Political scientists weigh in ... the next bailout

ShareThis

WASHINGTON -- We've heard from pollsters and pundits with predictions about the outcome of the presidential election. Now, political scientists are having their say.Crunching different combinations of statistical and historical data, nine political scientists have put forth their educated guesses, with six of the nine forecast models pointing to Barack Obama as the winner, two proclaiming the race too close to call, and one predicting a narrow victory for John McCain.-- Thomas Holbrook of the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee correlated presidential approval and peoples' level of satisfaction with their personal finances in summers before elections and predicts Obama winning with 55.7 percent of the popular vote.-- Alfred Cuzan and Charles Bundrick of the University of West Florida created a forecasting model using the ratio of federal outlays to the gross domestic product and the share of the two-party vote going to incumbents and predicted Obama victorious, with 52 percent of the vote.-- James Campbell of the University at Buffalo, SUNY used Gallup poll numbers from Labor Day and the real growth in the GDP in the second quarter of election years to come up with McCain winning with 52.7 percent.(All were completed before the financial crisis erupted this month.)X ... X ... XNext bailout? How about the government's troubled Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp., which was already $14 billion short of the cash it will need to cover pensions of bankrupt firms before the current meltdown.Now, with a growing string of corporate failures and big losses to pension fund investments backed by the PBGC that support many of the 30,000 pension plans for 44 million workers and retirees, the shortfall is likely to be much worse. University of Illinois finance professor Jeffrey Brown says a PBGC bailout could easily run $50 billion to $100 billion.X ... X ... XIn the past two presidential election cycles, civil servants and public officials have fairly evenly split their contributions between the Democratic and Republican candidates for the White House.Not this time, according to the Center for Responsive Government, which analyzes campaign contributions. This time, Obama has raked in nearly three times more than McCain has collected -- $4.6 million for Obama; $1.7 million for McCain -- from bureaucrats, U.S. attorneys, mayors and others who toil in all branches of government.U.S. Department of Justice employees were Obama's biggest supporters, donating $268,000 to him compared to $97,400 to McCain.For McCain, it was Department of Defense employees - who do not include members or employees of the armed services -- who gave the most financial support, shelling out $127,300 to him compared to $92,240 to Obama. X ... X ... XBad soil, poor design, inadequate materials -- all have shared blame for the failure of New Orleans' levees during Hurricane Katrina. Now, add Formosan subterranean termites.Louisiana State University professor Gregg Henderson argues that the same critters that have been munching away at much of the French Quarter for decades also ate seams in some of the floodwalls. He says he found evidence of termite damage in at least three areas where major breaks occurred.The termites also dug tunnels under the levees, which allows water to seep through and undermine the structures. Henderson says the Army Corps of Engineers should do extensive termite testing and treatments in all the levees protecting the city.X ... X ... XOrgan donors and their families are now be eligible for government medals which will be designed by the Treasury department and given out by the Department of Health and Human Services. On Oct. 15, President Bush signed the "Stephanie Tubbs Jones Gift of Life Medal Act," named after the Ohio Democratic representative who died of a brain aneurysm in August. Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, said as many as 58 people benefited from her donated organs.(E-mail Lisa Hoffman at hoffmanl(at)shns.com.)(Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service, http://www.scrippsnews.com)