2012 Race for the White House II: The Two Towers

So you're not confident enough that Romney will win to take me up on it then. No worries, you should have just said so in the first place.

 

Obama. Ideologue. Uh-huh.

I know what color the sky is in your world. I's the world where the polls are unanimously rigged against Mitt Romney, Fox's crack anchors have done the math and sorted this out, and on Tuesday Mr. Romney will delete the socialist ideologue and receive 320 electoral votes.

 

Mitt Romney ...CHANGE YOU CAN BELIEVE IN! (if you like George W. Bush's people......)

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26315908/ns/msnbc_tv-rachel_maddow_show/#49669054

 

And the sky is blue and it doesn't snow here. Nice place to live, even though the government is all messed up by the Democrats.

You were a little sloppy in your description of Obama though - he's an incompetent socialist ideologue.

 

I'd take your 8:1 odds in a heartbeat if you had something of value to wager.

 

http://maristpoll.marist.edu/113-floridians-applaud-obamas-handling-of-hurricane-sandy/

I've been conservative about declaring the race over, but Hurricane Sandy may have put the fork in it. In Florida, even Romney/Ryan supporters came out 49-21 in favor of Obama's handling of the emergency.

 

I'll give you 1:1 with real money. Cash presumably has real value for you and since Fox has you totally convinced it's in the bag for Romney, I assume even odds are fine, right?

 

So when it comes to your own money, you walk away from what Fox says. When it comes to our country's money, that's different.

Thanks for coming by our boards, Morning Joe.

 

It's over. I was fussed about this until a week ago, then I started to look further into the matter. This is Climate Change II. There's nothing to the Republican counterclaims about this election being different, the polls not trustworthy, the polls undersampling Republicans, and so forth. Just wishful fantasies from people who deny reality when it displeases them.

 

The demographic gap in this race makes me suspect that the polls being statistically biased is even more unlikely than usual.

 

The WSJ yesterday released a poll showing Obama 2 points ahead of Romney in Florida. The wheels look to be falling off the buggy.

 

Yeah it appears that Romney is toast and we all know why. I can only hope that this renders Paul Ryan irrelevant.

 

It's hard not to want to spike the football after all the vile things they've said about this president.

 

I am torn between spiking the football for all the GOPers on BigSoccer AND all the emogressives who said Obama was toast because there was no public option, or just keeping up a daily and public tally of all the people who conspicuously disappear from P&CE for the next few weeks. Hell, maybe I'll do both.

 

If I was going to make internet bets of real money, I could get 3:1 at Ladbrokes. 1:1 with a guy calling himself Tomwilhelm isn't very compelling, sorry.

Gloating here is the best value, and it will be free. You get even odds for that.

 

I'll wait to see if Obama also wins the popular vote too. And if we don't lose any net seats in the senate. And if we gain any net seats in the house.

If all 3 of of those things happen it'll be a massive victory. I wasn't confident this could happen in just 2 short years since the Tea Party revolution.

Kudos to the Democratic party for staying consistent on a social populism agenda and not getting sidetracked by traditional liberal pitfalls the way Republicans sidetrack themselves with rape, self deportation and racism. I can't remember the last time Republicans had so little ammunition against Democrats, and on the other side they just keep giving us material that's better than anything you could make up

 

Nov. 2: For Romney to Win, State Polls Must Be Statistically Biased

 

In the article, Mr. Silver directly says what I have been saying for a while now. (I like that when the smart guys catch up with me.) The reason that he is at 86% for Obama's Nowcast and not 99% is a fudge factor that recognizes the possibility that state polls might be systematically wrong. Wang recognizes no such chance, while Silver builds in a rather large chance. (It's double the apparent 13% in his model, because if the state polls do err they could be in favor of Obama. So really Silver has built in a 26% chance of major bias by the state polls.)

In that same article, Mr. Silver inserts a hot poker up the pundits' rectums -

 

He will, barring a major error by the state polls.

 

In other words, when it comes right down to it, you know the bullshit you've been fed is bullshit and that your guy isn't going to win.

 

John, I have to agree that you nailed this one.

Silver mentioned that his bias estimate is "based on how accurate the polls have been under real-world conditions since 1968." Now, I understand that there are good reasons why Silver is going back this far (he wants more data), and that there are respects in which polling has gotten harder since then (lower response rates). But from what I've read, today's likely voter models are a significant improvement on where they were 20 years ago, let alone 40.

Silver gets credit for being rigorously quantitative, but it looks increasingly like his model is too cautious about calling this race for Obama.

 

In this case it's alot simpler: I don't make bets with people I'm never going to meet. I've got some friendly bets with neighbors at even money, but those are mainly for gloating rights anyway.

 

Went to vote today in Evanston. It appears that the 47% were not amused. It was a 1 1/2 hour wait to vote, and if a single one of those voters is for Romney, I'm changing my name to Schapes.

Not so sure about this Dem apathy meme.

 

I'm not sure Evanston is a good bellweather.