Lichtman's book has gone through many editions because his 12 keys to predicting the next president all seem plausible influences on presidential election outcomes. To his credit, Lichtman (history, American Univ.) has called the outcome of every presidential election from 1984 to 2008. Yet some of his model's variables permit a bit of fudging. Two involve the relative "charisma" of the presidential candidates. Similar concerns arise regarding his variables "sustained social unrest," "scandal," and foreign/military "success" and "failure." Reliable measures of any of these "keys" are fraught with peril. This is the case regarding his 2012 prediction of an Obama victory.

For example, Lichtman says that neither the Tea Party nor Occupy Wall Street movements are a sign of sustained social unrest, but that remains a judgment call. Perhaps the best way to understand Lichtman's prior success is that he correctly defined some fuzzy factors for several elections. But given the ambiguity of several "keys," future predictions have considerable capacity for error. The book does not discover the Rosetta Stone of election forecasts, but instead reveals one scholar's able series of educated guesses. Summing Up: Recommended.