Redskins’ game not the only offbeat predictor

Benjamin Grove

Monday, Nov. 1, 2004 | 9:36 a.m.

WASHINGTON -- Amid the flurry of final-weekend campaigning, superstitious partisan faithful kept a close eye on the Redskins-Packers football game Sunday.

"Go Green Bay," Nevada Kerry spokesman Sean Smith said before the game. He spoke softly, he said, so as not to offend Washington voters, who generally vote for Democratic presidents. "If we are rooting against the Redskins, it'll be quietly."

In the past 17 elections the Washington football team has accurately predicted the next president.

when the Redskins have won the home game before Election Day, the incumbent party candidate -- in this case Republican President Bush -- has remained in office. When the team has lost the game, the incumbent party has lost the White House.

"It depends on Brett Favre," top gaming lobbyist and former Republican National Committee chairman Frank Fahrenkopf said before the game. "If he is playing, the Redskins are in trouble."

Fahrenkopf was right. Favre played with a hand injury and the Packers won 28-14 -- good news for Kerry, if you believe in this kind of stuff.

Soon -- maybe -- the nation will know its next president.

But there are a number of prognosticators that claim to foretell right now the outcome of Tuesday's presidential election.

Since 1960 the Dow Jones Industrial Average has been up seven times and down four times in the three months prior to Election Day, according to Forbes magazine. When the Dow was up, the incumbent party or candidate won five times out of seven; the challenger won all four times the Dow was down. The Dow was down slightly for the three months ending Friday, indicating a Kerry win.

This year Bush masks are outselling Kerry masks 54 percent to 46 percent.