It looks like Barack Obama can rest assured, he will win the election.  WHAT!
That’s righ!, based on the RedSkin Rule, he will be the next president of the United States.

What is the “Redskin Rule” you might ask?

The “Redskin Rule” is using the Washington Redskins football team to predict a new president.  And it’s accuracy is between 94% and 100% – depending how you apply it.

Every time the Redskins WIN their final HOME game before a presidential  election, the incumbent party’s presidential candidate loses.  So, the incumbent party is the Republican party and John McCain is their candidate.  It has worked 16 out of the last 17 elections.

The Redskins lost their last home game before the election, last night against the Pittsburgh Steelers 23-6.

This fun statistic first came up in 2000, when Steve Hirdt, executive vice president of the Elias Sports Bureau, was looking for some unique conversation for a game between the Washington Redskins and the Tennessee Titans, right before the 2000 election.

Steve went back over the NFL statistics, all the way back to 1940.  However the rule backfired in the 1948 election, when the now famous Newpaper headline, when Harry Truman (Republican) defeated Thomas Dewey (Democrat). That game was played between the Redskins and the Boston Yanks (wow! there’s two words I never thought I would see together).

According to an article written by Tim Lemke of the Washington Post, the “Redskin Rule”, it is worth pointing out, was tweaked after the controversial election of 2000, when George W. Bush topped Al Gore despite losing the popular vote.

References to other dimensions aside, Hirdt said he enjoys touting the Redskins Rule because the team is not required to support the same political party each election. It is a politically unbiased phenomenon that has stood the test of time, though it is worth pointing out the rule was tweaked after the controversial election of 2000, when George W. Bush topped Al Gore despite losing the popular vote.

In 2004, the Redskins lost to the Packers 28-14, suggesting Bush should have lost to John Kerry. Hirdt changed the way the rule is applied to have it refer to the previous winner of the popular vote, not the electoral vote.

“Scientists are always studying data and coming up with different conclusions,” Hirdt rationalized. “After 2004, because Al Gore won the popular vote in 2000, we tweaked the precision of how the Redskins Rule is applied.”

Is that cheating? Perhaps, but keep in mind that this is a rule that was discovered only during efforts to help fill the airwaves during a football game.

Who would have thunk it!

ESPN’s Chris Berman, well known for his clever and very entertaining narrative voice overs of sports highlight replays, will be interviewing the presidential candidates in a special Monday Night Football halftime interview.

The forethought of ESPN, this special TV segment was coordinated with the National Football League. The game, scheduled between the Washington Redskins and Pittsburgh Steelers, will be broadcast from D.C..  The game kicks off at 8:30 pm EST, on the eve of the presidential election.

John McCain and Barack Obama will each do one-on-one segments, via satellite, earlier in the day on Monday with Chris Berman.

This will be a unique, and final opportunity for both candidates to appeal to Americans on prime-time television.  Monday Night Football has averaged over twelve million viewers this season.

According to ESPN executive vice president, Norby Williamson, “We worked with our partners at the NFL to schedule a Monday Night Football game in Washington on this special night, and this presents a unique opportunity for John McCain and Barack Obama to reflect upon the last few months and address a large primetime audience on the final day of the campaigns”.

ESPN reported that the Washington Redskins are a barometer for presidential elections.  According to Steve Hirdt of the Elias Sports Bureau, who coined the term “Redskins Rule” in 2000, the following bromide has held true for the past 17 presidential elections: If the Redskins win their last home game prior to Election Day, the party that won the popular vote in the previous election wins the White House; if the Redskins lose, the party that lost the popular vote in the previous election wins.
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In this Monday’s case, a Steelers win would forecast an Obama victory; a Redskins win would indicate a McCain win.

“Monday Night Football” is the most-watched series in cable television history. Now in its third season on ESPN, MNF has registered nine of the top 10 all-time biggest household audiences in cable history, led by this year’s Eagles-Cowboys telecast on Sept. 15, which attracted cable’s largest audience ever — 13.0 million homes and 18.6 million viewers.

Obama previously appeared on “Monday Night Football” on Dec. 11, 2006, when he opened the broadcast of a game involving his hometown Chicago Bears by parodying his own upcoming official announcement of his intention to run for the presidency.

It will be interesting to see if the “Redskins Rule” will be followed.  I expect the game will be the highest rated Monday Night Football game in the last decade. And as Chris Berman would say “He Could Go All The Way ….”