First Assignment

The site http://bostonreview.net/BR34.5/ndf_election.php lists many factors that can be used to predict the outcome of an election, specifically the 2008 presidential election. Although you can test and represent certain factors based on data including only those subjects, conclusive data is not shown. What is shown is specific to Obama's victory is, young voter's swung Democrat 2 to 1 when under 30years old. Obama won dramatically against Kerry in the minority vote. While Obama did not win the majority from any white's, he was 3% higher in the white vote, 7% higher in the black vote ( with 2 million more black votes in 2008 than 2006 ), 12% higher Asian vote, and 13% higher in the  Latino vote than Kerry. However, determining factors did not seem to include racism from working class whites. Also, for 2008, Democrats gained 5% in both congressional and presidential votes. Factors that seem prevalent in all elections are these: stability of the economy (which was not noticeable with the fall of the Lehman Brothers, or the bailout of AIG, for whatever reason) but historically it is true that the party who is in house with a failing economy is blamed for the failure, therefore there is a switch in momentum for the opposing party; as well as party affiliation, where 90% of Americans are either Republican or Democratic. It is true that even these factors may not be written in stone nor is it proven whether there is a significance in policy's or agenda's per candidate. Contrary, it is shown that lack of proposals can hurt a campaign. But of course, the Iraq policy, the health debate, and as always, speaking ability were contributing factors. As a problem however, it is very difficult to presume where a certain candidate, or election for that matter went wrong, or right, or even how much of the campaign had any significance at all, which has constantly changing variables. Predictability however is apparently very good based off the median scores from pre-election analysis.