fit to be leader of America, although we collectively entertained the idea for a few months, like a comic parlor game.

In 2008 election was mostly about Obama, as an agent of Hope and Change, and the validation through his election of immense historical symbolic change. McCain was a supporting character, like the Republican on the television show The West Wing. The pundits loved him as a loser. But the whole thing was about Obama.

I think the rule holds well, going back, to the 1972 election, which is the first one I have any direct memory of. From my historical knowledge, it probably holds well probably going back to Franklin Roosevelt in 1932.* That election was the first one in the era of the dominance of what we now call pop culture (which was coincident with the rise of first regional and nationwide radio broadcast networks).

From Hillary Clinton's website. May 6, 2016. The election is approximately six months away. The use of web sites to solicit campaign donations was part of the great political revolution of 2008.That year it was used by Ron Paul through his "moneybombs" to finance an insurgent campaign starting in late 2007.  About the same time, it was d was adopted by great success by Barack Obama, an intelligent community organizer, to beat Hillary Clinton, who had the deep pockets of Establishment donors behind her.