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'Predicting poll results in India is tough'-Allan J Lichtman
-The Economic Times

Allan J Lichtman's answers are brief and to the point. But by force of habit, he seems to love questions - he answers them animatedly, like professors who are used to keen listeners. This energetic American University professor of history is the one who has predicted correctly the results of all US presidential polls since 1984.

"I have always been anxious," says he of the mood in the run-up to each US election since 1984, the year that saw Ronald Regan return to power in a landslide. The history professor was in India recently to meet academics and politicians, and to pursue options for collaborating with Indian scholars to tweak his system of forecasting polls - The Keys to the White House - to apply in Indian elections.

"I was actually hoping that there will be a group of scholars here who might be willing to develop the keys (suitable to India), but so far, nobody has volunteered," says Lichtman laughing.

A celebrated author whose books include White Protestant Nation: The Rise of the American Conservative Movement, Lichtman notes that it is unwise to blindly apply his 'keys' in India. "Because they are not designed for India in the first place," he explains. He says India is a very complex country with numerous political parties, including many regional ones. "You have a parliamentary system (not a presidential system like in the US) and you have a recent history of democracy (unlike America's). There are enormous class and caste divisions besides a huge gap between the rich and poor."

Yet, he is optimistic, cautiously. "That doesn't mean it can't be done though," he says. Lichtman has been an expert witness in more than 75 civil and voting rights cases in the US. "So, some India expert is going to have to take my methods and adjust and apply and develop real keys, keys that apply to Indian politics," he adds. So far, Lichtman hasn't tried 'The Keys' anywhere outside the US. "To do that, you have to be an expert in a country's politics and history," he says.

Initially, says Lichtman, he had to face numerous odds when he proposed the keys system. "For about 20 years, the economists, the political scientists, the professional forecasters... they were all pretty negative because some of these keys require some judgement," says Lichtman, who received his PhD from Harvard University.

He is now glad that the way experts look at poll forecasting has changed drastically since then. "After all, forecasting human behaviour is not similar to physics. You can't apply physics in poll forecasting. There has to be some judgement."

"Finally, they are all accepting the idea, the methodology that involves some judgement. And the idea of performance voting is becoming much more common," he adds with a smile. Both the method and theory are much better accepted now that ever before, he adds.

Predicting Ronald Reagan's victory wasn't a tough thing to do in 1984, Lichtman recalls. "The one that was very difficult was in 1989, the contest between Michael Dukakis and George Bush Sr. And I predicted that George Bush would win in May of 1988 when he was 17 points behind his rival," says Lichtman.

"And some people asked, where did Lichtman get his degree from?" "But I was right," he says proudly.

Forecasting was extremely difficult in the 1992 US election too, when Bill Clinton beat George Bush Sr, says he. "The 2004 presidential election was also very tough. I predicted in the April of 2003 that George W Bush was going to come back to power."

One has to be an expert in a country's politics and history to develop keys specific to that country, he maintains. Lichtman got his PhD in modern American history and quantitative methods.

As far as India is concerned, one can hope to easily develop keys for predicting whether the ruling party will be returned or not in the general election, says Lichtman, who travelled to as many as five Indian cities to meet academics and politicians.

An astute political commentator, Lichtman says he is worried that the political polarisation in the US is becoming stronger than it has been in the past several decades. "For example, President Barack Obama's biggest accomplishment was his healthcare plan. Not a single Republican in both US Houses of Parliament voted in favour of the plan," he says. "There is a very sharp polarisation."

He says Obama's predicament, politically, is worse than that of Franklin D Roosevelt's, who was president in the 1930s and the early 1940s. FDR had faced a much deeper crisis, economically, but he had a very solid control of both Houses. "He was able to effect major economic reforms in history," says Lichtman. Of course, their philosophies are similar, he adds.

"Obama and FDR are liberal democrats who both who believed in the use of government to promote social welfare and regulate the economy."
 
Allan J Lichtman, Psephologist & Professor (History), American University