The Nightman Cometh wrote:I think it's generally agreed upon in political science that if the poll uses cell phones then it is more accurate than an identical poll with just landlines.

Polls that include cell phones probably sway more towards Obama.

Cue the douche who thinks I'm just stealing from Silver.

CalvinBall wrote:ann coulter is insane. her using "retard" is only a problem bc the liberal victims made it so.

http://video.foxnews.com/v/1923459403001/

drsmooth wrote:

jerseyhoya wrote:I'm saying that the allocation of undecideds is a poor explanation for the difference between Silver's model and the polling averages.

that makes some sense. Except that you also said

jerseyhoya wrote:I must be missing where Nate explains why you'd expect undecideds to break toward the incumbent there.

which wasn't the point of the quoted passage, which called the idea that challengers do better among undecideds than incumbents into question. questioning that idea is not the same as asserting that undecideds break toward the incumbent;

and

jerseyhoya wrote:I think most of the best evidence still suggests challengers tend to do better than incumbents.

apparently disregarding that the source of your "best" evidence - Silver - has laid out why the case for your 'undecideds lean to the challenger' heuristic is soft;

and

jerseyhoya wrote:I'm arguing there is little evidence to suggest an incumbent should do better among undecided voters than a challenger; there is some evidence to suggest a challenger does better among undecided voters than an incumbent.

did you know that an ounce of goose feathers and an ounce of gooseberries weigh the same amount?

plus I'm pretty sure that Bucky was not asserting that "a major difference between Silver's model and the current polls is undecideds are accounted in Silver's model". I hesitate to speak for him, but it seemed to me he was merely suggesting an undecideds assumption/plug factor/etc might help explain some of the disparity.

But please do continue.

td11 wrote:jerz, where are you getting that 55% of the undecided voters number? and aren't you guys arguing kind of different things? you're saying that challengers win more of undecided voters against incumbents whereas doc is saying it doesn't matter (or is inconclusive) because incumbents win 80% of the time when polling under 50% but leading their opponent

i am also way out of my league here

CalvinBall wrote:obama up 51-47 in colorado according to ppp.

all of their polls had large democratic samples today, so who knows.

jerseyhoya wrote:

CalvinBall wrote:obama up 51-47 in colorado according to ppp.

all of their polls had large democratic samples today, so who knows.

They're doing their part to generate the narrative

It will be interesting to see if Nate treats them separately or if he lets them pull his model even further from the most likely outcome

Philly the Kid wrote:I continue to be troubled about how to face the question every 4 years of the "lesser of two evils". Democrats get infuriated when idealists, true liberals, and people just fet-up -- talk about "wasting" a vote on a 3rd party (has-no-chance) candidate. And this has bothered me forever. I am sick of the ideological hegemony of the corporate masters and the govt lackeys who do their bidding and fluidly travel between board room and govt -- abd sick of the corporate propaganda mass-media machine -- but I "KNOW" the difference between Bush and Clinton or Obama and Romney.

I don't know how we get out of being stuck in politics as we know it, and since the entire field-of-vision on the political landscape has shifted right-ward in my adult-lifetime - Clinton and Obama's policies and stances and rhetoric in 1968 or 1972 would have been seen as moderate republican positions -- I just don't know how to look at it....

I again heard from a radical activist on radio this AM, that it IS important to vote for and support 3rd party candidates because it puts pressure ultimately on the Dems to address certain issues. And that if you always hold your nose and pick the lesser of evils, they essentially don't care. They know they have your vote because you hate the other guy even more.

I would like to be able to participate in a way that actually pushes the discussion/debate in a certain direction, not give tacit approval to a Democrat who continues to erode most of what I believe in. And misses opportunities like Obama had at the beginning of his term to really change things up a bit, but rather put in place the same kind of economic advisors, that believed in the policies that Bush-regime exploited.

The entire conversation has been hi-jacked by the right. Each guy in debate III fighting to show who will be tougher on "terror" (the replacement for commies are coming/red menace) (war on drugs was the interim boogie-man til they got to war on terror)

I know 3rd parties are irrelevant at the moment, but how do we change that if we always hold our nose and vote for the lesser evil which - is still evil?

If the keynote of Obama’s Administration has been public investment—whether in infrastructure, education, or health—the keynote of Romney’s candidacy has been private equity, a realm in which efficiency and profitability are the supreme values. As a business model, private equity has had a mixed record. As a political template, it is stunted in the extreme. Private equity is concerned with rewarding winners and punishing losers. But a democracy cannot lay off its failing citizens. It cannot be content to leave any of its citizens behind—and certainly not the forty-seven per cent whom Romney wishes to fire from the polity.

Private equity has served Romney well—he is said to be worth a quarter of a billion dollars. Wealth is hardly unique in a national candidate or in a President, but, unlike Franklin Roosevelt—or Teddy Roosevelt or John Kennedy—Romney seems to be keenly loyal to the perquisites and the presumptions of his class, the privileged cadre of Americans who, like him, pay extraordinarily low tax rates, with deductions for corporate jets. They seem content with a system in which a quarter of all earnings and forty per cent of all wealth go to one per cent of the population. Romney is among those who see business success as a sure sign of moral virtue.


Read more http://www.newyorker.com/talk/comment/2 ... z2AM3DTrng

CalvinBall wrote:

jerseyhoya wrote:

CalvinBall wrote:obama up 51-47 in colorado according to ppp.

all of their polls had large democratic samples today, so who knows.

They're doing their part to generate the narrative

It will be interesting to see if Nate treats them separately or if he lets them pull his model even further from the most likely outcome

You can say that. I'll say we're doing it.

pacino wrote:

Philly the Kid wrote:I continue to be troubled about how to face the question every 4 years of the "lesser of two evils". Democrats get infuriated when idealists, true liberals, and people just fet-up -- talk about "wasting" a vote on a 3rd party (has-no-chance) candidate. And this has bothered me forever. I am sick of the ideological hegemony of the corporate masters and the govt lackeys who do their bidding and fluidly travel between board room and govt -- abd sick of the corporate propaganda mass-media machine -- but I "KNOW" the difference between Bush and Clinton or Obama and Romney.

I don't know how we get out of being stuck in politics as we know it, and since the entire field-of-vision on the political landscape has shifted right-ward in my adult-lifetime - Clinton and Obama's policies and stances and rhetoric in 1968 or 1972 would have been seen as moderate republican positions -- I just don't know how to look at it....

I again heard from a radical activist on radio this AM, that it IS important to vote for and support 3rd party candidates because it puts pressure ultimately on the Dems to address certain issues. And that if you always hold your nose and pick the lesser of evils, they essentially don't care. They know they have your vote because you hate the other guy even more.

I would like to be able to participate in a way that actually pushes the discussion/debate in a certain direction, not give tacit approval to a Democrat who continues to erode most of what I believe in. And misses opportunities like Obama had at the beginning of his term to really change things up a bit, but rather put in place the same kind of economic advisors, that believed in the policies that Bush-regime exploited.

The entire conversation has been hi-jacked by the right. Each guy in debate III fighting to show who will be tougher on "terror" (the replacement for commies are coming/red menace) (war on drugs was the interim boogie-man til they got to war on terror)

I know 3rd parties are irrelevant at the moment, but how do we change that if we always hold our nose and vote for the lesser evil which - is still evil?

true liberals need to suck it up and protect the Supreme Court. WASTING your vote in any relatively close state is utterly foolish and outright stupid. I would argue it's the worst thing you could do this election. 3 70+ year olds on the SC, with the oldest being the one is the last liberal left and has twice had cancer. your vote doesn't matter, so vote however you want. but don't influence people to make an utterly bad long-term decision because their panties are in a bunch about our system. i hate our system. i have complained time and again about the failures of our president. he still deserves another term and still soooooo needs to stay in to protect us from the wave of this scalia brand of originalism.

(d) In determining the amount of assistance payments to a
13
recipient family of benefits under the Temporary Assistance to
14
Needy Families (TANF) Program, the department shall revise the
15
schedule of benefits to be paid to the recipient family by
16
eliminating the increment in benefits under the program for
17
which that family would otherwise be eligible as a result of the
18
birth of a child conceived during the period in which the family
19
is eligible for benefits under the TANF Program, or during a

1
temporary period in which the family or recipient is ineligible
2
for benefits under the TANF Program pursuant to a penalty
3
imposed by the department for failure to comply with benefit
4
eligibility requirements, subsequent to which the family or
5
recipient is again eligible for benefits. The department shall
6
provide instead that a recipient family in which the recipient
7
parents an additional child conceived during the recipient's
8
period of eligibility for benefits under the TANF Program, or
9
during a temporary penalty period of ineligibility for benefits,
10
may receive additional benefits only pursuant to subsection (e),
11
except in the case of a general increase in the amount of
12
benefits under the TANF Program which is provided to all program
13
recipients and provide that any child support paid for the
14
excluded child should be paid to the family for the benefit of
15
the excluded child and should be disregarded in computing the
16
amount of financial assistance which is available to the rest of
17
the family.
18
(e) In the case of a family that receives benefits under the
19
TANF Program in which the recipient parents an additional child
20
conceived during the period in which the family is eligible for
21
benefits under the TANF Program, or during a temporary penalty
22
period of ineligibility for benefits subsequent to which the
23
family of the recipient again becomes eligible for benefits, the
24
department, subject to Federal approval, shall, in addition to
25
eliminating the increase in the benefit as provided in
26
subsection (d), provide that in computing the amount of
27
financial assistance which is available to the family that
28
receives benefits under the TANF Program, the monthly earned
29
income disregard for each employed person in the family shall
30
increase by an amount equal to that which the family would have
20120HB2718PN4295
- 2 -

1
otherwise received by parenting an additional child, adjusted
2
for family size.
3
(f) Elimination of benefits under subsection (d) shall not
4
apply to any child conceived as a result of rape or incest if
5
the department:
6
(1) receives a non-notarized, signed statement from the
7
pregnant woman stating that she was a victim of rape or incest,
8
as the case may be, and that she reported the crime, including
9
the identity of the offender, if known, to a law enforcement
10
agency having the requisite jurisdiction or, in the case of
11
incest where a pregnant minor is the victim, to the county child
12
protective service agency and stating the name of the law
13
enforcement agency or child protective service agency to which
14
the report was made and the date such report was made;
15
(2) receives the signed statement of the pregnant woman
16
which is described in this subsection. The statement shall bear
17
the notice that any false statements made therein are punishable
18
by law and shall state that the pregnant woman is aware that
19
false reports to law enforcement authorities are punishable by
20
law; and
21
(3) verifies with the law enforcement agency or child
22
protective service agency named in the statement of the pregnant
23
woman whether a report of rape or incest was filed with the
24
agency in accordance with the statement. The Commonwealth agency
25
shall report any evidence of false statements or of fraud in the
26
procurement or attempted procurement of any payment from Federal
27
or State funds appropriated by the Commonwealth pursuant to this
28
subsection to the district attorney of appropriate jurisdiction
29
and, where appropriate, to the Attorney General.
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Section 2. This act shall take effect in 60 days.

td11 wrote:i liked this bit from the new yorker's obama endorsement:

If the keynote of Obama’s Administration has been public investment—whether in infrastructure, education, or health—the keynote of Romney’s candidacy has been private equity, a realm in which efficiency and profitability are the supreme values. As a business model, private equity has had a mixed record. As a political template, it is stunted in the extreme. Private equity is concerned with rewarding winners and punishing losers. But a democracy cannot lay off its failing citizens. It cannot be content to leave any of its citizens behind—and certainly not the forty-seven per cent whom Romney wishes to fire from the polity.

Private equity has served Romney well—he is said to be worth a quarter of a billion dollars. Wealth is hardly unique in a national candidate or in a President, but, unlike Franklin Roosevelt—or Teddy Roosevelt or John Kennedy—Romney seems to be keenly loyal to the perquisites and the presumptions of his class, the privileged cadre of Americans who, like him, pay extraordinarily low tax rates, with deductions for corporate jets. They seem content with a system in which a quarter of all earnings and forty per cent of all wealth go to one per cent of the population. Romney is among those who see business success as a sure sign of moral virtue.


Read more http://www.newyorker.com/talk/comment/2 ... z2AM3DTrng