US Politics / Mike Robb / 19 April 2008 / Leave a comment

The public and pundits alike aren't focussing on the key issues this election. It is time for a tall story from Mike Robb to put us right...

Surely it is time to move past the petty squabbles of the race for the Democratic nomination and appoint a President who can legitimately claim the White House already: Barack Obama. Although he has not yet even secured his party's nomination, he is unambiguously the tallest of the three candidates and, therefore, will be President no matter what happens.

Despite all this there still appears to be no end in sight for the Democrats. Now even Al Gore is being touted as a serious solution to the impasse, something that would give me considerable ironic satisfaction given the fact that the United States is the 'model of democracy' all nations should aspire to (not many Yanks have heard of Rome, apparently.) Hillary Clinton is not facing up to the inevitable reality of defeat; a reality that you may be surprised to hear existed ten, twenty, even thirty years ago. Surely it is time to save the money and effort that will undoubtedly be dispensed over the next seven months and call it a day?

Since Woodrow Wilson occupied the Oval Office in 1912, 80 percent (19/24) of presidential elections have been won by the taller candidate. Only Calvin Coolidge in 1924, Richard Nixon in 1972, Jimmy Carter in 1976 and George W Bush in 2000 and 2004 have won as the shorter candidate. What's more, we all know that 2000 was a fix and that John Kerry in 2004 was too tall; at 6'4" he was the second tallest man ever to seek the office (the other bloke lost too).

The trend becomes even more impressive when you consider that the most vertically-challenged of all candidates Michael Dukakis - who cowered a massive eight inches below Daddy Bush in 1988 - was beaten by over seven million votes nationwide and by 426 Electoral College votes to 111.

The moral of the story? John McCain (or Hillary Clinton) cannot win November's election and neither have a hope of becoming the 44th President of the United States.

It all bodes extremely badly for Republican nominee McCain, who stands just one inch taller than Dukakis and is the shortest of the three remaining candidates at 5'7". The fact that he stands one inch shorter than the only woman in the race, and the first woman ever to be so close to achieving either party's candidacy, must also add to the Arizona Senator's woes.

The clearest fact of all, however, is that Barack Obama has as good as won the Presidency. Standing at 6'1 1/2", he is the clear frontrunner, and since John McCain does not have a brother called Jeb who is Governor of Florida the race is all but over.

On this kind of evidence the [2.0] available on Obama in the next President market looks like some cracking value for something that can perhaps justifiably be termed 'free money', while at [2.68] McCain looks far too short.

Tags: Barack Obama, election odds, Hillary Clinton, John McCain, politics betting, politics prediction, prediction markets