jerseyhoya wrote:

mozartpc27 wrote:

jerseyhoya wrote:

mozartpc27 wrote:

jerseyhoya wrote:Parties Wonder Which Side's Polls Reflect Reality

My take away from this is that conservatives are the sort of folks who don't like it when things change, and think things ought to be more like they were... and they now believe that time is marching backward, in lockstep with their ideology.

The electorate may be doing a lot of things, but getting whiter ain't one of them.

It is to comments like this where it's worth pointing out the Republican Party won one of the largest landslide victories of the post War era two years ago.

And how much whiter is the electorate in an off-year election relative to the two Presidential years on either side of it (so, 06 vs. 04 and 08, etc.)? (I don't know, but I am guessing significantly)

2006 was 79% White, 10% Black, 8% Hispanic, 2% Asian, 2% other (adds up to 101% for rounding).
2010 was 78% White, 10% Black, 8% Hispanic, 1% Asian, 2% other (adds up to 99% for rounding).

2004 was 77% White, 11% Black, 8% Hispanic, 2% Asian, 2% other (100%)
2008 was 74% White, 13% Black, 9% Hispanic, 2% Asian, 3% other (101%)
2012 will be ?

2008 was historic for levels of minority and youth (at least recently) turnout. The GOP polls are pegging it to something similar to 2008 for the racial demographics, but predicting youth turnout to recede according to the article. The Dem polls think the minority segment of the electorate will grow as it did from 2004 to 2008, and aren't as bearish on youth turnout.

Surprised by the Hispanic numbers given their huge surge in population, but I never really understood how they count that anyway since they have Hispanic (white) and non-white Hispanic, and it's pretty much up to the person to pick. A white Hispanic could also just go with white.

CalvinBall wrote:

jerseyhoya wrote:Romney's apparently coming to the Philly burbs on Sunday

seems like a strange new strategy, no? do they believe they have a better chance in PA than OH, a sort of desperate last stop? or is this out of confidence that all of these blue states are really there for his taking?

They think they have a better chance of winning Ohio than PA, but there's got to be a diminishing margin of return to all the repeated visits (and advertising) in Ohio. Camping out there isn't going to make a huge difference. They do think there's a real shot they win PA, but less than 50/50. Ryan is coming to PA Saturday too, dunno where.

td11 wrote:

The Nightman Cometh wrote:I should have went on Intrade to monetize my pessimism about Obama's chances. Win-win and what not.

it's pretty hard for US customers to bet on intrade i believe

I believe it's actually easy.

jerseyhoya wrote:

CalvinBall wrote:

jerseyhoya wrote:Romney's apparently coming to the Philly burbs on Sunday

seems like a strange new strategy, no? do they believe they have a better chance in PA than OH, a sort of desperate last stop? or is this out of confidence that all of these blue states are really there for his taking?

They think they have a better chance of winning Ohio than PA, but there's got to be a diminishing margin of return to all the repeated visits (and advertising) in Ohio. Camping out there isn't going to make a huge difference. They do think there's a real shot they win PA, but less than 50/50. Ryan is coming to PA Saturday too, dunno where.

ryan is going to be in middletown at the harrisburg airport. in and out.

good point with the diminishing return.

didnt mccain throw money at PA in the last few days too?

Werthless wrote:

td11 wrote:

The Nightman Cometh wrote:I should have went on Intrade to monetize my pessimism about Obama's chances. Win-win and what not.

it's pretty hard for US customers to bet on intrade i believe

I believe it's actually easy.

o rly? i was just going off what a friend had told me. he made it sound like you had to funnel money through europe or something

here it is:

However, due to banking regulations that came into force in 2010, American customers are prohibited from funding their accounts with credit or debit cards issued by a US bank

In terms of money, I think the Romney campaign is sort of like the one guy in your baseball fantasy league auction who, two hours in, finds himself with more money left than he can productively spend and thus gets Torii Hunter for like $14 when everyone else is going for $1. (As Werthless and some others might recall, for all my fatal flaws as a fantasy leaguer, that's not one of them. I'm more the guy who, after getting faced down for Ryan Braun and worried about power, overspends on Mark Reynolds.) IOW, there's no reason not to spend it in PA, MI and MN because there's no opportunity cost with respect to FL, VA and OH.

The candidates' time is another issue. I have trouble believing Romney really thinks he'll win PA, but there might be psy ops at work here...

http://www.thepeoplesview.net/2012/10/n ... -681279170

That brings me to a conclusion: Nate Silver is in fact often wrong while predicting the results of statewide federal contests, and when he is, he pretty much always errs on the side of a greater Republican advantage than is actually born out by the election results. The case was the same in that one state he got wrong in 2008: he predicted McCain would win Indiana (in reality, Obama won the state) and he underestimated Obama's popular vote edge by a seemingly small one-point margin (Silver's estimate of margin: 6.1 points, actual: 7.2 points), but that's a 17% error.

found this link via this tweet (this guy really really seems to be out to prove nate is a dummy or something):


Sean Davis @seanmdav
According to this guy, @fivethirtyeight record at predicting U.K. elections is also...not good (off by 100+ seats): http://www.thepeoplesview.net/2012/10/n ... -681279170

anyway, if you look at votamatic(drew linzer) and sam wang's (princeton) model predictions, both of which were terrific for 2004 and 2008, at the moment nate actually has the most conservative forecast for the pres of the three. and pres not doing too bad on intrade today, either.

Dick Morris @DickMorrisTweet
Whether deliberately or not, the New York Times/CBS/Quinnipiac Poll is wrong! It shows Obama carrying Ohio, Florida, and Virginia.

Dick Morris @DickMorrisTweet
If we weight the Times results for the average turnout of the past four elections: '04, '06, '08, and '10, we find OH, FL, and VA for Romney

phdave wrote:Dick Morris @DickMorrisTweet
Whether deliberately or not, the New York Times/CBS/Quinnipiac Poll is wrong! It shows Obama carrying Ohio, Florida, and Virginia.

Dick Morris @DickMorrisTweet
If we weight the Times results for the average turnout of the past four elections: '04, '06, '08, and '10, we find OH, FL, and VA for Romney

why would you factor 06 and 10 into this election?

td11 wrote:http://www.thepeoplesview.net/2012/10/nate-silver-just-isnt-that-good-at.html#comment-681279170

That brings me to a conclusion: Nate Silver is in fact often wrong while predicting the results of statewide federal contests, and when he is, he pretty much always errs on the side of a greater Republican advantage than is actually born out by the election results. The case was the same in that one state he got wrong in 2008: he predicted McCain would win Indiana (in reality, Obama won the state) and he underestimated Obama's popular vote edge by a seemingly small one-point margin (Silver's estimate of margin: 6.1 points, actual: 7.2 points), but that's a 17% error.

found this link via this tweet (this guy really really seems to be out to prove nate is a dummy or something):


Sean Davis @seanmdav
According to this guy, @fivethirtyeight record at predicting U.K. elections is also...not good (off by 100+ seats): http://www.thepeoplesview.net/2012/10/n ... -681279170

anyway, if you look at votamatic(drew linzer) and sam wang's (princeton) model predictions, both of which were terrific for 2004 and 2008, at the moment nate actually has the most conservative forecast for the pres of the three. and pres not doing too bad on intrade today, either.

forgot to include colley, another model with a good track record. has obama winning with 282 EVs

Why are we paying so much attention to which polls are right, when we should be paying attention to whether it really makes sense to say up military spending to 4% of GDP or whether government has a role in funding research in green energy? For JH, and to some extent, myself, polling is a professional interest. But the rest of you should be focusing on other things.

Also, I think Ryan is in PA because he's not good at persuading independent voters, but the campaign hide him, so they stick him in a place where he cannot do much harm.

On second thought--this is fascinating, in line with some of my own research on public opinion. Wisdom of the Crowd, bitches!

http://themonkeycage.org/blog/2012/11/0 ... olls-cant/

TenuredVulture wrote:On second thought--this is fascinating, in line with some of my own research on public opinion. Wisdom of the Crowd, bitches!

http://themonkeycage.org/blog/2012/11/0 ... olls-cant/

TenuredVulture wrote:Why are we paying so much attention to which polls are right, when we should be paying attention to whether it really makes sense to say up military spending to 4% of GDP or whether government has a role in funding research in green energy? For JH, and to some extent, myself, polling is a professional interest. But the rest of you should be focusing on other things.

Also, I think Ryan is in PA because he's not good at persuading independent voters, but the campaign hide him, so they stick him in a place where he cannot do much harm.

last week of presidential election year, cmon

And this is sort of relevant as well.
http://crookedtimber.org/2012/10/30/insider-knowledge/

jerseyhoya wrote:

The Dude wrote:So almost half, your quote makes it sound a lot diff

To some extent spinning/cherry picking, but the bigger point is a magazine that endorsed Kerry in 2004 and Obama (enthusiastically) in 2008 endorsing Obama in 2012 should come as a surprise to pretty much no one.

Considering that the Economist's editorial board generally found W's foreign policy to be detestable, and based its Kerry endorsement almost entirely on that issue, I'm not sure how you can draw the straight line correlation that you appear to be trying to make.

Other than that, yeah, as I said before, the Economist is not nearly as conservative as the average American would believe. And certainly not in the partisan U.S. manner.

pacino wrote:

phdave wrote:Dick Morris @DickMorrisTweet
Whether deliberately or not, the New York Times/CBS/Quinnipiac Poll is wrong! It shows Obama carrying Ohio, Florida, and Virginia.

Dick Morris @DickMorrisTweet
If we weight the Times results for the average turnout of the past four elections: '04, '06, '08, and '10, we find OH, FL, and VA for Romney

why would you factor 06 and 10 into this election?

Because Dick Morris is batshit crazy?

dajafi wrote:In terms of money, I think the Romney campaign is sort of like the one guy in your baseball fantasy league auction who, two hours in, finds himself with more money left than he can productively spend and thus gets Torii Hunter for like $14 when everyone else is going for $1. (As Werthless and some others might recall, for all my fatal flaws as a fantasy leaguer, that's not one of them. I'm more the guy who, after getting faced down for Ryan Braun and worried about power, overspends on Mark Reynolds.) IOW, there's no reason not to spend it in PA, MI and MN because there's no opportunity cost with respect to FL, VA and OH.

I honestly don't know where he could cram more ads here in VA. Both candidates have at least one ad in every single commercial break on network television and plenty of cable channels. It's not just primetime either, because the ads were all over daytime television when I was home on Monday and Tuesday of this week thanks to Hurricane Sandy and several days last week due to illness. And radio isn't much better.

Also, I was in Ohio last month, and if anything it was even worse there. And when you weren't getting a Romney/Obama ad, you were getting a state/local race.

So yeah, I subscribe to this theory. You can't saturate the market anymore than it already is. They're just spending money to keep from being criticized for having a ton left over. Can't blame them for that.

I was planning on staying out of this thread going forward but all the anti-Silver postings (third-party) have me wondering why; why all the Silver hate? Are these people just jealous of the national attention that he gets? Is it that his models are coming out with conclusions that these people do not like, i.e. if Romney was 73% to win they would either be quiet or praising him? I just do not understand the vitriol seemingly all of a sudden (other than the fact that the election is now less than one week away).

Enjoy the election.

TenuredVulture wrote:Why are we paying so much attention to which polls are right, when we should be paying attention to whether it really makes sense to say up military spending to 4% of GDP or whether government has a role in funding research in green energy? For JH, and to some extent, myself, polling is a professional interest. But the rest of you should be focusing on other things.

because 'stats' is the surname of our tag line

or something like that