Mike Schramm

Since 1936, the Washington Redskins have successfully predicted the presidential election. If they win the home game before the big night, the incumbent has stayed, but if they lose, the incumbent has lost the White House. This year, they face Green Bay on October 31st. The Packers are favored by 3.
Winner: TBD (favoring Kerry)

Nickelodeon has had kids choose a president before their parents do, and since 1988 they've correctly predicted the winner of each election. This year, they gave Kerry 75 percent of the vote.
Winner: Kerry

The state of Missouri has, with its electoral-college choice, correctly predicted every presidential election in the last century but one. This year, it's leaning Republican.
Winner: Bush

USA Today says the majority of presidential elections have been won by the taller candidate. Bush is 5'11," Kerry is 6'4."
Winner: Kerry

Buycostumes.com did a survey of mask makers and retailers, and found out that the sales of presidential Halloween masks have correctly predicted the winner of every election since 1980. This year (with a week until Halloween), 10 percent more people are dressing up like Dubya.
Winner: Bush

BobbleElection 2004 is an event held by seven different minor league baseball teams around the country. They gave away bobbleheads of each candidate, calling the first one that ran out of stock the winner. More people took Bush.
Winner: Bush

And then there's the old scientific method. Professor Sam Wang of Princeton has been working on a "meta-analysis" of over 150 polls from around the country. Statistically, it's a tie. His margin of error is actually bigger than the lead either side has over the other, so by the numbers he's not sure who's going to win. So much for science. He's also put together a prediction based on mathematically probable choices of undecided voters, and in that model, it's Kerry by a nose.
Winner: Tie (favoring Kerry)

Of course, if you've ever taken a statistics class, you know that it's sacrilege to ever predict future results based on past figures. Any given coin flip just doesn't depend on any coin flips before it. In that spirit, let's flip a coin! Heads Bush, tails Kerry!
Winner: Kerry

Overall: Kerry wins, although by a coin flip. Still, the 2000 election was rather close, too, and who's to say those Supreme Court Justices didn't get tired of arguing and pull out a quarter?
(2004-10-27)

Also by Mike Schramm

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