IS IT REALLY TOO CLOSE TO CALL?
BY DAN MILLER
(originally posted November 1, 2004)
I remember thinking election nights weren't fun to watch anymore, because TV networks could project the winner within 15 minutes of the polls closing. Sometimes, in national elections, they could project a winner before the west coast polls even closed.
Then came the 2000 election. After two premature declarations of a winner, we all went to bed not knowing who our next president would be. And for a month of bedtimes, we still didn't know who would be president.
The 1960 election was a fun one.
I remember listening to NBC radio, as they confidently declared Richard Nixon the winner.
I believed them, and assumed it was over.
But - surprise! - they quietly backed away from that projection, and John F. Kennedy went on to win, with roughly 120,000 more popular votes than Nixon.
And though I don't personally remember it, we've all seen the pictures of the 1948 election, when the Chicago Daily Tribune printed the headline "Dewey Defeats Truman."
I'm sure the newspaper's composing room had set the type for either outcome.... but with vote tallies so late in arriving, they simply published the result the polls clearly indicated would be accurate.
The publishers would have done better if they'd based their decision on the Washington Redskins, who had walloped the Cleveland Rams a few days earlier, 59 to 21.
For some reason, the Redskins have accurately foretold the outcome of each presidential race since 1936.
For 15 straight presidential elections, when the Redskins have lost the last home game before the election, the incumbent party has lost the election.
And when the Redskins have won that home game, the incumbent party has remained in the White House.
The Redskins lost yesterday to Green Bay, 28 to 14.
So, if that interesting little predictor works again, John Kerry will be the winner tomorrow.
But it's just a football game. It's probably nothing more than 15 coincidences in a row.
We'll see.
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