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!