2012 Race for the White House II: The Two Towers

Turkey is kicking ass.

The Baltics ... hmmm that's a funny stat there. Believe you me, Lithuania is sucking air. No jobs for nobody nohow. Any young person with energy and ambition is getting the bleep out of Lithuania.

Not many austerity countries on that list. Could it be that the right was lying to us about the economic benefits of austerity? Would the right mislead us and advocate a policy that was harmful to the overall economy and to most people, but which lowered the tax bill for the wealthy? Surely not.

 

Well I would say the American right is hypocritical; austerity is to be done always to balance a budget (well it just means do not run high deficits year after year).

The countries doing well perhaps were good at keeping spending under control during the good years so they did not have to cut as much when the bad years came.

The PIGS, well they partied with the good year’s money, now that the bill is due, they bitch and moan about not wanting to pay the tab.

Deficit spending is great as long as you find someone to lend you money (people line up to lend us the USA money) but when people stop lending you money, shit hits the fan.

 

Ditto for the Tea Party. They were all for big-assed tax rebates in 2001, and for America beating on Arabs in the mid 2000s. Now they don't want to pay for their fun.

 

[Romney - Florida, North Carolina, Ohio, Michigan, Iowa, Colorado, Nevada, Virginia and New Hampshire. The bolded states are those that Bush won twice. The Romney campaign is playing defense.[/quote]

But Bush won twice. If Romney wins half of these states, he wins (note that they need to be the right half). Seems like a sound strategy to me.

 

Agreed with point 1 and would add if they really were worried about the deficit then they would be cool with getting rid of the full Bush-Obama tax cut.

Point 2 I do not get, is it related to supporting Arab dictators?

BTW weren't you the dude telling me the Tea-Party did not start until the Wall Street guy complained about bailing out losers?

Now you are telling me to blame them (and I do) about shit in the 2000’s?

or was that Superdave?

 

Tea Party = vociferous Core Republicans

They were all for Bush's expensive wars, that was my point. They didn't care about deficits back then.

Wasn't me. The Tea Party didn't technically exist until 2008/2009 but those people exist, and we know whom they supported and how they voted.

 

But Bush won twice. If Romney wins half of these states, he wins (note that they need to be the right half). Seems like a sound strategy to me.[/quote]

The Republican candidate in this election starts with 170-178 electoral votes, depending on whether or not you count Montana and Arizona as "swing states" or "Lean GOP." The states included above total 116 Electoral Votes. If Romney is 100 votes behind 270, there is no possible permutation of half of these states that get him to 270. Romney has to win every single one of these to win narrowly, because he isn't going up in Pennsylvania, Arizona, Montana, New Mexico, Indiana, or Missouri - places that the two parties have fought over before. If Romney were going up in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Minnesota, and Oregon, we've got a close election. He is not. Oregon and Minnesota will likely not see one dollar of Romney money (maybe SuperPAC, but not Romney). This may be a close election, but it will be fought on Romney turf.

 

Right, but that's as it stands NOW. You're getting way too ahead of yourself. On October 26, 1980, Carter was ahead of Reagan 47% to 39%. It turned out to be a blowout the other way. Also remember 1992, when Bush led Clinton in September by about 4-6% in most reputable polls.

 

November is going to be fun.

 

fixed your post

 

If it's all the same to you, I think you're conveniently dismissing two case studies that do tell us how much that "mountains of polling data" from January-May can really end up meaning. Before the conventions, even before a single debate.

It is my opinion that it will be close, you think it will be a blowout. Tell you what, though, come back to me in August and let's see where we are. Then we can revisit it in November.

 

Electoral vote.

 

Then why bring up polls showing Carter and Reagan tied? Obama won against McCain by 7% and Reagan beat Carter by 9%, but the electoral-vote discrepancy between the two is not equitable. Why bring up popular-vote metrics if you wanted to discuss the electoral college? I really mean what I said before: you need to stop posting here (and by extension ruining your ability to be taken seriously) and go do some book lurnin.

 

What are you even trying to argue? The point is, in 1980 there was a 17 point switch within ONE WEEK of the election. Any reasonable person could also see that a massive popular vote switch nationally would undoubtedly also show itself within many, if not all, individual states. Hence, it's affect on the electoral college. Winning individual votes wins you states, winning swing states wins you elections. If you want to deny that you are predicting an EV landslide, then you are free to do so.

 

If you win the 20 most EV-heavy states all by 1 point, and lose the remaining 30 by 50 points, who wins the Electoral College?



Does this chart look anywhere NEAR linear? No? It's because you cannot conflate the two beyond saying that the popular-vote winner wins the Electoral College the vast majority of the time. Beyond that, it's an irrelevant comparison. There is not a strong linear relationship between popular votes and EVs.

However, none of that has anything to do with the fact that you brought up wild polling swings. I've reposted my discussion of polls and how the Central Limit Theorem works, but you choose to ignore me. So fine, we'll talk more broadly. In 1980 the number of major, reliable polling firms was much smaller than the number of major, reliable polling firms in 1992, which was in itself much smaller than the number of major, reliable polling firms in 2008. The expansion of polling firms which use scientific methods and are vetted has increased exponentially, giving us a mountain of data that we have used in the past three elections to very closely monitor and predict election results. The Central Limit Theorem says that as the number of polled samples increases, so too does the likelihood that their aggregate approached the mean value of the population. So if 52% of the public wants Barack Obama to win, an increasing number of polls will approach the value of 52% in favor of Mr. Obama.

In 1980, the "polls" were really just a handful, not all of them used the same polling techniques (phone/foot/mail), and some of them did not screen for likely voters. So it would not be uncommon to see wild polling swings. In 1992, polls were more unpredictable given Ross Perot's entry into the race, shaking up what a "likely voter model" would look like. In 2012, barring the entry of another Ross Perot, polls should be pretty damn trustworthy because they are vetted, use scientific results, can control for bias, and get paid to be accurate. Rasmussen Reports may get paid by the GOP for some surveys, and wants to make their boss look good for those surveys, I can guarantee you Scott wants to be spot-on with his daily tracking polls. Same with Frank Newport over at Gallup. Or with the SurveyUSA, PPP, McLaughlin, Quinnipiac, etc., pollsters.

What you don't seem capable of understanding is that your opinion is biased by several environmental and personal factors. You are clearly going to vote for Mitt Romney - don't you dare start with this independent "I'll vote my conscience" crap because true independents are not usually enthusiastic enough to talk politics on a soccer blog five months out - and are thus blinded by polling averages that show sustained 2-3% edges for the President. You are clearly an uninformed idiot, meaning that when people who know better try to explain something to you, you use confirmation bias to sort through what I'm actually saying to read what you already believe. You are clearly educated in order to mask your ignorance on polling data in ways that make you appear capable of holding an informed debate, but you keep talking around in circles and avoiding discussion of more salient topics. The media are interested in a close race - ratings, baby, ratings - so you are being spoon-fed a steady diet of "the race will be close" nonsense - the race is always close and yet in the past thirty years we've had two elections where either set of votes (Popular or EV) are decided on less than 5 points or 50 EVs. 30/4 = 2???

Again - I will never tire of this - you need to go do some research on polling data before trying to discuss any informed opinion on the election.

 

You're correct up to a point. The Central Limit Theorem does not account for extra-stastistical considerations such as economic performance, debate performance, or "unforeseen events". These could be anything, such as a damaging advertisement, a legislative failure, or even base excitement/turnout. You would also do well to note that a "sustained 2-3% polling advantage" in May doesn't necessarily equate to a 52-48% distribution in November, given the amount of undecideds. And depending on whose "spin" you read about what the undecideds are really "thinking", there is certainly an argument to be made that those who will vote for the incumbent have already made up their minds, and thus the undecideds are more likely to break for the challenger.

Oh please. Where do you even come up with this stuff? All I said is it will be close on election night. My personal beliefs are irrelevant, but I have a strong feeling they would surprise you (REALLY surprise you). And as assured of yourself and the president's re-election as you seem to be, somehow I still get the feeling you'll be watching nervously on November 6, as will I. Which means that MY prediction that regardless of "sustained 2-3% polling advantages" from Jan-May, the primary swing states will all still be very much up in the air on election night.

 

Two things:

1) The Central Limit Theorem can account for debate performance. If the population choice moves after a debate, polls too will move if there is a sufficient number of them. If every poll between now and July was 45-55 in Romney's favor, we'd know that the 'swing voter' was not at the 50% threshold...our bell curve would be highest over 55% for Romney. The '2-3% polling average in May' is what we've already discussed with that graph that showed error of 4% in April vs. 3.5% error in September. Distance doesn't mean extra error anymore.

2) Try me. It's an anonymous election blog. If you're on here, we all know you have a political affiliation. Let us know if you stand with the Obama haters , the Republicans, or the Libertarians.

 

While Germie is reading up on polls, it might be time for Roger Simon to do the same.

 

Who died and made you moderator, Brummie? Why are you always trying to chase off anybody who disagrees with you?

Let me tell you one thing about your future career. I've worked for many high-level campaigns at high levels. I've worked with many political ops and campaign directors; people whose names everybody here would recognize. One thing that they ALL share is that they are able (in fact, I think it's necessary) to separate their personal views from their campaign's views. I'm not saying that they wouldn't ever vote for their candidates, but I'm also not saying that they would necessarily vote for their candidates. It's a job.

I mean, it's cool that you're passionate about polisci and all. But I think you need to stop taking it as a personal affront if someone reads poll data differently than you.

PS. I'm thankfully out of politics now so don't even think about hitting me up for a job if you ever graduate.

 

Good thing I'm not going into politics. Look, everybody has their own biases and problems. One of the massive ones I see in politics today is that people eschew polling data in favor of their own personal beliefs. I'm guilty of it too, but I also know that when a Quinnipiac poll says Obama's only ahead by 1 in Pennsylvania, they're probably right - especially when backed up by a bunch of other polls. I'd love it if Germie went off and read up on polls and came back here today to talk about it. This stuff isn't hard - it's condensable down to a 2000-word article if you go the right places, which are themselves not state secrets. But as you can see from the past three pages, Germie (and before him plenty others) don't trust polls, think it's "too far away," think there are major game-changers in the works, despite evidence that nothing in the last six months of a campaign even registers.

If me trying in my own brusque manner means I take things personally, well I guess that's your interpretation. I take this no more personally than I would if an undergrad came to me telling me that we ought to audit the Fed because of the potential for fraud. I hope Germie lives a full and productive life, as I do all of the other posters on BigSoccer.

 

Assuming for the moment this is true, then I concede.

If Obama has a festering sore of a hostage crisis in the last week of the campaign, and one of Romney's foreign policy advisors spikes a deal behind the scenes, and Obama has to go on national TV and say that he had failed, that's a big advantage for Romney.

 

Also, the comparison by Germamerica would be perfectly valid if there is only one presidential debate, held less than a week before the election*, there is no coverage of the election beyond the print editions of local papers and 3 terrestrial television networks, and all polling firms but Gallup spontaneously vaporize.


*Seriously, that October 26, 1980 date is the very definition of cherrypicked data.

 

Damn, you just gave the repugs an idea that might work...

 

How dare you suggest that what Germamerica is doing is cherry-picking. It's what he ********ing FEELS, man.