A look at the claims, predictions and behavior of a media "psychic".
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A look at the claims, predictions and behavior of a media "psychic".
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Sylvia Browne's Presidential Election PredictionsHow well has she done picking presidents over the years? Published: Jan 07, 2008 | Last updated: Feb 25, 2008 
BackgroundSylvia Browne's "annual prediction lists" always include political predictions, and, in U. S. presidential election years, she generally weighs in with a prediction on who will be in the Oval Office for the next four years. With the 2008 U. S. presidential elections coming up, I thought it would be interesting to examine Browne's track record of predicting U. S. presidential races. The 1996 Election
1996 - The PredictionOn her official list of predictions for 1996 (no longer on her web site, but still viewable via the "Wayback Machine" Internet archives on this page), posted in November of 1995, she said:
On that same web page, she also predicted:
1996 - How Did She Do?RIGHT about Clinton, but not exactly a hard one to call. Clinton was the incumbent, and had high approval ratings throughout the campaign. (She was right about Dole as well, but, as I say in my article about her annual predictions for 1996, Dole had been way out in the lead of all the other Republican candidates for more than six months prior to Browne making this prediction. Again, not a hard call.) The 2000 Election
In 2000, she had more than one prediction. 2000 - Her First PredictionOn her official list of predictions for the year 2000 (still viewable on this page of her web site) as prediction number 28, she said (emphasis mine):
2000 - Her Second PredictionLater in the year, with Bill Bradley no longer in the race, she changed her prediction. According to a Lexis-Nexis summary of a 2001 episode of Street Sweep (a Wall Street show on the now-defunct CNNfn network), she stated as late as Election Night 2000 that the winner would be Al Gore (emphasis mine):
2000 - How Did She Do?WRONG. Her first predicted winner - Bill Bradley - was not even the Democratic candidate, and her second predicted winner - Al Gore - did not win the election. Also, the Reform party candidate (Pat Buchanan) was not "close competition" as she predicted, but instead came in a distant fourth place, receiving less than one percent of the vote. I have been told in several emails that after the election, Browne appeared on the Montel Williams show and said that she was only wrong because she had never heard of the electoral college. I have not been able to confirm that she indeed said this (transcripts of the Montel Williams Show are not available that far back), but if she did, there is evidence that she in fact knew of the electoral college while the recount was still being done in Florida. The front page of Browne's web site at the time (available via the WayBack Machine archives on the November 10 2000 copy of this page) said the following (emphasis mine):
The 2004 Election
Once again, Browne makes more than one prediction. 2004 - Her First PredictionOn the December 31 2003 Montel Williams Show, the following exchange took place (emphasis mine):
2004 - Her Second Prediction
Sylvia Browne Newsletter Jan/Feb 2004 In the January/February 2004 edition of The Sylvia Browne Newsletter, in her "Predictions For 2004" article, Browne says the following (emphasis mine):
2004 - Her Third PredictionOn the May 19, 2004 Montel Show, the following exchange took place:
On the September 15 2004 episode of the show, they showed the above clip, talked about Browne predicting Kerry as the Democratic candidate, and reaffirmed Browne's prediction that Bush would win. (Note: if Browne turned in her "democrat who hasn't run yet" prediction for her newsletter before she recorded the Montel Williams Show where she predicted a Bush win, then she only made two predictions rather than three.) 2004 - How Did She Do?RIGHT-WRONG-RIGHT, but, overall, WRONG. Why? Let's look at the two predictions: With one prediction, that a "democrat who hasn't run yet" would win, she was not even narrowing the field of ten Democratic candidates in the race at the time, as none of them - Braun, Clark, Dean, Edwards, Gephardt, Graham, Kerry, Kucinich, Lieberman or Sharpton - had run for president prior to the 2004 campaign. She was basically saying "Whoever the Democrats end up nominating." (UPDATE: Several email correspondents have corrected me on this, stating that Richard Gephardt ran for the Democratic nomination in 1988.) With the other prediction, Bush was the incumbent, and the Republican party's obvious nominee. So her two predictions pretty much boiled down to "the Democratic nominee or Bush." Not something it would take psychic powers to come up with. In other words, you cannot call both "heads" and "tails" and then claim that you called the coin toss correctly. The 2008 Election
NOTE: I will be updating this section as the 2008 election progresses, and as Browne releases more predictions about it. 2008 - Her First PredictionOn the January 3 2006 broadcast of the Coast to Coast AM radio show, the following exchange took place between Browne and host George Noory (emphasis mine):
Kerry later announced that he would not run for President in 2008, and on January 10 2008, he endorsed Barack Obama for the office. 2008 - Her Second PredictionOn Montel Williams' December 31 2007 show, the following exchange took place (emphasis mine):
She does not explicitly state that Obama will be the next president, but her statements that he will be the Democratic frontrunner, and that a Democrat will end up in the White House, seem to indicate that she is predicting Obama will win the election. 2008 - How Did She Do?There is no telling at this point, but I find it interesting that she was rather vague about Obama winning, and that Williams never specifically asked her who would be the Democratic party's nominee, nor who would become the president. Also, I also find it interesting that, with the Republican nomination wide open, Williams did not ask, nor did Browne volunteer, who the Republican nominee would be. 
Hillary Clinton Browne also made a prediction back in 2003 which relates to the 2008 election. She made it back on the same 2003 episode of the Montel Williams Show where she predicted George W. Bush would win (emphasis mine):
The sexism of Browne's comments aside, Hillary Clinton recently turned 60 years old, so chances are that "PMS" is not an issue. I would think that Browne, being "psychic" - as well as more than 70 years old - would know that. Regardless of that, as of this writing (January 07 2008), Hillary Clinton is certainly running, proving Browne's 2003 prediction "She'll never run." to be false. AnalysisLet's take a look at how it all adds up:
So, she has gotten one right out of the past three presidential races, and already has the current one wrong, by changing horses midstream. And the one she got right (1996) one was, as was said earlier, a pretty easy call. Four predictions is a pretty small sampling for determining an "accuracy rating," but, at 25%, this falls far behind her claimed "87% accuracy rating" she often mentions. Some might think it unfair to count her multiple guesses per election as wrong regardless of the outcome. I disagree, but let's see how she would fare if we count each of her multiple guesses per election separately:
Even giving her that break, she still only gets two guesses right out of seven. If Obama ends up winning, it would still only give her three right out of seven guesses, or less than 43%. Not even half of her claimed "87% accuracy rating". ConclusionBrowne has stated publicly that she is neither a Democrat nor a Republican. But with the exception of her final 2004 prediction (which she stated she was not happy about), she has always picked a Democrat to win in these four elections. This is interesting, given the fact that she is on the record as having donated a total of five thousand dollars to the National Republican Congressional Committee in 2003, 2004, 2005 and 2006, with no record of having donated to the Democratic party. Democrat or not, it seems likely to me that she is generally picking who she hopes will win, making her no more psychic than the rest of us. Related LinksClicking on any of these links will load a separate browser window for viewing the linked page. StopSylviaBrowne.com is not responsible for the content of any of these linked pages.
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