What is WinChoice, the Presidential Winnability Index?
In several days I had two questions about how my rating system for these candidates work. While I don't want to go into excessive detail about the exact methodology I use (does Blackwell spill everything about how his best/worst list works?) I can offer some details about what goes into my ranking of potential presidential candidates.
First off, this is a ranking of how a candidate would do if they get the nomination, not how they will fare in the nominating process. For example, I don't know for sure that Barack Obama will get the nomination, but I know he would beat any GOPer who has announced, expressed interest or who I have heard is secretly plotting a run. Will Haley Barbour get the nomination, or even run? Who knows - but if he did, he could beat Hillary Clinton.
I've given up trying to figure out what motivates voters in primaries, but I have an excellent feel for what a candidate could do if they ran. My system has worked in 1996 and 2004, and in 2000 I had Bush and Gore neck and neck with a slight edge to Gore - I count this as accurate since Gore did edge Bush in the popular vote.
Now, I will be the first to admit that there's no way to determine how accurate my rankings are. What are the odds that Tom Vilsack will face Sam Brownback in 2008? Slim, I think, but does it pass your gut check if I asserted that Vilsack would win such a contest? If you looked into a crystal ball to November 2008 and saw Hillary and Newt locked in electoral conflict, would you be surprised to peer a little deeper into the crystal and see Clinton butchering Gingrich like a fatted hog? No, I daresay you wouldn't be.
My schema for these rankings is semi-secret, but you can usually get some hints by looking at the rankings. For example, the big drops a lot of the GOP candidates took after the elections and upswings for Dems was a reflection of the 2006 midterm results.
It basically goes like this:
About 40% of a candidate's rating is based on external factors pretty much beyond anyone's control, including the mood of the electorate, the economy and whether we seem weak or strong from a foreign policy perspective (I'll post sometime on why, from a foreign policy perspective, no one is ever really in control of anything - not us, not our allies and not our enemies).
About 40% of a candidate's rating is based on the candidate's record, character and relationship with the media. As far as record, I track some positions that any serious candidate for national office should probably take. Here are most, but not all, of those positions:
LIMIT IMMIGRATION
PROHIBIT GAY MARRIAGE
LIMIT ABORTION (note - not outlaw. See Hillary Clinton about how to be simultaneously pro-choice and anti-abortion)
SUPPORT DEATH PENALTY
SUPPORT UNIVERSAL HEALTHCARE
SUPPORT SECOND AMENDMENT
SUPPORT PROPERTY RIGHTS
CUT TAXES
STRENGTHEN HOMELAND SECURITY
FISCAL DISCIPLINE
Two things - one, don't jump all over me for these positions. I don't necessarily agree with all of them, but let me tell you, all of these should be pretty much no-brainers for anyone who wants to get elected or re-elected to Congress and certainly the presidency. Two - yeah, I know they are mostly pretty conservative. But the voters are pretty conservative too, and don't think for a moment this last election didn't prove that. Americans are pretty much conservative socially, fiscally and from a foreign policy perspective. Please note that it was by no means a conservative position to tear ass into Iraq in 2003.
Lastly, 20% of the rating is based on my own political instincts and feel for how an individual candidate appears to the voter. My credentials here are I have made pretty good money over the last decade doing that very thing.
Anyway, that's a bare bones outline of what is going on in my head with these rankings. Sorry for the vagueness, but I'd like to write a book in 2009, and I will sell more if I don't spill all the good dirt now.
In the next few days I will make some additions and deletions from the ranking. Until then . . .
First off, this is a ranking of how a candidate would do if they get the nomination, not how they will fare in the nominating process. For example, I don't know for sure that Barack Obama will get the nomination, but I know he would beat any GOPer who has announced, expressed interest or who I have heard is secretly plotting a run. Will Haley Barbour get the nomination, or even run? Who knows - but if he did, he could beat Hillary Clinton.
I've given up trying to figure out what motivates voters in primaries, but I have an excellent feel for what a candidate could do if they ran. My system has worked in 1996 and 2004, and in 2000 I had Bush and Gore neck and neck with a slight edge to Gore - I count this as accurate since Gore did edge Bush in the popular vote.
Now, I will be the first to admit that there's no way to determine how accurate my rankings are. What are the odds that Tom Vilsack will face Sam Brownback in 2008? Slim, I think, but does it pass your gut check if I asserted that Vilsack would win such a contest? If you looked into a crystal ball to November 2008 and saw Hillary and Newt locked in electoral conflict, would you be surprised to peer a little deeper into the crystal and see Clinton butchering Gingrich like a fatted hog? No, I daresay you wouldn't be.
My schema for these rankings is semi-secret, but you can usually get some hints by looking at the rankings. For example, the big drops a lot of the GOP candidates took after the elections and upswings for Dems was a reflection of the 2006 midterm results.
It basically goes like this:
About 40% of a candidate's rating is based on external factors pretty much beyond anyone's control, including the mood of the electorate, the economy and whether we seem weak or strong from a foreign policy perspective (I'll post sometime on why, from a foreign policy perspective, no one is ever really in control of anything - not us, not our allies and not our enemies).
About 40% of a candidate's rating is based on the candidate's record, character and relationship with the media. As far as record, I track some positions that any serious candidate for national office should probably take. Here are most, but not all, of those positions:
LIMIT IMMIGRATION
PROHIBIT GAY MARRIAGE
LIMIT ABORTION (note - not outlaw. See Hillary Clinton about how to be simultaneously pro-choice and anti-abortion)
SUPPORT DEATH PENALTY
SUPPORT UNIVERSAL HEALTHCARE
SUPPORT SECOND AMENDMENT
SUPPORT PROPERTY RIGHTS
CUT TAXES
STRENGTHEN HOMELAND SECURITY
FISCAL DISCIPLINE
Two things - one, don't jump all over me for these positions. I don't necessarily agree with all of them, but let me tell you, all of these should be pretty much no-brainers for anyone who wants to get elected or re-elected to Congress and certainly the presidency. Two - yeah, I know they are mostly pretty conservative. But the voters are pretty conservative too, and don't think for a moment this last election didn't prove that. Americans are pretty much conservative socially, fiscally and from a foreign policy perspective. Please note that it was by no means a conservative position to tear ass into Iraq in 2003.
Lastly, 20% of the rating is based on my own political instincts and feel for how an individual candidate appears to the voter. My credentials here are I have made pretty good money over the last decade doing that very thing.
Anyway, that's a bare bones outline of what is going on in my head with these rankings. Sorry for the vagueness, but I'd like to write a book in 2009, and I will sell more if I don't spill all the good dirt now.
In the next few days I will make some additions and deletions from the ranking. Until then . . .
posted by WinChoice | 8:51 PM
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