Eric Schulman
Alexandria, Virginia
Abstract
Howard Dean or Wesley Clark
(or President George W. Bush, should he order the combat use of nuclear weapons).
1. Introduction
Two years ago, we discovered the holy grail of Washington D. C., a formula to predict the electability of a presidential candidate before he or she is nominated (Schulman 2001). Now that it seems clear that George W. Bush will receive the Republican nomination, we have applied this formula to both him and to the nine currently-declared Democratic presidential candidates (plus three others who may decide to run). To review for those few readers who have not memorized the formula:
Electability = 4P - V - S + R + 9G + 95DCI + 95GEN + 95NUC,
where P is the number of years the candidate served as President, V is the number of years the candidate served as Vice President, S is the number of years the candidate served as U. S. Senator, R is the number of years the candidate served as U. S. Representative, and the Boolean variables DCI/GEN/NUC are 1 if the candidate served as Director of Central Intelligence (e.g., George H. W. Bush), was a general officer in the United States Armed Forces (e.g., Dwight D. Eisenhower), or ordered the combat use of nuclear weapons (e.g., Harry S. Truman), respectively. In each U. S. Presidential election between 1932 and 2000, the candidate with the higher electability won.
2. Methods and Results
We used the equation above to determine the electability of George W. Bush and twelve declared or potential Democratic presidential candidates. The results are shown in the table below:
http://members.bellatlantic.net/~vze3fs8i/air/pres2004b.html