Brilliant Political Prediction Strategy!

LexisNexis, a provider of legal, news and business information services, has used a brilliant new strategy to predict that if Kerry chooses his running mage before the Democratic Convention, he will do so on July 21.

Here's how it works:

Four Democratic candidates have announced their running mates before the Convention: Al Gore (seven days before), Bill Clinton (four days before), Michael Dukakis (six days before), and Walter Mondale (four days before).

The average of these four announcements is five days before. Therefore Kerry will choose his running mate five days before the Convention, if he decides to choose him before the Convention.

This being nothing more than a historical inference, I fail to see why it is even news worthy. Any idiot can take an average and use it as a prediction. The running mate announcement is used by candidates to get press coverage that can be used to carry momentum into the Convention. So the announcement will likely be a few days before, but not too many before. Pick any number out of a hat and you might be right. An average is just a way of choosing a number out of a hat; there's no reason five days is right—it's just a number that's in line with precedent.

Really. If you're going to make predictions, let them be good predictions.