Before the presidential campaign goes ballistic, a modest piece of advice for George Bush and Michael Dukakis: Fire your pollsters, banish your gurus and spend a week in Crook County, the crystal ball of presidential politics. Since this isolated county was created in 1882 in sagebrush-strewn central Oregon, its inhabitants have successfully picked 26 consecutive winners, from Grover Cleveland to Ronald Reagan.
That makes Crook County (pop. 13,500) the nation's last bellwether county. (Bellwether, literally, means the lead sheep in a flock.) The nation lost its other remaining perfect prognosticator in 1984, when Walter Mondale edged Reagan by 303 votes in...