Economic forecasting firm predicts Obama win
By Robert Gavin, Globe Staff
If it’s the economy, stupid, then Senator Barack Obama will win Tuesday’s presidential election, according to IHS Global Insight, a Waltham economic forecasting firm.
The firm's election equation, which has correctly forecast the popular vote winner in 13 of the past 15 presidential elections, predicts Democrat Obama will take 53.1 percent of the vote to 46.9 percent for Republican John McCain.
IHS Global Insight analyzes pocketbook issues to predict the outcome of presidential elections. The equation’s only misses came in the close elections of 1968 and 1976. (The firm considers its forecast of an Al Gore victory in 2000 as correct since Gore won the popular vote, but lost the Electoral College).
Two of three key drivers of the equation are going against McCain, according to the firm. First, per capita disposable income, adjusted for inflation, has declined over the past year. Weak or negative income growth hurts the incumbent party.
Inflation-adjusted income has declined in the year before the election only one other time, in 1980, when incumbent Jimmy Carter was beaten handily by Ronald Reagan.
The other key component hurting McCain is the “fatigue factor,” according to IHS Global Insight. If the same party holds the White House for two or more terms, voters are more likely to seek change. Republicans have held the White House for two
terms.
The equation’s third key driver, whether an incumbent president is seeking re-election, doesn’t come into play this year, since President Bush isn’t running.
This blogger might want to review your comment before posting it.
About Political Intelligence

News from the Washington Bureau








It seems possible that a candidate could win the popular vote by that margin and still lose the electoral college. Which is a peculiar state of affairs when electing a single national representative to executive office; one wonders what the purpose of the EC system of vote abstraction is meant to be in the modern age?
That stupid ad next to the article of the guy moving his contact around is very distracting and I just could not read your article
Auntie may have tilted the Kitty.
Watch wall street have an exceptional day on Monday!
if mccain where to win it mean more poverty for the poor and middle class i hpe he does win then there well more american,s loosing there life in iraq so that means more of your son,s and daughter,s will be sent back to in a casket or body bag. and gas price,s will start to climb back up the low prices now just a trick of the oil company,s and the big oil lobbiest it will skyrocket again under mccain.
Those who are receiving medicare benefits better investigate Obama's comment in the last debate on where he would make cuts in the budget. Obama said he would cut medicare subsidies to the insurance companies. I checked to find out what that would affect. All supplemental plans (Humana, Secure Horizons,AARP etc.)premiums would increase,medical costs, so would drugs and co-pays for seniors.
RE-WRITE
NOTE- IF YOU ARE RECEIVING MEDICARE BENEFITS- You had better investigate Obama's comment in the last debate where he said he would make cuts in the budget.
Obama said he would cut medicare subsidies to the insurance companies. In checking to see what would be affected. All supplemental plans (Humana, Secure Horizons,AARP etc.)premiums would INCREASE ,medical costs, so would drugs and CO-PAYS for seniors.
This will more than likely cancel out any tax benefits we as a nation would get.
PLUS OBAMA is now saying he wants to 'penalize" anyone whom doesn't buy into his healthcare.
THE only other choice he offers is socialize medicine that has no plus side. it only grants medical community the right to NOT CARE if someone dies waiting for treatment.
why would anyone whom has been hardworking and paying into system all these years want, at the time of life when they are the most "frail of health and age", be left stranded at the MERCY OF SOCIALIZED MEDICINE?
CAN AMERICA AFFORD THIS KIND OF CHANGE?
IN EXCHANGE FOR THE LOSS OF OUR ONLY VOICE WHICH IS THE RIGHT TO PETITION THRU LOBBY FOR protection of AFFORDABLE SOCIAL SEC AND MEDICARE WITHOUT loss of services and without privatizing.
In exchange for losing our RIGHT to lawfully enjoy bearing arms.
Doesn't it sound a little strange from a man who made it thru life with his connections thru lobbying (he has 47 lobbyists and counting) and ties to Socialist/communist/marxists extremists groups and guerilla groups financing his political career WHILE attempting to deprive AMERICANS OF THEIR RIGHTS to lobby and bear arms?
Guess the REAL catch-phrase for this election would be WAKE UP AMERICA THE FREEDOMS YOU SAVE WILL BE YOUR OWN.
vote REPUBLICAN
please feel free to cut and paste
It's ironic that the same economic policies (or worse) that ended Papa Bush's presidency, will be one of the torpedoes that sink McCain's campaign. GW Bush is in hiding, Cheney just popped out of the bunker to hand McCain another anchor, and we're witnessing the last gasp of Voodoo Economics.
Deregulation on Wall St. has been a goal of the GOP for decades, and they finally achieved it, except that now genius Greenspan thinks that maybe it wasn't such a great idea after all. Main St. bailing out Wall St. Thanks Al.
The Bush/Cheney/DeLay legacy will be remembered as the most corrupt & destructive force in a century. We'll be bailing out this disaster for decades, if we ever recover.
War Economy and Change to Distrust
During the primary months, the Iraq War appeared to be potentially the top issue for the 2008 election. Since then, the 1992 campaign slogan: It’s the Economy Stupid has gained ground. More narrowly we have the housing crisis, by Presidential decree the root cause of the financial crisis. The more likely the root causes of both of these crises are Greenspan’s unsustainably low interest rates and the unbridled, unregulated competition by lenders and their financiers.
With regard to the “Terror War”, it is actually two wars, but not Iraq and Afghanistan touted by the presidential campaign candidates. The first war, declared, was Al Qaeda’s War on America; with it central goal to “bleed America to bankruptcy” and the second is America’s “War on Terror”, with Iraq proclaimed by Bush and Cheney to be its central front. Aside from aforementioned unbridled/unregulated competition, our most pressing economic woes are traceable not to the acts of 9/11 but to Cheney/Bush response to the acts of 9/11 and resulting unorthodox War Economy. The “War on Terror” and the Bush tax-cuts have been financed by foreign borrowings primarily by China and OPEC. This fiscal irresponsibility is the primary driver toward Al Qaeda’s central goal and amounts to trading certain economic insecurity for questionable homeland security.
A no-new-tax style War Economy and an overly accommodating fiscal policy have resulted in huge budget and trade deficits. These deficits have accumulated into an unsustainable national debt and an unsustainable balance of payments deficit, which when combined with an overly accommodating monetary policy unleashes “Weapons of Economic Destruction”. The high oil/gas prices, a high tolerance for China’s protectionist currency manipulation and the housing/financial crises are early effects of the resulting destruction and any reversal requires changing the unorthodox War Economy.
The changes necessary to reverse the effects of the ill-conceived 2003-2008 War Economy are unlikely to come from the no-new-tax advocates, who provide President Bush’s current 25% favorable rating. These approvers make-up more than half of Senator McCain’s current support. Unless Senator McCain flip-flops and throws the Bush/Cheney base under the proverbial political bus, promise of change by Senator McCain to address the root causes of economic woes is: Change to Distrust.