Well, this year we had 101 participants in the Oregon Punditology Challenge. With all the upsets, no one ran away with it. Three people correctly picked 15/20, eleven picked 14/20 correct, fifteen picked 13/20 right. Y'all are a high-quality bunch of folks - only seventeen got less than half right (and your secret is safe with us.)
The champs, with 15/20 right:
* Ashley Henry, campaign manager for Nick Fish
* Dustin Buehler, House Dems caucus staff
* Kari Chisholm, me. (sheepish grin)
All three champs correctly picked 5/8 legislative races and 10/12 non-legislative races.
Bonus champ:
* Martin Taylor, hard-boiled operative
You see, Martin had 14 of 20 right but we had to bump him into a class by himself - he nailed EXACTLY the 81% that John Kerry got in the presidential primary. Incidentally, he nailed 7 of 8 legislative races and complained loudly about the Portland-centrism of the Challenge. (yeah, yeah, martin.)
Runners-up, with 14/20 right:
* Alan Fleischman
* Alan Tresidder
* Alexander Craghead (check out his blog: 751)
* Jeannie Berg
* Jennifer Shmikler
* Joel Shapiro
* Kevin Looper
* Laurie Wimmer Whelan
* Marshall Runkel
* Willie Smith
About the Conventional Wisdom
Generally speaking, the conventional wisdom was as good as the best prognosticators, with 15/20 right. It seemed that everyone knew the mayor's race would be a runoff, Robert Liberty would outpoll Rod Monroe (though it was close), and Kelley Wirth would prevail over Sara Gelser.
When the conventional wisdom was wrong, well, once again it was spectacularly wrong.
* Almost no one predicted the Potter/Francesconi finish (well, no one except me(!), Tom Novick, John Ball, Joe Smith, Becky Pearcey, and somebody known only as mortonjr77)
* The Buckley/Uherbelau race was picked correctly by only 38 of 101 punditologists, and only 24 people correctly picked the Thatcher/Backlund upset.
Well, that's about it. In the fall, we'll add in a bunch of national picks.
-kari.
Posted on May 20, 2004 in oregon only, punditology | See full archives
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