lichtman's keys -- 2016 presidential prediction
for those unfamiliar with professor lichtman's approach to predicting the outcome of the presidential election, here's a good summary, along with a fair estimation of where we stand in terms of the 13 keys.
http://scottmonster.hubpages.com/hub/Predicting-the-2016-Election-the-13-Keys-to-the-White-House
in short, most of the keys are fairly certain at this stage. the particular keys most in question are:
- incumbent party challenge (democrats win this key if there is *not* one)
- foreign policy failure (democrats win this key is there is *not* one)
- foreign policy success (democrats win this key is there *is* one)
other than these three, republicans have four keys fairly well locked down:
- incumbent (obama is not running)
- party mandate (democrats have fewer seats in the house after 2014 than after 2010)
- national policy shift (not major policy initiative in obama's second term)
- incumbent party charisma (no likely candidate has fdr's or reagan's charisma)
they need six total to win the presidency, i.e., two out of the three listed at the top.
i agree with the article that we're likely to split the foreign policy keys, i.e, no success yet no failure. that gives one key to republicans. a genuine primary challenge would be republican's last hope of the second key they need.
just to be clear, i'm *not* advocating for or against sanders, i'm *not* advocating for or against hillary.
indeed, the logic of the keys is that a successful administration will garner enough keys to keep the white house in the party. so if obama's presidency is viewed as a success, and hillary certainly would be viewed as a continuation of the status quo, then presumably she would fairly easily sail to nomination. a contested primary would likely be the *result* of people seeing obama's administration as a failure, and thus looking for an alternative to the status quo. this would likely signal that we were always going to lose the general election anyway.
in other words, if there is a significant primary challenge and we then lose the general (whether it's hillary or sanders or someone else for that matter) then it won't be sander's fault (nor hillary's, for that matter), but rather it will be the fault of all the factors that led america to view obama's administration (or at least his second term) as a failure.
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