luke warm Posted October 26, 2012 Report Share Posted October 26, 2012 I was thinking he is just a republican cheerleader. I am not expecting another Florida 2000. This will not be close enough for one state to swing it.and you'd be right, kinda like the useful idiots who cheer for ... the other side :) ... as for one state, you may be right but i still think ohio is massively important Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vampyr Posted October 26, 2012 Report Share Posted October 26, 2012 That's where Obama excels. Plus, he has more money so can buy more ads. About a month ago, according to the New Yorker, Romney had WAY more money than Obama. Has that changed? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vampyr Posted October 26, 2012 Report Share Posted October 26, 2012 That's where Obama excels. Plus, he has more money so can buy more ads. About a month ago, according to the New Yorker, Romney had WAY more money than Obama. Has that changed? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Flem72 Posted October 27, 2012 Report Share Posted October 27, 2012 This whole polling business -- and I guess that's exactly what it is, a busness -- confuses the hell out of me. How can NYT/Silver claim O by that kind of margin, while Dick Morris predicts R gets 330-50 electoral votes? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
awm Posted October 27, 2012 Report Share Posted October 27, 2012 About a month ago, according to the New Yorker, Romney had WAY more money than Obama. Has that changed? My understanding is that Obama raises money mostly from large numbers of small donations, whereas Romney's tends to come from smaller numbers of large donations. The US has campaign finance laws, which make it illegal for an individual to donate a large amount of money to a single politician's campaign. However, these have recently been effectively neutered by the Citizens United ruling, which allows unlimited donations to political action committees, which can then run ads as long as they "don't coordinate with the candidate." The upshot is that Romney raises a lot of money for the Republican National Committee or for various PACs. Obama's campaign has more money than Romney's campaign, but if you count various other organizations Romney has raised more. This does give Romney some issues, in that he doesn't have direct control over much of the money he raises, but when you count all the spending there is more on the Republican side. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BunnyGo Posted October 27, 2012 Report Share Posted October 27, 2012 This whole polling business -- and I guess that's exactly what it is, a busness -- confuses the hell out of me. How can NYT/Silver claim O by that kind of margin, while Dick Morris predicts R gets 330-50 electoral votes? The difference--at least to my mind--is that one of them using established and convincing statistics, the other is the reason for the joke: lies, damn lies, and statistics. Statistics aren't lies (full disclosure, I studied probability before I became a number theorist) but people who either: a) don't know betterb) willfully don't disclose assumptionsc) outright lie can mislead people by using math to make it seem like they are telling the truth. Nate Silver has always gone above and beyond to say when he is unsure of his results, what his confidence interval is, what it all means, and what assumptions he is making. I leave it to you to conclude what I think of Morris's work and thoroughness. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bbradley62 Posted October 27, 2012 Report Share Posted October 27, 2012 This whole polling business -- and I guess that's exactly what it is, a busness -- confuses the hell out of me. How can NYT/Silver claim O by that kind of margin, while Dick Morris predicts R gets 330-50 electoral votes?Dick Morris is a Republican Talking Head, not a non-partisan pollster. (He uses the first person when talking about the GOP.) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lalldonn Posted October 27, 2012 Report Share Posted October 27, 2012 This whole polling business -- and I guess that's exactly what it is, a busness -- confuses the hell out of me. How can NYT/Silver claim O by that kind of margin, while Dick Morris predicts R gets 330-50 electoral votes?Wake us up if you find someone besides Nate who went 84/85 in the last election (and can explain the methodology they used to do it!) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mike777 Posted October 28, 2012 Report Share Posted October 28, 2012 538 has it: 295-246 as of 10/2774.4% Nate has the President increasing lead last 7-15 days while many/most others to think Romney is. Per others...Penn and Mich now in play for Romney. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BunnyGo Posted October 28, 2012 Report Share Posted October 28, 2012 538 has it: 295-242 as of 10/2774.4% Nate has the President increasing lead last 7-15 days while many/most others to think Romney is. Per others...Penn and Mich now in play for Romney. FYP The others are using Gallop quite strongly, and generally don't weight state polls as heavily, which is a shame because confidence intervals on the state level are generally tighter. And I'll take bets if anybody wants to bet on Romney winning Michigan. Same for Pennsylvania. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mike777 Posted October 28, 2012 Report Share Posted October 28, 2012 FYP The others are using Gallop quite strongly, and generally don't weight state polls as heavily, which is a shame because confidence intervals on the state level are generally tighter. And I'll take bets if anybody wants to bet on Romney winning Michigan. Same for Pennsylvania. ty for post but you dont give odds? 100-1? taking bets can at times be confusing but ok ]give odds .... in any case agree see silver... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mike777 Posted October 28, 2012 Report Share Posted October 28, 2012 fwiw I thought the first 5 minutes tonight of SNL...really on target....not funny but on target,,, Ihope next week...funny. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ArtK78 Posted October 28, 2012 Report Share Posted October 28, 2012 fwiw I thought the first 5 minutes tonight of SNL...really on target....not funny but on target,,, Ihope next week...funny.Mike: It was a rerun. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mike777 Posted October 28, 2012 Report Share Posted October 28, 2012 Mike: It was a rerun. my point....rerun----------- but fwiw I am shocked by ND win wow...... FL loses...ND ..OK lose...wow.... Who the heck thinks Irish can win in 2012? -- I fully grant 4 americans killed in Lybia...I understand you had no idea Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
luke warm Posted October 28, 2012 Report Share Posted October 28, 2012 And I'll take bets if anybody wants to bet on Romney winning Michigan. Same for Pennsylvania.ok, what odds you giving? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BunnyGo Posted October 28, 2012 Report Share Posted October 28, 2012 ok, what odds you giving? 40-1 on Michigan 30-1 on Penn. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TimG Posted October 28, 2012 Report Share Posted October 28, 2012 This whole polling business -- and I guess that's exactly what it is, a busness -- confuses the hell out of me. How can NYT/Silver claim O by that kind of margin, while Dick Morris predicts R gets 330-50 electoral votes? Silver doesn't claim that Obama is going to win by a 70:30 margin, he claims that there is a 70% chance that Obama is going to win. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PassedOut Posted October 28, 2012 Author Report Share Posted October 28, 2012 Silver doesn't claim that Obama is going to win by a 70:30 margin, he claims that there is a 70% chance that Obama is going to win.Yes, Nate even allows for the possibility of a Romney landslide (double-digit popular vote margin): a 00.1% chance. Dick Morris predicts (hopes) that this chance comes up, and it is not completely impossible... B-) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
luke warm Posted October 28, 2012 Report Share Posted October 28, 2012 40-1 on Michigan 30-1 on Penn.just so there's no misunderstanding, if i take $50 each on romney and if he wins both, you owe me $3500, right? of if he wins MI but not PA, you owe me $1950... if PA but not MI, you owe me $1450 hell i'd bet $100 bucks on almost anything... since i don't know you or your trustworthiness, how do you propose we proceed? what do you say about letting fred or someone as honest holding our money? there are a lot of people on here i trust... Phil would work for mem if he's willing... i can paypal my funds to him, you do the same, he can then xfer it to the winner (taking out 10% for his fee, of course)... will that work? whatcha say Phil, you up for it? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lalldonn Posted October 28, 2012 Report Share Posted October 28, 2012 What are those odds lol. Even Nate only has Obama 94% to win PA, meaning you should have offered more like 15-1, if you really felt like risking a lot to win a little. I mean, I almost want to throw 20 bucks on each for Romney myself. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cherdano Posted October 28, 2012 Report Share Posted October 28, 2012 In a shocking development, the NY Times has endorsed Obama for president. That's it, the election is decided! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BunnyGo Posted October 28, 2012 Report Share Posted October 28, 2012 In a shocking development, the NY Times has endorsed Obama for president. That's it, the election is decided! It was fun to read their endorsements since 1860. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
y66 Posted October 29, 2012 Report Share Posted October 29, 2012 Guest post # 2 from Krugman: The War on Objectivity Brad DeLong points me to this National Review attack on Nate Silver, which I think of as illustrating an important aspect of what’s really happening in America. For those new to this, Nate is a sports statistician turned political statistician, who has been maintaining a model that takes lots and lots of polling data — most of it at the state level, which is where the presidency gets decided — and converts it into election odds. Like others doing similar exercises — Drew Linzer, Sam Wang, and Pollster — Nate’s model continued to show an Obama edge even after Denver, and has shown that edge widening over the past couple of weeks. This could be wrong, obviously. And we’ll find out on Election Day. But the methodology has been very clear, and all the election modelers have been faithful to their models, letting the numbers fall where they may. Yet the right — and we’re not talking about the fringe here, we’re talking about mainstream commentators and publications — has been screaming “bias”! They know, just know, that Nate must be cooking the books. How do they know this? Well, his results look good for Obama, so it must be a cheat. Never mind the fact that Nate tells us all exactly how he does it, and that he hasn’t changed the formula at all. This is, of course, reminiscent of the attack on the Bureau of Labor Statistics — not to mention the attacks on climate science and much more. On the right, apparently, there is no such thing as an objective calculation. Everything must have a political motive. This is really scary. It means that if these people triumph, science — or any kind of scholarship — will become impossible. Everything must pass a political test; if it isn’t what the right wants to hear, the messenger is subjected to a smear campaign. It’s almost besides the point to notice that the whole notion that Nate Silver is somehow serving Obama’s interests by skewing the results is bizarre. This race is going to be decided by actual votes, not perceptions of “momentum”. But then posturing and bragging seems to be central to the right’s theory, for reasons I don’t get. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kenberg Posted October 29, 2012 Report Share Posted October 29, 2012 If I understand it correctly, Silver not only predicts that Obama will win re-election but he predicts the results for every state. If other prognosticators are doing the same, then we should soon be in possession of results that will tell us something about how good their models are. It is a bit tricky, of course. If a meteorologist says that there is a 60% chance of rain and it doesn't rain, we should not rush to judgment about his qualifications . He did, after all, say there was a 40% chance it wouldn't rain. Sometimes the best percentage line of play is not the right way (meaning the way that works) to play any given hand. Still, if a guy makes predictions for every state we should be able to make some reasonable assessment when the results come in. Evaluating predictive models is always a bit chancy. We are currently experiencing heavy rains from Sandy, just as predicted, and I imagine the heavy winds will come tonight, just as predicted. But suppose they don't. No doubt there will be someone somewhere who predicted that the winds will miss this part of Maryland. It does not follow that next time I should listen to him when making my plans. Anyway, we shall soon see. If Nate Silver's predictions come in on the money in a large number of states as Obama sails to re-election with approximately the electoral count Silver envisions, Nate's future will be bright. As for me, I am not betting the house on the results. I am voting for Obama. I think my wife is. I'm not prepared to say what anyone else is doing. As to the war on objectivity, if someone somewhere has ideas about how to get people to stop the name calling, it would be good to hear from them. For example, I plan to vote in favor of same sex marriage on the Maryland ballot. I do not think that everyone who votes against it has a phobia. Possibly they simply have a different view of marriage. It happens. I haven't decided yet on how I will vote on the expansion of gambling referendum. I voted against the introduction of gambling four years ago but, since (surprise! surprise!) it is bringing in less money than was promised, the thought is to do more of it. I suppose as long as we are doing it we may as well do it right. Still, I find it repugnant to base the state's finances on ripping off the brain dead. I'll do my best to do what is right, and I hope to approach it objectively. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
luke warm Posted October 29, 2012 Report Share Posted October 29, 2012 What are those odds lol. Even Nate only has Obama 94% to win PA, meaning you should have offered more like 15-1, if you really felt like risking a lot to win a little. I mean, I almost want to throw 20 bucks on each for Romney myself.yeah, those are pretty good pot odds Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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