On October 31 2012 03:56 Signet wrote: I can't see Gallup taking too big of a hit even if their polls are off by a lot. They have decades' worth of strong polling behind them. If their polls are off this time, they'll retool them and the public will give them another chance.
Regarding Silver and other aggregate modelers, the correct way to judge them isn't who wins or loses the presidential. For example right now, 538 says Romney has a 27% chance of winning. While that makes him an underdog, that means it is something we should expect to happen 1 out of 4 times. That is like the probability of flipping 2 coins and both landing on heads. You shouldn't be SHOCKED if that happens.
A better way to judge them is to look at every state. Was he right 3 out of 5 times for states with around 60% confidence? 3 out of 4 times for states with around 75% confidence? etc etc. Do that for the electoral college and for the senate races. (alternatively, add all of the confidence estimates together, and that should equal the total number of races he got right if the confidence was correct)
However I do think that people will look at the model and say Silver either had a crystal ball or is a complete fraud, since most people have little understanding of what probability means, so his fate as an influential political writer may come down to being right or not.
Well, it's true that his model does not claim to actually predict, but merely states "the probability of something happening based on my model". The problem is--what if that model is worthless because it was constructed on the basis of one or two recent elections? What is it ignoring? What is it giving too much credence to?
What would Nate Silver's model being constructed "on the basis of one or two recent elections?" look like? You keep saying this in vaguely hypothetical terms; point at some aspect of Silver's method (it is rather transparent) and qualify what you are saying.
Because a big part of what he does is weight the polls based on how they fared in '08 and '10. The problem is that '08 was a unique historical election with an energized Dem base, and so the Dem-leaning pollsters came out looking good. 2010 was a mid-term. I think a 'likely voter' model is much harder to rely on in a mid-term where turnout in sometimes close to half that of a presidential election.
So I live in Oregon and according to the Oregonian Obama is only up by 6 after winning Oregon by 16 in 2008. I sure hope Oregon can go to Romney on November 6.
On October 31 2012 03:56 Signet wrote: I can't see Gallup taking too big of a hit even if their polls are off by a lot. They have decades' worth of strong polling behind them. If their polls are off this time, they'll retool them and the public will give them another chance.
Regarding Silver and other aggregate modelers, the correct way to judge them isn't who wins or loses the presidential. For example right now, 538 says Romney has a 27% chance of winning. While that makes him an underdog, that means it is something we should expect to happen 1 out of 4 times. That is like the probability of flipping 2 coins and both landing on heads. You shouldn't be SHOCKED if that happens.
A better way to judge them is to look at every state. Was he right 3 out of 5 times for states with around 60% confidence? 3 out of 4 times for states with around 75% confidence? etc etc. Do that for the electoral college and for the senate races. (alternatively, add all of the confidence estimates together, and that should equal the total number of races he got right if the confidence was correct)
However I do think that people will look at the model and say Silver either had a crystal ball or is a complete fraud, since most people have little understanding of what probability means, so his fate as an influential political writer may come down to being right or not.
Well, it's true that his model does not claim to actually predict, but merely states "the probability of something happening based on my model". The problem is--what if that model is worthless because it was constructed on the basis of one or two recent elections? What is it ignoring? What is it giving too much credence to?
What would Nate Silver's model being constructed "on the basis of one or two recent elections?" look like? You keep saying this in vaguely hypothetical terms; point at some aspect of Silver's method (it is rather transparent) and qualify what you are saying.
Because a big part of what he does is weight the polls based on how they fared in '08 and '10. The problem is that '08 was a unique historical election with an energized Dem base, and so the Dem-leaning pollsters came out looking good. 2010 was a mid-term. I think a 'likely voter' model is much harder to rely on in a mid-term where turnout in sometimes close to half that of a presidential election.
I would say follow the money. What states are the campaigns spending in? If Pennsylvania really is tipping towards Romney, is his campaign spending a lot of money there?
On October 31 2012 04:32 Adila wrote: I would say follow the money. What states are the campaigns spending in? If Pennsylvania really is tipping towards Romney, is his campaign spending a lot of money there?
There are two ways to look at it. Either Romney's camp has internal polls that show it's in play, or it's a fake out to pretend that they have internals that show it's in play when in fact it's not.
While we're talking about polls, it's also worth mentioning that with the hurricane affecting a lot of states in the mid-Atlantic and NE regions, the universe of people at home to receive calls is going to be very different than what pollsters are used to. How that affects things I don't know.
On October 31 2012 04:32 Adila wrote: I would say follow the money. What states are the campaigns spending in? If Pennsylvania really is tipping towards Romney, is his campaign spending a lot of money there?
Romney's campaign just started buying a ton of ads in Philadelphia this week. They definitely think it is in play.
On October 31 2012 04:32 Adila wrote: I would say follow the money. What states are the campaigns spending in? If Pennsylvania really is tipping towards Romney, is his campaign spending a lot of money there?
Romney's campaign just started buying a ton of ads in Philadelphia this week. They definitely think it is in play.
That's interesting. Personally, I think it's another waste of money for Republicans. Don't think it's as big of a deal with outside groups now even bigger than ever though.
Nate Silver isn't just basing this model off of the 2008 and 2010 elections. He has data from decades of polling and results to go off of to create the models for this election. You people are conflating his accuracy with his methodology.
On October 31 2012 02:36 Defacer wrote: Christie going rogue this morning across all the major news shows.
That is actually somewhat to be expected. Chris Christie sees himself as a favourite in 2016 for presidential election. If Romney wins the upcoming election, he will not have that possibility. For his own political carrier, it would be far better if Obama is elected. 2020 is far too far away for him to keep the momentum up. 8 years of politilcs is a very long time and a lot of newcomers can threaten his favourability ratings in that time. Especially after he has started to move his opinions to better align with the socially conservative.
He's got to feel like that was an incredibly trolling question at the end though. NJ got hit pretty badly by this storm... the governor isn't likely to care about Fox's partisan games while there's a real emergency situation in his state.
A governor who is probably running for national office but is putting his state first? Shit, what a good guy! (I'm not even being sarcastic)
One of the things I appreciate about Christie is his refusal to stick to the party line. Whereas Republican doctrine has been Obama has sucked for the entire last four years, he's willing to give Obama some credit.
On October 31 2012 03:56 Signet wrote: I can't see Gallup taking too big of a hit even if their polls are off by a lot. They have decades' worth of strong polling behind them. If their polls are off this time, they'll retool them and the public will give them another chance.
Regarding Silver and other aggregate modelers, the correct way to judge them isn't who wins or loses the presidential. For example right now, 538 says Romney has a 27% chance of winning. While that makes him an underdog, that means it is something we should expect to happen 1 out of 4 times. That is like the probability of flipping 2 coins and both landing on heads. You shouldn't be SHOCKED if that happens.
A better way to judge them is to look at every state. Was he right 3 out of 5 times for states with around 60% confidence? 3 out of 4 times for states with around 75% confidence? etc etc. Do that for the electoral college and for the senate races. (alternatively, add all of the confidence estimates together, and that should equal the total number of races he got right if the confidence was correct)
However I do think that people will look at the model and say Silver either had a crystal ball or is a complete fraud, since most people have little understanding of what probability means, so his fate as an influential political writer may come down to being right or not.
Well, it's true that his model does not claim to actually predict, but merely states "the probability of something happening based on my model". The problem is--what if that model is worthless because it was constructed on the basis of one or two recent elections? What is it ignoring? What is it giving too much credence to?
What would Nate Silver's model being constructed "on the basis of one or two recent elections?" look like? You keep saying this in vaguely hypothetical terms; point at some aspect of Silver's method (it is rather transparent) and qualify what you are saying.
Because a big part of what he does is weight the polls based on how they fared in '08 and '10. The problem is that '08 was a unique historical election with an energized Dem base, and so the Dem-leaning pollsters came out looking good. 2010 was a mid-term. I think a 'likely voter' model is much harder to rely on in a mid-term where turnout in sometimes close to half that of a presidential election.
That is actually somewhat to be expected. Chris Christie sees himself as a favourite in 2016 for presidential election. If Romney wins the upcoming election, he will not have that possibility. For his own political carrier, it would be far better if Obama is elected. 2020 is far too far away for him to keep the momentum up. 8 years of politilcs is a very long time and a lot of newcomers can threaten his favourability ratings in that time. Especially after he has started to move his opinions to better align with the socially conservative.
I'll just go out on a limb and say I believe that Christie genuinely does not like Romney, and does not feel like doing him any favors while half his state is underwater.
This was Christie's interview on Fox News ... but he has been parrotting the exact same message across all networks: "Obama and FEMA are doing great."
I'm glad to see Obama and Romney both treating this as a serious event instead of politicking hardcore. Although it's somewhat hard to believe Romney's trip to Ohio wasn't election motivated I'm glad he focused on relief and not Ohio's issues.
Obama was supposed to be at UCF yesterday but cancelled and Bill Clinton still showed. They had a surprising turnout given Obama cancelling although I doubt that matters at all since it seems universities are generally Democrat leaning.
Is anyone in swing states ignoring phone polls? I did them when they called in 08 (like one a week), a couple in 10, but it's starting to feel more harassing than productive. I've started ignoring 800 numbers and calls from the Tallahassee area codes.
On October 31 2012 04:22 Darknat wrote: So I live in Oregon and according to the Oregonian Obama is only up by 6 after winning Oregon by 16 in 2008. I sure hope Oregon can go to Romney on November 6.
not a chance, you dont win a state from 6 points behind a week out
The thing is that it's impossible not to turn natural disasters into political opportunities. If you avoid looking political, then that scores you political points because you appear to not be engaging in petty politics during an emergency. You could argue that it's more devious and cynical to not openly politicize a disaster.
In the case of Christie, he is sore because he was passed up for VP. His convention speech was all about himself and now he's refusing to do Romney any favors. In the end, it was clearly the right choice for Romney. Ryan shored up the base and laid the foundation for enthusiasm.
On October 31 2012 05:41 jdsowa wrote: The thing is that it's impossible not to turn natural disasters into political opportunities. If you avoid looking political, then that scores you political points because you appear to not be engaging in petty politics during an emergency. You could argue that it's more devious and cynical to not openly politicize a disaster.
In the case of Christie, he is sore because he was passed up for VP. His convention speech was all about himself and now he's refusing to do Romney any favors. In the end, it was clearly the right choice for Romney. Ryan shored up the base and laid the foundation for enthusiasm.
I think Christie is glad that he was passed up for VP.........
In all, 51% of Americans now express explicit anti-black attitudes, compared with 48% in a similar 2008 survey. When measured by an implicit racial attitudes test, the number of Americans with anti-black sentiments jumped to 56%, up from 49% during the last presidential election. In both tests, the share of Americans expressing pro-black attitudes fell.
Really sad if we lose health care and explode the deficit to give rich people more money because Americans forgot to ignore the color of someone's skin.
Remember that Republicans were all set to go with Herman Cain--a black man--as their candidate before the scandal broke out. Racism is overstated. What people don't like about black American culture is the fact that it is largely antagonistic to mainstream culture. They don't have problems with blacks, per se.
Okay, first of all, no one actually considered Cain to be a serious candidate. He was fun and outspoken. But he was not taken seriously. Perry and Bachmann were taken much more seriously.
no they weren't. conservatives considered Cain to be a very powerful candidate, potentially. if the libs hadn't pulled out the "he rapes da white womin!" card than he might have made a very serious push. (he was polling REALLY well up until they came out with that fucking racist as shit story)
Perry was also a legitimate contender, but the fact that you said Bachmann was taken more seriously is.... well, it's definitely indicative of how well you know conservative/Republican thinking.
On October 31 2012 01:44 farvacola wrote: As for pointing at Herman Cain as evidence that the Republicans are certifiably non-racist.....well that's merely another form of the "Well, I have black friends" argument that is actually racist in and of itself.
I never understood this argument.
1) why would a racist have black friends or nominate black candidates? 2) why would it be racist to combat the charge of racism by pointing out that you have black friends and nominate black candidates?
seems like a "damned if you do, damned if you don't" tactic to be used by people who have already decided that the other person is racist, and will refuse to accept any other conclusion. otherwise, "well, actually, I have a lot of black friends", if true, would be perfectly acceptable as evidence that you are not racist against blacks.
Hey guys, sorry if this is not on topic, but here are some pictures of the Romney rally from yesterday. It was soooo cool having him at my high school! + Show Spoiler +
On October 31 2012 06:06 Steelavocado wrote: Hey guys, sorry if this is not on topic, but here are some pictures of the Romney rally from yesterday. It was soooo cool having him at my high school! + Show Spoiler +
Such diversity!
Must be a cool experience, I've only ever been that close to a Governor X_X
EPT![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/Sekar.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/oygBM.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/vippt.jpg)
