Silver performs all sorts of statistical voodoo and quite reasonably determines without any conviction whatsoever "that Mr. Obama will eventually come to be regarded as about the 17th-best president, somewhere on the boundary between good and average."
It's all quite harmless, in addition to being akin to predicting Belize's GDP in the year 2268. Nonetheless it's a fun read.
Seems fair enough based on the data he has to work with now. I think an uninterrupted economic recovery and some progress on making the Middle East a safer place secures him a chance at the top tier of the rankings. When the dust settles, the economy is on solid ground again, the ACA is in place, and people look back without the teabagger hysteria at the way he handled the situation he came into, plus his civil rights record, his efforts to responsibly unwind our foreign entanglements, and our largely-restored prestige, etc., history should be pretty kind to him.
Both of those primary goals can be easily derailed by domestic and/or foreign lollygaggers, though. A lot can happen between now and January 2017.
Posted by: Turgidson | January 23, 2013 at 04:09 PM
Nate also predicted New England vs Seattle in the Super Bowl. I love Nate, but he ain't perfect...
Posted by: McJeff | January 23, 2013 at 06:32 PM
Amen McJeff!
Posted by: Suzanne Holland | January 23, 2013 at 07:38 PM
Which is, according to Silver's source document, (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_rankings_of_Presidents_of_the_United_States) just about where he already is.
Posted by: Ian | January 24, 2013 at 01:47 PM