The Nation: Intimations of Miami

George McGovern showed early foot. Hubert Humphrey rallied and faded. Ed Muskie made a late surge. A hotly contested primary? No, a hotly contested mock political convention at Washington and Lee University in Lexington, Va., the boomingest of the quadrennial campus mass ventures into political prediction. Washington and Lee's convention also has the best record for accuracy. Since visiting Speaker William Jennings Bryan inspired their first mock convention in 1908, the student delegates have correctly predicted the presidential nominee for the out-of-power party a remarkable ten of 14 times. It has been 60 years, in fact, since they were wrong about...

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