Reason magazine?s Tim Cavanaugh is by no means a fan of George W. Bush, but he’s confidently predicting an easy reelection for the president despite the current polls and speculation. His take makes for interesting reading, as do the many blog posts in response (just keep scrolling), but I don?t really buy the political-prediction rules that he and others are offering. Elections are influenced by multiple factors, which means that clever journalists, political scientists, and historians can invent all sorts of theories that more-or-less fit the available facts and yet have no real predictive value.