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Stand by for an exciting Early Returns announcement!

But first, the results are in. On the afternoon of Election Day, March 4, some of us at the Tyler Paper made our predictions about the outcomes of five races:

Smith County Commiss-ioner Precinct 1 (Jeff Warr, Derrell Cooper and Mike Boyter)

Smith County Commiss-ioner Precinct 3 (Bobby Van Ness, Terry Phillips and Ken Langley)

114th District Court (Christi Kennedy and Alan Brown)

Smith County Sheriff (J.B. Smith and Andy Dunklin)

Democratic Nominee for President (Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama).

We weren't just picking winners; we listed percentages and margins. We wrote our predictions on the back of our business cards, and dropped them into a bowl.

And we awaited the results. In the following days, we plugged the numbers into a spreadsheet.

Seven of us picked the winners in three out of five races; the most commonly missed predictions were Barack Obama (who later won more Texas delegates, due to the Democrats' odd caucus system) over Hillary Clinton, and the wrong combination for the runoff in Precinct 3 (Van Ness and Phillips will face off on April 8).

Only one person called four out of five races correctly, and that's possibly only because Web Editor Tom Mitsoff forgot to pick a winner in the sheriff's race. His percentages were pretty close, too.

Two at the Tyler Paper picked five out of five: Publisher Nelson Clyde IV and Vice President of Administration J.D. Osborn.

To break the tie, we went to variances. On an individual-race basis, J.D. was the most off, with an 11.8 percent variance in the commissioner Precinct 3 race.

Nelson predicted a bigger victory for Sheriff J.B. Smith than occurred, with a variance of 7.8 percent from the actual result.

Based on these numbers, Nelson wins. He may now proudly display the Fez of Wisdom on his desk.

Now, for that exciting Early Returns announcement:

Candidates, you can now guarantee your success at the polls!

For a small fee - in many cases, less than the cost of a new car - I will predict your defeat in my column. I will explain how you simply cannot win, no matter how pristine your resume, nor how lousy your opponent. I'll pull out numbers, trends, exit polls, entrance polls, focus groups and unfocused individuals, all of whom will back me up.

You'll be sure to win.



Early Returns is the political observations column of staff writer Roy Maynard, who can be reached at 903-596-6291 or at roymaynardtmt@gmail.com.